"The lower official Fan Zhongyan met with the Marquis of Dingbei!" Fan Zhongyan saw Li Zhang entering the living room and immediately stood up and saluted.

"Mr. Fan doesn't have to be too polite. I heard that Mr. Fan returned to Beijing yesterday. He should have met His Majesty today, right?" Li Zhang also smiled and said politely, then ordered his servants to serve tea again and ask the other party to sit down again.

Fan Zhongyan nodded at this time and said, "After the morning court ended today, Your Majesty summoned me to the Chuigong Hall alone and explained a lot of things, which also made me understand Your Majesty's determination to rectify the officialdom."

When he said this, Fan Zhongyan paused for a moment, and then he spoke again: "It's just that it's easy to rectify the officialdom, but there are many difficulties. I just returned to the capital again. I really don't know where to start with this mess. Your Majesty asked me to ask the Marquis of Dingbei, so I took the liberty to come to the door and ask Marquis of Dingbei not to blame!"

When Li Zhang heard that Fan Zhongyan was assigned by Zhao Zhen, he also showed a look of pride. It was probably Zhao Zhen who wanted to cheer Fan Zhongyan up by himself to prevent him from retreating. However, with his understanding of Fan Zhongyan, even if he didn't say anything, the other party would not be able to retreat in this matter.

"You should have heard of the Hedong earthquake some time ago. What do you think about the impact of this incident in the court?" Li Zhang pondered for a moment before asking Fan Zhongyan. He did not intend to follow Zhao Zhen's idea, because in Zhao Zhen's opinion, Fan Zhongyan was just a knife in his hand, but Li Zhang knew that Fan Zhongyan's use was far more than that.

"Now is the best time for the Song Dynasty to solve internal problems. If you miss this opportunity, you may have to pay a huge price, and the possibility of success is extremely small!" Fan Zhongyan replied without hesitation. His opinion was almost exactly the same as Li Zhang.

"Yes, this is exactly what I think, Your Majesty and others think, so Your Majesty has made up his mind to eliminate domestic ills, and the first step is to rectify the administration. If the officials are now lazy and unprofitable, how can they reform?" Li Zhang also spoke solemnly.

Fan Zhongyan finally showed a sudden expression. When Zhao Zhen saw him today, he only talked about rectifying the administration, and I didn't say anything else, so he didn't quite understand Zhao Zhen's true thoughts. However, after listening to Li Zhang's explanation, all the questions in his heart were answered, and he became even more excited.

"Marquis Dingbei, if you have rectified the officialdom, where will Your Majesty start next?" After a while, Fan Zhongyan suppressed the excitement in his heart and then asked again.

"It's hard to say. In fact, the rectification of the administration of officials is also a way to find out the way for His Majesty. In addition to trying to eliminate the shortcomings in the officialdom, he also wants to test the reactions of all parties. After knowing this, it's not too late to make future plans, but it's just about land and tax burden." Li Zhang smiled again and said.

"So that's it, I'm a little too anxious!" Fan Zhongyan breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Li Zhang's answer. From Li Zhang's words, he could tell that Zhao Zhen and Li Zhang were both very sober and made long-term preparations, which made him completely relieved because he was also worried that Zhao Zhen was too anxious.

Many people may not know that in the original history, although Fan Zhongyan presided over the Qingli New Deal, he was not the one who initiated the new Deal, but Zhao Zhen, the emperor. Zhao Zhen in history was defeated by Dangxiang many times in military affairs and was blackmailed by the Liao Kingdom. In addition, he was urgently trying to come up with a plan to make the Song Dynasty prosperous and powerful. He urged the ministers many times. As a result, Fan Zhongyan was pushed to the front of the stage under this circumstance.

Although Fan Zhongyan repeatedly suggested that Zhao Zhen should not be too impatient, Zhao Zhen was not patient at that time, so the Qingli New Deal was pushed out in such haste. Unfortunately, the resistance at that time was too great, and the new Deal did not come up with a solution to the fundamental problem, and it soon failed.

Speaking of solving domestic ills, Fan Zhongyan was also very excited. He immediately expressed some of his ideas, and Li Zhang also told Fan Zhongyan about his and Zhao Zhen's plans. After all, he valued Fan Zhongyan's ability very much and hoped that he could make some additions to his previous plans based on this. Fan Zhongyan did not disappoint him, and indeed put forward many good suggestions.

Compared with Li Zhang and Zhao Zhen, Fan Zhongyan may have been a local official for many years, which made him more clear about the ideas of middle and lower-level officials and the people. Therefore, most of the suggestions he put forward were very specific and practical, such as "equal public land". The so-called public land actually belongs to the imperial court land and is generally distributed to officials according to the rank of officials, so it is also called official land, and the income belongs to officials, which is considered a kind of welfare for officials.

Originally, the idea of ​​vocational land was good, but because of the complex interests in the officialdom, the distribution of public land was seriously unfair. Some officials had low positions, but because they could have a broad mind and could have a large number of vocational land, some officials had no way to allocate barren land, and even the vocational land was severely reduced. These injustice also aggravated the resentment in the officialdom and turned a good law into a bad law.

There is also the tax burden issue for the people, which Fan Zhongyan even denounced. Because he had seen many people go bankrupt due to heavy tax burdens, some people even sell their children for it. In some places, due to the heavy tax burden, the people could not survive, so they simply gathered crowds to rebel. In order to quell the chaos, the court could only increase the tax burden, which led to more chaos in the local area and finally fell into a vicious cycle.

Although Li Zhang had been to the place, he had not deeply understood the people's sentiments. Today, he learned from Fan Zhongyan that the real living conditions of the local people were real, which made him look heavy. Although he was mentally prepared before, he did not expect that the situation in the place would be so critical. No wonder Song Qi, Han Qi and others were so anxious to ask the court for reforms.

However, in the original history, it was precisely because of Wang Anshi's failure that the Song Dynasty quickly fell into the struggle of the late dynasty. The famous Liangshanpo was born under that situation, and there was also the larger Fang La Uprising, which severely hit the rule of the Northern Song Dynasty. In that case, even without the later Jin invasion, the Northern Song Dynasty would probably not be able to last for a few years.
Chapter completed!