Xuande

Chapter 698 Paper

Regarding Liu Bei's words, Guo Hong was speechless.

Ma Rixun frowned in deep thought, and finally sighed deeply.

"Xuande, what you said is reasonable. I admit that I can't say no to you, but if you continue like this, the official's resentment will be very great. At that time, you..."

"It is better for officials to have a lot of grievances than to have a lot of grievances among the people."

Liu Bei shook his head and said: "Officials have a lot of resentment, so what can they do? Can their resentment exceed the necessity of being an official? How would they choose between resentment and official status? They will just continue to do it with resentment Officer, dare not speak up.

However, it is different when the resentment among the people is great. When their resentment is too great, they will rise up, give up their identity as a citizen, and fight to the death with the government.The choices of the two are completely different, so it doesn't matter if the officials feel more resentful. "

After hearing this, Ma Rixun felt that what Liu Bei said made sense.

but……

This is still a bit dangerous for those who torment them, right?

and……

"Xuande, what you imagined is correct, but how long can you maintain this situation?"

Liu Bei glanced at Ma Rixun.

"Ma Gong, this situation will eventually end, but right now, aren't we experiencing it? Isn't the big man recovering his vitality?"

Ma Rixun was taken aback for a moment, and a gleam of light suddenly appeared in his eyes.

After a while, he showed a wry smile again.

"But, will this end after all?"

"People are mortal. This is an unchangeable ending. There is no such thing as immortality in this world. Therefore, the most important thing is to have a clear conscience when you are alive. After death, no matter how much you miss, no matter how much you don't want to let go, what can you do? "

Liu Bei said with a smile: "Although you should do everything you should do while you are alive, live up to the years and have a clear conscience, this is enough."

Ma Rixun finally understood Liu Bei's intentions.

So, he shook his head.

"Yes, people are mortal. It is enough to have a clear conscience and live up to the years. Xuande, I will keep your words in mind."

"Very good."

After speaking, Liu Bei looked at Guo Hong again.

"Mr. Guo, what about you?"

Guo Hong spread his hands.

"What can I do? Sili Xiaowei is such an unpleasant position, so I just do it. The Guo family has always been like this, but Xuande, before I die, I want to be a Sangong."

Liu Bei nodded.

"This is what I promised you."

"it is good."

Guo Hong didn't say anything more.

In the past, the Luoyang court also had a general concept of a state affairs conference, but it did not have more practical requirements for local development.

Because of the difficulties in data collection and transportation, a series of practical problems made it difficult for even the emperor of the Han Empire to know the size, population, and scale of his empire.

The emperor's understanding of this empire may be one-sided, because many emperors never left Luoyang City or even the imperial palace in their entire lives.

Under such circumstances, expecting them to be able to effectively govern the country is purely overthinking.

But at this moment, the situation of the Han Empire has undergone profound changes, some unexpected things have appeared, and some unexpected people have risen, giving the empire an opportunity to change.

The biggest opportunity is that paper, as an important writing medium, began to be used on a large scale in daily administrative affairs.

Before Liu Bei made paper, the Han Empire also had paper, but limited by technical conditions, the high-quality paper was too expensive and the production efficiency was too low, and the low-cost and high-production efficiency paper was too poor in quality to be used in the real world. in the affairs of state.

So at this stage, the officials of the Han Empire are still using bamboo slips, which are more capable of storing data, to write on a large scale, and the troubles that come with it are that the price of bamboo slips is not low, and the writing efficiency is not high, and the weight is too heavy .

If you want to collect data on a large scale, write data such as population and land for recording, the cost is hundreds or thousands of times that of writing with paper, which greatly affected the effective governance and supervision of the local government by the central government of the Han Empire.

Liu Bei discovered this problem, and started papermaking very early, perfecting papermaking technology.

Finally, papermaking began in Liangzhou and Yizhou, gradually replacing the systematic writing habits of his officials with paper.

Three or four years later, the technology of papermaking was further improved, the number of papermaking artisans was greatly expanded, and the number of papermaking workshops was greatly increased.

At present, the main papermaking base of the Han Empire is in Shu County, Yizhou.

The number of officially controlled papermaking workshops in Shu County, Yizhou has exceeded 1 in the four years since Jian’an, employing more than [-] people. They use bamboo as raw material to make paper day and night, providing the government with a huge amount of paper for in administrative work.

Judging from the current output and traffic conditions, it is still somewhat difficult to give scholars across the country free use of paper for writing, but it is sufficient to use the produced paper at the level of national governance.

The entire Han Empire has only 16 officials and a population of more than 5000 million. The place is not small, but there are so few people.

If we really want to manage it, can we still be sad about a superpower with a population of hundreds of millions?
The paper produced at this stage is indeed enough for use. After the paper is produced, it is transported to Luoyang in large quantities, and Luoyang distributes it. After several years, there are a considerable amount of paper stocks in various places.

Lightweight, easy-to-use, and highly efficient paper has gradually replaced the bulky bamboo slips and has become the first tool used by officials for writing.

Because of the sufficient supply of paper, large-scale data collection has become possible, which has become an unimaginable thing in the bamboo slip era. Compared with the bamboo slip era, its cost has dropped significantly on a large scale, whether it is transportation or construction.

On this basis, Liu Bei promoted the system of state affairs conferences, and also promoted the system of collecting comprehensive statistics and summarizing local data to Luoyang. Local governments can no longer use the high cost as an excuse to delay or refuse to perform this task.

If you refuse, the end will be very bad.

Moreover, after the implementation of the new system, the main person in charge will point directly to the General’s Mansion and to Liu Bei. Liu Bei will personally be responsible for the review of the data and task formulation of the government offices of the counties and states. Just like Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, he will personally intervene in these data .

After Emperor Zhang of the Han Dynasty, the local governance of the Eastern Han Empire basically maintained the status quo and muddled through. All developments were mainly natural growth, and there was very little active growth through human intervention.

Basically, the government has no subjective initiative to run well. If life is good, it is God’s blessing, and if life is not good, it is God who is against me. Whether local governance is good or bad, it all depends on the conscience of officials.

Counting on this thing is better than counting on gold from the sky.

So Liu Bei's meaning is very clear, rest is rest, and welfare improvement is promotion, but you have to do things for me and do it properly, otherwise you don't want anything.

Officials who have completed their work targets will not enter the elimination sequence. For officials who have not completed their work targets or made false statements, the official elimination system is a sharp sword hanging over their heads.

Regarding this point, many officials in the Luoyang court said that Liu Bei's reforms were a bit too radical. This is something that has never happened in the past. Even in the era of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, officials were treated so harshly, and there was no such elimination system. .

Liu Bei nodded and said——Yes, Emperor Wu did not eliminate officials very much, usually they were eliminated physically. It doesn't matter what central place you are, or what you do, as long as you are unhappy, you will be killed.

How about we try it too?

So no one continued to discuss this issue with Liu Bei.

(End of this chapter)