The Great Arcanist Who Traveled Through the World of American Variety Shows.

Chapter 423 How to Destroy a Reform

In fact, it was not until the people arranged by Richard arrived in various places that his decrees were truly implemented.

It was precisely because of this that Richard's decree to sell cattle to the people at low prices was able to be implemented. Otherwise, these 20,000-plus oxen would have fallen into the hands of the wealthy families, the powerful, and the officials.

He spent a year training more than a thousand disciples, and after screening, these disciples had already used the "Wisdom Potion". Otherwise, they would not have been able to learn this knowledge in a year.

In addition, when Richard communicated with Lü Dongbin, he obtained a lot of skills from him. Richard and Lü Dongbin have been communicating about the laws. Although the two have different ways of practicing, the way of all laws is the same. After reaching their level, they are all about the understanding of the laws, and there is not much difference.

The communication between Richard and Lu Dongbin was more about their respective understanding of the laws. In addition to the exchange of laws, Richard also obtained a lot of skills from this world from Lu Dongbin.

This world has its own practice system, called Qigong and visualization. Qigong is to inhale and exhale the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, and visualization is similar to meditation. Visualization requires visualizing a specific visualization diagram.

In this world, the teaching of the Dharma is based on cause and effect, and the Dharma cannot be taught casually. Therefore, the Pure Yang Master Lu Dongbin is very cautious about teaching the Dharma. This can be seen from the number of disciples he has accepted.

However, ordinary Daoyin techniques do not have this requirement. The purpose of Daoyin techniques is to strengthen the body. With the special breathing method, the effect is very good, similar to the knight breathing method in Richard's hands.

The fierce generals on the battlefield had basically learned this Daoyin technique. However, if they wanted to truly become the fierce generals who dominated an era like Xiang Yu, the Overlord of Western Chu, Lu Bu, and Li Cunxiao, in addition to Daoyin techniques, their own physical conditions were also very special.

The biggest advantage of Richard's revised guiding technique is that the learning requirements have been lowered. Of course, the effect of practice is not as good as before.

Richard taught this set of guiding techniques to his disciples. After all, his disciples would definitely offend the local noble families, powerful people, and officials when they went to serve as officials in various places.

If you don't have enough strength, you may be killed by these people secretly. This is not impossible. You know, even in the Ming Dynasty, officials sent by the emperor to collect taxes would be beaten to death.

In addition, the country was not yet stable and there were bandits everywhere. Once those powerful people colluded with the bandits, even local officials could be killed.

Richard spent a lot of effort to train these people, but he didn't want them to be killed by them. Therefore, he spent a lot of materials to make pills to help them practice the guiding technique.

One thousand disciples were assigned to serve as officials in local prefectures and counties in groups of three or four. They were distributed to three hundred prefectures and counties. Although there were only a few people in each prefecture and county, they were able to help the court control these prefectures and counties.

More than 300 states and counties occupied 80% of the land of Zhou. At this time, Zhou almost unified the north. If others dared to do so, the emperor would probably not be able to sleep at night.

Fortunately, Guo Rong knew Richard's true identity and had no dissatisfaction with it. After all, as a god, Richard would definitely leave in the end, and after Richard left, all the disciples he left behind were Guo Rong's people.

But other people didn't know about this, so many officials in the court impeached Richard, accusing him of forming a clique for personal gain, appointing people based on personal connections, having ill intentions, and being suspected of treason.

These officials were all ecstatic when they saw what Richard did, thinking that they had finally caught him. Richard had offended too many people during the reform, and these people wanted to cut him into pieces.

At the same time, he also sneered at Richard's behavior in his heart. Richard was overestimating his own abilities. You don't even have a soldier, and you dare to covet the power of the court? Even if you have appointed hundreds of officials, so what? If they want to kill you, can you still rely on these officials for breakfast?

But what surprised these officials was that after these memorials were submitted, they did not play any role, and the emperor did not even reprimand Richard.

Seeing this situation, some people have realized that the matter is not simple and stopped submitting memorials, but more people think that the emperor is waiting for the matter to continue to ferment, so a large number of officials still submit memorials.

The next day, at the grand court meeting, as soon as the meeting began, an official directly submitted a memorial to the emperor, impeaching Richard for favoritism and bending the law with intent to rebel.

His impeachment memorial was like a clarion call for attack, and more than a dozen officials immediately followed suit and impeached Richard for nepotism, forming cliques, etc. In a short period of time, he was charged with more than a dozen crimes.

If this happened to someone else, the entire clan would have been killed, but Richard didn't say anything about it, and didn't even look at those people.

"My dear ministers, what Prime Minister Li did was ordered by me, and those officials were sent there by my imperial edict. You don't have to worry." Guo Rong said directly.

"These officials were specially prepared by me for the reform. Are you dissatisfied with the reform?"

Hearing Guo Rong's voice, these officials were stunned for a moment, and a thought popped up in their minds: We are ready to fight to the death! Why did Your Majesty surrender first?
These officials did not believe Guo Rong's words. After all, Guo Rong did not have the time to train so many officials. You have to know that these officials are all proficient in local governance, and they are very clear about the methods of local tyrants. In just one or two months, these people, who are only officials of the eighth and ninth ranks, cooperated with each other to discipline those local tyrants and make them extremely uncomfortable.

At the same time, a wave of fear rose in the hearts of these people. Many people thought that the high officials in the court held the real power of the country, but the actual situation was that after the various decrees of the court were issued, they were implemented by the officials at the grassroots level in the local areas.

These insignificant officials may seem to have no influence, but if all of them are added together, they can completely influence the foundation of the empire.

This power enabled the emperor to accurately grasp the real situation in the local area.

In feudal dynasties, due to scientific and technological issues, it was difficult for the central government to know the real situation in local areas. Many times, the orders issued by the court would appear to be something else when they were executed locally.

Well, not only in the feudal dynasties, in fact even after entering the 20th and 21st centuries, with the advent of a large number of advanced communication technologies, this situation still exists.

From ancient times to the present, there are many ways for local governments to implement the orders of the central government. The simplest way is to "double it". In simple terms, when executing the orders of the court, they directly double it. As for whether to double it once or several times, it depends on the ideas of these officials. The court said that each household should be taxed ten coins, but when it came to the local government, ten coins of regular tax were collected, and then ten coins of miscellaneous taxes were collected, and then ten coins of fire consumption were collected.

In short, the court finally received ten coins, while the people paid at least thirty coins. Unless the matter became a big deal, the court would not know how much money was collected by the local government.

Those people had too many ways to collect more money and grain. The fire consumption tax was only the most basic one, and there was also the rat and bird loss tax. What does the rat and bird loss tax mean? Simply put, when collecting taxes, because most of the time, the taxes are collected in kind, such as grain. After these grains are placed in the government warehouse, they are eaten by insects, rats, and birds.

According to the officials, these losses are inevitable, so in order to meet the court's requirements, they will collect more money to cover the losses. As for how much the losses are, that is a secret.

This method is no longer used in later generations because it is easy to be exposed, but they use another more covert method.

When the central government issues a decree, it is usually flexible, and those people will implement it strictly or leniently according to their own interests. Some people even deliberately go too far.

This kind of thing has happened countless times in history.

The simplest of Wang Anshi's reforms was the Qingmiao Law. When Wang Anshi was a local official, he found that many people were short of money when they were farming, so they could only borrow money from local wealthy families and powerful people, and then pay it back when the grain was harvested.

The powerful were not good at running charity organizations, and the interest rates on loans were not low. Many people worked hard for a year, but the money they received was just enough to pay off their loans. So Wang Anshi implemented the Qingmiao Law.

The government lends money to ordinary people and gives them lower interest rates, so that the people can repay the government after the harvest. Through this financial operation, the government can obtain higher fiscal revenue without raising taxes, and the people can also reduce their burden.

At that time, the Song Dynasty was in financial difficulties, and the court wanted to improve finances by increasing taxes or reforming the law. Wang Anshi wrote to Emperor Shenzong that "the people do not need to pay more taxes, and the state has enough money."

When Emperor Shenzong saw Wang Anshi's method, he thought it was very good, so he supported Wang Anshi's reform.

After Wang Anshi became the prime minister, he began to implement these reforms. Reforms have always been about redistributing interests. According to Wang Anshi's reforms, the court gained more money and the burden on the people was reduced. So, didn't anyone suffer any loss?
This is of course impossible! The ones whose interests are damaged are the local tyrants, officials, and wealthy families. Only these people have money to lend to ordinary people. They are very powerful and are local bosses.

Wang Anshi's reform was to cut their flesh, so how could these people just surrender?

Reforms needed to be carried out by lower-level officials, and lower-level officials had deep connections with these local tyrants. Wang Anshi asked them to promote the Qingmiao Law, and these people naturally dared not not promote it.

But how to implement it and according to what standards are entirely up to them.

The imperial government implemented the Qingmiao Law and gave a large amount of money to local governments. Some timid local governments loaned the money to local wealthy families, and then the local wealthy families used the money to loan to ordinary people.

The interest on the Qingmiao loans received by the people remained unchanged, and all the Qingmiao loans issued by the government were also issued and washed away, and the interest was received. The officials achieved political achievements, the local tyrants also received interest, and the court also received a sum of money owed. The people did not change much, and it seemed that everyone was happy.

Does this operation look familiar? Back then, Dongda asked banks to lend to the people, encouraged them to start businesses, and set lending tasks for each bank. But how much of these loans actually went to the people?

Most of the loans were taken by those who could not be named, and then lent to those in need through private lending. Then some people got rich first. There is nothing new in this world. What is being done now has already been done by people in ancient times, it's just a change of name.

Of course, these are still good, it is nothing more than the country's goal of reducing the burden on the people has not been achieved, but it is different when you encounter those who are black-hearted. When Wang Anshi carried out the reform, he also set requirements. Some officials, in order to achieve political achievements, forced the money to be lent to the people who did not need it, and then forced these people into bankruptcy.

In some places, tyrants deliberately let vagrants and scoundrels borrow money, and then these vagrants and scoundrels disappeared after borrowing money. Not only could the government not collect the interest, but even the principal was defrauded.

The result was that Wang Anshi's good policy, which was originally intended to reduce the burden on the people, turned into an evil policy that harmed the people after it reached the local level. The Qingmiao Law not only failed to bring in financial revenue to the court, but also caused chaos in the local areas.

The Qingmiao Law became like this, and its reforms were also a mess.

A speck of dust in the era is like a mountain when it falls on ordinary people. A Qingmiao loan can force countless people to break up their families. Richard will naturally not give these people a chance if he wants to reform the system.

Richard was very clear about these methods, so when implementing the reform, he first controlled the administration of officials. Only when the officials who carried out the reform could seriously implement the government orders, the reform would be truly successful. Otherwise, the so-called reform and reform would all be castles in the air and would fall down at the first push.

Later, Zhang Juzheng learned from the lessons of Wang Anshi's reform. When he carried out the reform, he first implemented the performance evaluation system, rectified the administration of officials, and replaced officials who were willing to carry out the reform with him.

It’s a pity that his reforms could not escape the death of the leader.

Richard is now at the beginning of the founding of the country. Guo Rong is at the peak of his power, his prestige suppresses the court, and the central imperial guards are in hand. No one dares to oppose. Richard also has many ways, and has cultivated thousands of disciples to follow him. With such power, he began to promote the reform.

In the court, Guo Rong had the help of thousands of local officials, and his control over the Great Zhou almost reached the peak of the feudal dynasty.

At the same time, with these local officials, the collusion between local tyrants and officials has been reduced to a minimum, and even taxation has become normal. In the past, local officials did not dare to collect taxes from those tyrants, and taxes could only be imposed on ordinary people. Now, Richard will naturally not let these people go.

How much money do ordinary people have? If too much is collected, their families will be ruined. Only the powerful, officials, and aristocratic families are rich.

(End of this chapter)