Datang Nongsheng

Chapter 280
After Li Shimin sat down, the waiter brought up all kinds of dishes. At this time, half of the fat sheep in the hot pot had been boiled and spoiled. The broth was fragrant, and it was delicious to boil vegetables or eat meat and bones.

Everyone went to court for a whole morning, and sat at the table for half an hour. They were already very hungry. After Li Shimin greeted everyone to eat and drink for a while, he said, "I have been thinking about how to put the government work in front. But I only thought of a few aspects. Now, I want to take advantage of this momentum to reform the various systems of the imperial court. If you have any suggestions, you can tell them. Let's discuss it, just like what Zhengming proposed The concept of this 'citizen' is the same, whether it succeeds or not, whether it is done well or not, depends on the aftermath, but with more ideas, when we govern the country, we have one more choice, the more the better!"

When it comes to putting work first, Fang Xuanling first mentioned one point, that is, the situation of officials being corrupt and dominating the market.

Stimulated by a series of expensive commodities produced by Sun Xiangfu, the consumption of the rich and powerful in Chang'an City increased sharply, not to mention the high-priced meals in Wangjiang Tower, perfumes, leather products, new clothes, furniture, antifreeze sesame oil, etc. sold in the two cities. etc., are all things that officials and ladies like, and if you want to enjoy these things, you have to spend a lot of money.

This is only one aspect of the increase in the expenses of the rich and powerful. On the other hand, it is the daily necessary expenses to maintain a kang for everyone, and the consumption of coal stoves is not small. Less money, these things are now sold in the market in Chang'an, either transported from Lingnan, or grown by farmers outside the city, even if you don't have much money on hand, you can eat less, but when guests come, you don't want to pick them up hospitality?The power of the prosperity of commodity categories is reflected at this time, which can greatly stimulate consumption.

And there are more and more places for these officials to spend money, and the money on hand is naturally not enough to spend, so they are bound to find ways to embezzle and use their official status to seek some personal gain.

In the east and west cities of Chang’an, it is not uncommon for officials to take goods from small vendors for nothing, or even beat them up. However, the Municipal Administration often turns a blind eye to such things. People are not allowed to sue officials, especially merchants who have no status.

According to the situation put forward by Fang Xuanling, Li Shimin felt that officials should be prohibited from going through the market in the future to prevent this from happening.

The power in the hands of officials can oppress the people and prevent them from passing through the market. They will oppress the people in other ways. For example, if an official needs vegetables at home, he will not go to the stalls of the farmers who pick them up and sell them in Dongshi. Instead, he will come forward to shock one or two of the farmers, and let his henchmen come to the market every day for nothing.

Now, if you prohibit this official from going to Dongshi, the actual impact on them is actually not great, because the official does little in person every day for this kind of thing. In order to reduce the impact, he may directly send his own dog leg to the farmer's house to collect it.

As the saying goes, there are policies at the top and countermeasures at the bottom. Sun Xiangfu is a person who has experienced the mature era of the social system in later generations. He naturally has some insights and ideas of his own. He suggested to Li Shimin, "Officials oppress the people because their power is not restricted. They do things that infringe on the interests of others and take it for granted. Prohibiting officials from passing through the market cannot cure this situation. We have to revise the system to address these situations.

For example, citizens can report illegal acts of officials, which can put a layer of lock on the rights of officials, and in the stage of litigation and punishment after the report, the interests of vulnerable groups must always be protected, and even the people can be anonymously reported. Only the officials in charge of procuratorial and evidence collection know the identity of the informant, so there is no need to worry that the people will not file a complaint because they are afraid of official retaliation. "

"Give the common people the power to sue officials?" Li Shimin thought it was feasible when he heard the words.

The current system of the Tang Dynasty basically inherited the former Sui Dynasty, and the Sui Dynasty was defeated under this strict management system. Officials managed the people carefully and strictly. The common people are as fearful of officials as tigers, and the people are in dire straits.

However, Li Shimin was devastated by foreign troubles and disasters before, and had no energy to reform. Now that the foreign troubles have been resolved and the internal disasters have basically subsided, it is time to start improving these systems.

However, it is a bit unacceptable for the feudal society to give common people the power to sue officials. If officials in a place cannot shake the people, the place is likely to become chaotic.

"Your Majesty, the common people only have the right to sue. It is not up to the court to decide whether to investigate or not to punish. So, in fact, there is no need to worry that after the common people have such power, the court will find it difficult to control them. The functions and powers of the inspecting censors were changed, and a procuratorate was set up to accept cases against officials by the people. The censors are different from hearing the news and taking the initiative to picket, they will only investigate the case when the common people report it."

"In addition, the minister also suggested that all officials' salaries and jobs should be abolished."

After Sun Xiangfu finished speaking for a long time, he added a nod.

However, it was this sentence that surprised everyone present. The abolition of salaries and jobs would affect the interests of all officials. Why is it necessary for Datang to do this now?

Seeing that everyone was looking at him, Sun Xiangfu continued to explain, "There are many purposes for doing this, and one of them is to increase the cost of officials' crimes."

"Cost of crime?"

Everyone still didn't quite understand the meaning of the new word Sun Xiangfu said, so they continued to look at him with questioning eyes.

"Your Majesty, what are the components of the salaries of our Tang officials? Monthly salary, salary, and output from employment.

The monthly salary is actually not much. Lumi’s food is mainly to ensure the daily expenses of these officials. The output of the field is to tie the income of the officials to the output of the field. Although the purpose It is to let the officials supervise the farming, but the real effect is very little. In the Tang Dynasty, how many scholars who are officials will take care of the things in the fields! .Moreover, the grain and rice produced in the field are already enough for officials to consume at ordinary times, and the item of Lumi is already superfluous.
Too much of the collected food went into the pockets of officials.

Therefore, the minister thought that it was only necessary to keep the monthly salary. "

"Only keep the monthly salary?"

Everyone was stunned again. We all know that Sun Xiangfu is not a person who is aimless. He must have some considerations when he said that, but just now he just said that the output of the job field is somewhat duplicated with Lumi, so at most the salary will be cancelled. Mi, now even the job field is counted, you know, this is the largest part of an official's salary.

"Yes, only the monthly salary is kept. There are several advantages to doing so. One is that the imperial court does not need so much food and rice to pay for officials' salaries. Restricted by some merchants, they can mobilize food relief more freely.

The second is to prevent officials from privately accumulating slaves and tenants, hiding slaves, and causing trouble.

And after the fields are directly in the hands of the people themselves, they will be more attentive to help them cultivate the land, and the output will be more, and the tax revenue of the court will naturally increase.

Of course, not distributing salaries and allocating jobs does not mean that the imperial court wants to reduce the salaries of officials, but to increase them. However, the third benefit of only giving them money is that it will stimulate consumption. Increase the business tax of the imperial court and promote business prosperity.

In this way, the income of an official is single. Once he is dismissed for a crime, he will have no source of income, which is worse than that of a farmer. The officials and subordinates who are supported by those officials with money will also worry about their jobs. , and prevent officials from committing crimes. After all, when the only source of income for officials is gone, their jobs will also be broken. Doing so will make officials pay more attention to their official positions and dare not take risks easily. "

When Sun Xiangfu's idea came out, Changsun Wuji nodded again and again. However, the ideal is full, but the reality is a bit skinny. First of all, the court can't afford so much money to pay officials' salaries, let alone The whole country is just a place in Guanzhong, or even just the capital officials in Chang'an City. If all the monthly salaries are converted into copper coins, it is a huge number. How can the imperial court afford hundreds of thousands of guan in cash every month? expenditure.

However, from these words of Sun Xiangfu, Li Shimin heard a lot of other useful things. First of all, Sun Xiangfu's idea of ​​separating investigation from trial is very reliable. Good control of the power of officials, so that the people sue the officials become a reality.

Secondly, this can solve the harm to the country caused by officials raising private slaves if they are too large. As long as the policy of job fields is abolished, Datang will no longer be able to form a family that can threaten the state power.

He made a rough calculation in his heart, just one Taiyuan Wang family, there are hundreds of people who have become officials, how many jobs do they add up?Because of these jobs, how many households did they control in their own private hands?It's no wonder that they were able to squeeze tens of thousands of serf households outside the pass to develop them in a short period of time. This is also one of the fundamental strengths of a family like the Taiyuan Wang family.

In addition, only sending money can also monitor the royal family, dignitaries and other various forces. They do not have a large number of jobs, so raising tenant serfs is naturally useless, and all things that can be produced by themselves will be greatly reduced. If When they rebelled, they must first buy a large amount of food, grass, ordnance in the market. Once they spend money to buy these things in the market, Li Shimin will know immediately.

However, this idea of ​​killing multiple birds with one stone is difficult to implement because of Datang's lack of money, which is really depressing.

Seeing Li Shimin, Changsun Wuji and others showing regretful expressions one after another, Sun Xiangfu asked again, "But because of the money, your Majesty thinks this is not feasible?"

Changsun Wuji heard the words, looked into Li Shimin's eyes, and after getting permission, he turned his head and answered, "The total tax revenue of my Tang Dynasty last year, excluding grain, cloth, silk and silk livestock, etc., was only 280 million guan in cash. And if the salaries of all the officials in the Tang Dynasty, no, just Guanzhong, are converted into copper coins, it will cost at least 1000 million guan. "

At this time, Li Shimin had actually heard some meanings in Sun Xiangfu's words. If he had no solution to the money problem, he would not have said this set of things, so he said directly, "If you have any solution, just go straight Said, if feasible, I will definitely consider it.”

Sun Xiangfu smiled when he heard the words, "It's still your Majesty who understands the minister. In fact, there is no coincidence. In the name of the Anbei Dadu Protectorate, the minister opened a free deposit cabinet in Shanyang. Since then, we All of Sunyang’s transactions are done in cash, and there has never been a shortage of money.”

"Free cabinets?"

People who don't have enough brains really can't imagine what Sun Xiangfu meant, but Wang Gui, who has a cabinet business in his family, squinted his eyes. Once the free cabinets are opened in Chang'an, including Wang's cabinets, All the Changan cabinet business in the country will be shut down. This will not only affect their profit, but also make them lose their voice in the money market. Just like Sun Xiangfu, he only needs to look at the data of Shanyang cabinet. You can see the assets of each family at a glance, and when you do certain things, you can eat them to death.

　Thanks to FreeStamnding for the reward, I wish everyone a happy new year and smooth work!In the last few days of this month, various postures ask for recommendation tickets, monthly tickets, thank you, thank you!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)