Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 335: Policy Selection (Part )

After deciding on the next battle plan, the generals did not dare to delay any further as time was approaching the end of the month. At noon the next day, on the 27th, the main force of the 36th Army launched a fierce attack on Huai'an City.

In the early Song Dynasty, Huai'an City was originally a fortress-type city similar to Yangzhou. Both were fortress groups formed by multiple sub-cities connected in series. In comparison, Yangzhou only had three cities, while Huai'an had five, namely the Big City, the Inner City, the North New City, the South Fort City, and a fortress called Hebei City located on the north bank of the Huai River.

But now, like Yangzhou, there is only one big city left, and it is in disrepair.

But to be honest, the several sub-cities of Huai'an were not demolished during the Yuan Dynasty. Huai'an was located on the border between the Southern Song Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty. Those fortress sub-cities were almost destroyed during the Song-Jin War. The Yuan Dynasty just did not rebuild them after destroying the Song Dynasty.

The terrain around Huai'an City is even more disgusting than Gaoyou and Yangzhou that we fought before. There is a canal outside the west gate of Gaoyou, and there are also many rivers outside the north gate, which divide the land into pieces. Huai'an City is even worse!

There is also a canal outside the west gate of Huai'an. Outside the north gate, there are not only tributaries of the Huai River, but also two small lakes. There are even two small lakes in the southwest and northwest corners of the city. Only the south gate and the east gate have relatively open terrain, which is convenient for deploying troops. This is similar to Gaoyou.

So Zhu Liangzu repeated his old tactic and attacked the city in the same way as he did in Gaoyou. He only sent new recruits from the supplementary regiment to block the canal on the west, surrounding the city without attacking. He sent Feng Sheng's 14th Regiment to attack the city from the southeast corner. The main force of his own 18th Regiment and Liu Minhua's Independent 36st Regiment, two regiments, attacked the south gate, while Liao Yongzhong's th Regiment and Hu Hai's th Regiment attacked the east gate.

Surround three sides and leave one side open. Do not attack the rotten area at the north gate with rivers and lakes, leaving it for the enemy to escape. Then send a battalion of cavalry to intercept them from a distance outside the north gate.

The siege plan was finalized and the artillery regiment built artillery positions. At noon on the 27th, with the roar of heavy artillery outside Huai'an City, Feng Sheng led the 14th Regiment to climb up the city wall in the southeast corner of Huai'an, and divided into two groups to attack the east gate and the south gate, leading the main force outside the city into the city. After a street fighting, Huai'an, an important town in Huainan, was successfully incorporated into the territory of the Shengwu Army.

The father and son Chu Buhua, the inspector of the Huaidong Dao Xuanwei Sifu, who were defending the city, were stabbed to death in the street fighting. Pingzhang Gou'er tried to escape from the north gate but was successfully blocked by the cavalry and captured alive. Provincial Councillor Zhao Lian was also wounded by a grenade and captured alive in the street fighting while guarding the government office.

Because Min Zishun, the intelligence war expert, told the generals about Zhao Lian's background last night, everyone decided to execute this big traitor.

Zhu Liangzu immediately suggested, "Why not skin this guy alive in the street?"

"Absolutely not!" Instructor Gao Yao immediately stopped him.

"Why? Why keep such a big traitor? Weren't all those Yuan court officials who were caught before killed?" Feng Sheng expressed his confusion.

Gao Yao then said to the generals in a serious tone, "Let alone how cruel the punishment of lingchi is, you, the frontline generals, are rashly inflicting this torture on captured enemy officers. It is inevitable that you are overstepping your authority. Killing is fine, but don't do it so outrageously. Otherwise, if an official from the Marshal's Office impeaches you, I will not be able to speak for you, but will have to suffer the consequences."

Everyone then suddenly realized that the training officers on the front line did have judicial power and temporary administrative power over the newly occupied areas, but lingchi was a form of torture and the approval of this punishment usually had to be reported to the central government. It was only for heinous crimes that this torture could be used. You could kill people on the front line, but torturing people privately was a bit of an overstepping of authority.

Just when everyone didn't know how to deal with this guy, Liao Yongzhong suddenly said, "This is easy. It's just that we can't cut it, right? Then try another method. Anyway, we won't let this guy die so easily. Come on, find a long-handled sledgehammer!"

After a while, a soldier borrowed a long-handled sledgehammer from the blacksmith shop in the city.

Zhu Liangzu and Gao Yao escorted the captured Yuan court officials to the main street in the city, and summoned the people in the city to watch the execution. They sentenced the captured high-ranking officials in public. The provincial governor Gou'er was only sentenced to beheading and throwing his head into the city, but when it was Zhao Lian's turn, Gao Yao recounted the "glorious deeds" of Zhao Lian's grandfather Zhao Hongwei, labeled him a traitor who was doomed to die, and then announced that he would be sentenced to death by hammering.

In order to prevent misunderstandings among Han officials in the Yuan court in other regions, which would lead to strong resistance from those officials, Gao Yao also announced again the Shengwu Army's policy towards Han officials in the Yuan court, that is, the three types mentioned by Lu Jin before could be forgiven, and the rest would not be pardoned, and then he ordered the execution.

Liao Yongzhong found some strong soldiers in the army, pressed Zhao Lian to the ground in the street, and then had someone use a long-handled sledgehammer to smash Zhao Lian from his palm upwards, inch by inch until his shoulder. Then they used the other arm and two legs, and smashed Zhao Lian's hands, feet and limbs into rotten flesh.

This guy didn't die by beheading in the end, but died in pain.
When the Han people heard that Zhao Lian's grandfather was a traitor who led the Tartars to kill the Han people, they cheered loudly when they saw his end. Of course, some minor officials who were forcibly brought in were frightened and silent, and they trembled like sieves. They privately regarded these Shengwu soldiers as living devils.
After taking Huai'an, Zhu Liangzu no longer led the main force in person, but stayed in Huai'an to reorganize the army, scout the terrain, prepare to build a pontoon bridge, and feint an attack on Huaibei to attract Tuotuo's attention.

Then he asked Liao Yongzhong to lead his own 18th Regiment, Liu Minhua's independent regiment, and the two supplementary regiments of Yao Qichen and Fei Ju, plus a field artillery battalion and eight heavy howitzers, and a cavalry battalion, to form a detachment and continue westward to attack Qinghe County, which was also the last city targeted in this Jiangbei Campaign. They wanted to capture Qinghe before the 30th of the month and end this campaign.

That is, at the same time as they were attacking Huai'an, at the headquarters of Jiankang City in Jiangnan, Lu Jin was also summoning those Jiangnan scholars, preparing to select a few talents to join the headquarters to fill the vacancies of officials.

In fact, some of these scholars from the south of the Yangtze River had arrived a long time ago. For example, there were those from Jiankang, such as Xia Yu, Chen Yu, Yang Xian, etc. There were also Qin Conglong who came from Zhenjiang, Sun Yan from Jurong, Tao An who had been accepted into the Marshal's Mansion, and Wang Guangyang and others he called from Dangtu. In addition to these few famous figures in history, there were more than a dozen Confucian scholars whose names could not be remembered.

Lu Jin did not summon these guys immediately. Firstly, he was busy with military affairs. He was busy expanding the army and fighting wars recently and had no time to recruit talents for the time being. Secondly, he wanted to let Li Shanchang and Feng Guo use them first to test their talents.

This summons is different from an examination. As long as Lu Jin is satisfied, he can be directly appointed as an official. Such a special opportunity certainly cannot be easily sneaked in by just anyone.

After the two of them selected a group, they handed the list and background information to Lu Jin. Lu Jin then asked them to introduce the current administrative structure of the Marshal's Mansion to these people, so that when they were summoned, they would not be asked questions and would not know the answers to any of them, which would be funny.

The Civil and Military Academy and the Secretariat can correspond to the Shangshu Province, the Privy Council, and the Zhongshu Province. Needless to say, these Jiangnan scholars are more interested in the five levels of local administrative agencies: provinces, prefectures, counties, towns, and villages. The most interesting of these are towns and provinces.

Lu Jin imitated the Song Dynasty and set up a structure of separation of powers in the provinces, but the names were different. There were left and right provincial governors, left and right military commanders, and left and right censors. The name of censor was borrowed from the Tang Dynasty.

Under the provincial governors of the Yuan Dynasty, there were councilors, while in Lu Jin, there were various halls at the provincial level, which were similar to the councilors of the Yuan Dynasty, but with clearer powers and were only responsible for managing one type of things. However, due to the current lack of staff, the system has not yet been fully established.

They could understand all this, as it inherited some of the Yuan system while also making some adjustments. What surprised them the most was the two administrative levels of town and village, or to be more precise, the town.

This is not to say that previous dynasties did not have such hierarchical divisions as towns and villages, but that previous dynasties never set up formal government offices and officials at these two levels of administrative units.

In fact, the counties in the Song Dynasty also had townships (towns), or du and tu. Tu in the south was called tu and li in the north. Tu and li were both equivalent to the village level.

The system of the Yuan Dynasty was a fusion of the systems of the Jin and Song dynasties. At the grassroots level below the county level, there was also a division into "communities", which was originally created by Kublai Khan. Fifty households formed a community, and each community had a president who was responsible for encouraging farming, mediating disputes, and reporting disasters.

Zhao Junyong of Xuzhou Group was a president from the Yuan Dynasty.

However, most of the village heads in the Yuan Dynasty were elected by villagers or appointed by wealthy and powerful families. They were not appointed by the imperial court and had no rank. However, they needed to report to the county government, and their status was similar to that of a semi-official figure.

In addition, the Yuan Dynasty also set up inspection offices at the grassroots level below the county level, mainly in major transportation routes, or remote areas, where public security was poor, responsible for patrolling and arresting thieves. There was one inspector, who was of the ninth rank and was the lowest-level military commander.

The town of Lu Jin is very interesting. The biggest difference between it and the previous dynasties is that there is an official administrative office in the town, with a "town office" and a town-level chief executive, called the town mayor, who is of the eighth rank and has administrative power. There is also an internal security inspector who is in charge of the soldiers of a town, about one or two hundred people, equivalent to a company commander. He belongs to the internal security army system and is responsible for recruiting and training soldiers from various villages. He also has the duties of patrolling and maintaining public security.

There was no government office at the village level, but there were also lowest-level officials. Each village had a village head, who was the ninth rank and was responsible for assisting the town mayor in carrying out tasks assigned by the county and working in his own home. The selection of village heads was also very interesting. In the Qin and Han dynasties, there was a village head, in the Tang and Song dynasties, there was a neighborhood head and a wing head. In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang also set up a grain head in each village to assist the government in collecting taxes.

In the past, the "village chiefs" of these dynasties were mostly local powerful clansmen and gentry. This was also the case during Zhu Yuanzhang's Ming Dynasty. He specifically selected powerful and wealthy families in the village to serve as grain chiefs, because Zhu believed that "poverty breeds evil schemes, while wealth breeds consciences." If he used wealthy families as grain chiefs, these people would definitely not be corrupt.
Even during the period of more than ten years in the early Ming Dynasty when the imperial examination was abolished, the grain chiefs of each village in Nanzhili could go directly to the court. The village chiefs were directly responsible to Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, which was unprecedented.

Because there was no imperial examination during that period, Zhu Yuanzhang adopted a recommendation system, and he also promoted many of these grain chiefs to become officials directly.

The village chief appointed by Lu Jinshe not only has a rank, but must also be a retired military officer from each village, and must be an outstanding officer who has served in the army. Each village chief will serve for three years and is not allowed to be re-elected. At the end of his term, he must be succeeded by other retired officers in the village.

A group of scholars from Jiangnan looked at each other in bewilderment. The old man Qin Conglong from Zhenjiang stroked his beard and asked, "If we set up government offices and officials in villages and towns, will there be the problem of redundant officials in the former Song Dynasty? Is it really necessary to set up town mayors and town offices?"

Feng Guoyong explained, "This was something the commander-in-chief had insisted on setting up. At the time, the commander-in-chief asked about the official system and was told that there had been nine ranks and eighteen grades since the Sui and Tang dynasties. Since the lowest county magistrate was the seventh rank, why didn't the eighth and ninth ranks have a superior? So the eighth rank town chief and town office were set up."

Wang Guangyang frowned and said, "Aren't the assistant officials of the county government, the chief clerk, and the county magistrate all of the eighth and ninth ranks? How could there be none?"

"The Marshal is talking about the local government officials below the county level, not the assistants and clerks in the county government." Feng Guoyong said again.

Qin Conglong then asked, "What does the mayor usually do? If he just helps collect taxes, then can't the county government do that?"

Feng Guoyong said again, "The Marshal's reason is to facilitate tax collection and conscription. Our Shengwu Army recruits and conscripts soldiers. After the household registration, each village must send 12 able-bodied men to the Internal Guard for training. In wartime, they are responsible for guarding the city or escorting food and grass, similar to the former Songxiang Army. These are the responsibilities of the town government.

"There are also corvée labor, agricultural promotion, and supervision of saltpeter fields in each village for the production of gunpowder. These are the only responsibilities for now. I heard that the functions will be expanded in the future, such as running schools in towns and villages."

Chen Yu, who had been silent, could not help but say, "How many towns should be set up under each county? If there are too many, it will probably increase the salary expenses of the Marshal's Office a lot, right?"

Feng Guoyong explained again, "After the population is fully registered, we will look at the population size. For large villages with large populations, we will set up a town with five or six villages, and for small villages with small populations, we will set up a town with nine to ten villages. We will choose a main road leading to the county seat, and a village that is relatively wealthy and has a large population, and where it is convenient for each village to go to the town and township, and set up a town office."

Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment when they heard this. They had never heard of such a thing before. However, they were only here to familiarize themselves with the administrative structure of the Marshal's Mansion. Even if they wanted to object, they did not have the right to make suggestions.

Besides, if Lu Jin succeeds in the future, he will be the founding emperor. With the authority of the founding emperor, as long as the decrees are not against the will of heaven and earth and obviously violate public order and good morals, let alone setting up more town-level yamen, even more outrageous decrees can be opposed by Lu Jin as long as he speaks out. This is the authority of the founding emperor.

As for why the village is virtual and the town is real, Lu Jin has considered it carefully. There is really no need to set up a government office in the village.

Even if it is really set up, what would you let the village chief be in charge of? If it is just collecting taxes and organizing corvée labor, these town and county government offices can also do it, there is no need to let the village chief intervene again. However, for more advanced affairs, a village alone cannot support them.

For example, when it comes to running a primary school, the population of one village cannot even support the establishment of a primary school. It would be more appropriate if several or a dozen villages jointly run one primary school.

If there is no town-level unit and only primary schools are run in the county town, it will be too far for people in the villages to go to school in the county town.

For example, the health center has the same problem. The village population is too small to support it. It would be more reasonable to set up a health center in the town to be responsible for smallpox vaccination in several villages.

Others, such as agricultural technology stations, are responsible for promoting new crops and repairing agricultural machinery. For example, the cultivation of virus-free potato seedlings is not difficult. It can be done by training any junior high school student who has studied biology. However, it requires a basic biological laboratory, which must at least have a clean bench and test tubes. It is impossible to delegate all of these to the villages. It would be more reasonable for several large villages to jointly run one. Moreover, not every county has one. It is only in those counties that need to grow potatoes on a large scale that such a thing is set up.

Although there is no universal education and smallpox vaccine now, it does not prevent Lu Jin from setting up the framework first. Now is the time when the system is not yet perfect and the reform is the least resistant. Otherwise, after the official establishment of the country, there will definitely be a lot of trouble if he wants to do these things.

After these scholars from Jiangnan understood the administrative structure of the Marshal's Mansion, Lu Jin had someone give each of them the latest edition of "Gongshuzi", and asked Li Shanchang to introduce them to the previous examinations, and let them read the policy essay questions of Lu Jin's first examination, Yan Shiguo's article "What is a Country" and Lu Jin's comments. This was Lu Jin's self-introduction, and then he formally summoned these people.

In the second hall of the Marshal's Mansion, Lu Jin finally arrived after nearly twenty scholars from Jiangnan had arrived.

Everyone immediately stood up, bowed and saluted, saying, "Greetings, Marshal."

Lu Jin waved his hand, "No need to be polite, everyone, please take a seat."

After everyone thanked them and took their seats, Lu Jin spoke.

“You are all talented people in Jiangnan. You have taken the initiative to come to my headquarters. I think you share the same aspirations with me and are willing to follow me to drive out the Tartars, rebuild China, save the people, and help the world.

"I won't say much else. I have already asked Mr. Baishi and Secretary Feng to explain to you the current structure of the Marshal's Mansion, as well as some introductions about me, Gongshu. I believe you have already gotten to know me a little.

"According to the previous rules, you should not be directly granted official positions. You have not made any achievements and have not taken any exams. If you are directly granted official positions, some people will inevitably be dissatisfied and think that I am unclear about rewards and punishments. However, the Marshal's Office is in urgent need of staff now, and the candidates from all over the country have not yet arrived. Mr. Baishi also advised me to select one or two talented people to enter the Marshal's Office first, to fill the vacancies, and secondly, to let you set an example for the scholars in Jiangnan. I agreed to his request.

"But the rules cannot be abolished, and rewards and punishments cannot be unclear. If you want to join the Marshal's Mansion as an official, you still need to answer a few questions of mine first. There is no need for a formal examination. I have three policy essays here. You can choose one that you are good at answering. If you can satisfy me, the Marshal's Mansion will certainly be open for you."

Everyone sat up straight after hearing this.

"The first question is, how to manage finances? Both the Song and Yuan dynasties used banknotes, and the former Song dynasty started using Jiaozi, but both dynasties brought disasters because of it. Although the reasons for the demise of the Song and Yuan dynasties cannot be said to be entirely due to banknotes, banknotes are definitely one of the reasons. Please help me solve my doubts. Should we continue to use paper money in the future? If we do, how should we use it? If not, what should we use as money?

"As for finances, the Marshal's Office is now on the march to war and is in urgent need of money. Where should we collect taxes from? Please give me some advice, gentlemen."

Lu Jin slowed down, stood up, turned around twice, and then spoke again.

"Second question, since the fall of the Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, although the Song Dynasty unified the world, it was never able to recover Yanyun, Dali, Jiaozhi and other places, causing these places to be separated from China for a long time, especially the Youyan area in the north. I have my own decision and control on the Northern Expedition, but how to win back the hearts of the people in the north and south in the future, please help me solve this puzzle.

"The third question is how to govern the country. In the early Han Dynasty, there was the Huang-Lao school of thought, which suggested governing by inaction. The court should try not to interfere too much and let the people rest and recuperate on their own. I call this a small government.

"The opposite is a big government, where the court issues more decrees and takes care of more things, but many Confucian scholars think that this disturbs the people. However, the world has been ravaged by the tyranny of the Yuan Dynasty, and people's livelihood is in decline. There is a lot of work to be done, and refugees are everywhere. How can the court rule by doing nothing? Should it just ignore everything?
"Please, gentlemen, help me understand how to govern the country so that it can recover its vitality as soon as possible and allow the people to live and work in peace and contentment."

(End of this chapter)