Chapter 960: Restructuring

However, over the past century, systems have become complicated and institutions have overlapped. Many inappropriate old policies have not been abolished, and new systems have emerged continuously. After the implementation of the new law, these phenomena have become more prominent.

The ancestors eliminated the power of feudal vassals, but allowed the descendants of the founding heroes to serve as officials for generations with their "grace". As a result, the state institutions had neither sufficient personnel nor full-time staff.

Many idle institutions and officials who have no name but do nothing have filled the political system, just like gold mixed with earth and rocks, causing the official system to lose its due value.

The second one is to serve as official but not to hold the official position. The official position is inconsistent between the name and the actual status, which is confusing.

The official system of the Song Dynasty originated from the separatist period and had a strong flavor of the small imperial court.

At that time, magistrates mostly held military positions, and when they were promoted, they were either civil or military. In fact, they still belonged to the structure of a vassal town.

Officials, positions, and dispatches all use official names, coupled with titles and honors, and officials are granted rampantly in the inner palace, making the official system even more confusing.

Since then, the country has continued to use it without freeing up its hands to sort it out. When the three-province system, which has no name, was added, not only was the official system not clarified, but it became even more confusing.

During the reign of the King and Prime Minister, he advocated that as long as various institutions could restore their functions and roles, the purpose of reform would be achieved.

For example, Sinong Temple, Du Shuijian, etc. have played an important role in the reform and received the "reality of Dong Zheng's official system".

But in fact, it is still "the name is not right and the words are not right".

Taking myself as an example, the full title of my official position when I was in Nanhai should be Chongren, Baoshun, Zuo Yun and Xuande Meritorious Official, Shangzhu Kingdom, Founder of Cangwu County, Bachelor of Baohe Palace, Tejin, Prince Shaobao, Instructor of the Military and State Affairs of Jiaozhou

, Quan Nanhai Fourth Road Transfer Envoy.

Among such a large number of titles, only the last two are serious official positions.

And in the Song Dynasty, this situation was a common phenomenon.

For example, Su Yuanzhen's official was the imperial censor, and he was dispatched by Zhengzhou magistrate. As a result, he used his official salary level to impeach Cai Que, the censor who was actually responsible for the impeachment work. This was the confusion caused by unclear positions.

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Because the official position of the imperial censor can be used not only as an official, but also as a errand, and there are people in the court who can actually do this errand.

For example, when Duke Zhao showed his great power and impeached Chen Zhizhong and resigned from office, it was on this mission.

However, Zhao Pian's official at that time was a Hanlin bachelor.

This is the reality of the phenomenon of redundant officials in the Song Dynasty. A large number of positions were filled with false and real positions, which gave many people room to be lazy. As a result, officials did not fulfill their duties in their positions, and it was very common for officials to pass the buck and argue with each other.

Moreover, not only are the official positions not worthy of their name, but the progression between official positions has reached an astonishing thirty-seven levels.

All of this leads to the existence of a lower-level department and several higher-level management departments at the same time, and the subordinates often do not know who is the real manager.

Not even one can truly manage effectively. Some subordinates have worked for many years and have no idea who their superiors are!

Therefore, this bureaucratic reform must be carried out to reduce the disadvantages of redundant officials and redundant administration and improve the efficiency of the court.

How to proceed? In fact, it is not difficult. Return the decrees to the corresponding departments and restore the three-province system of the Tang Dynasty. Basically, the official system can be straightened out.

In the Song Dynasty, there were already Menxia Province, Zhongshu Province and Shangshu Province, but they were all places where Yuan Rong was raised, and they were called "Ji Lu Guan".

However, the real central government affairs have another name, called "Tong Zhongshu Menxia Ping Zhang Shi", which exercises authority on behalf of the three provinces.

This is still the chaotic structure of the small court, which is no longer in line with the current vigorous atmosphere of the Song Dynasty.

Therefore, I asked you to reform the official system, collate the "Tang Liu Dian", divide it with the functions of the current Song Dynasty institutions, return the government to the three provinces, and restore the institutional scale of the imperial court.

With Shangshu Zuo and Youpushe as prime ministers. Zuo Pushe is also the minister's servant and performs the duties of the minister; the right servant is also the minister of Zhongshu and performs the duties of Zhongshu. This is used to give full play to the opinions of Zhongshu, the review of the ministers, and the minister's duties. The authority to carry out the functions actually belongs to the superiors;

At the same time, the name of the minister of political affairs was changed to the minister of Zhongshu, the minister of the subordinate ministers and the ministers of left and right;

All provinces, Taiwans, temples, and supervisors with empty names should be dismissed, and each institution should have a fixed number of personnel, fixed personnel, and fixed responsibilities;

Many institutions are either provincial or merged, such as the three departments, which can be destructured and placed under the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Works;

The Trial Court can be merged with the Ministry of Personnel;

The Court of Trial and Punishment can be placed under the Ministry of Punishment.

In the past, "official" was only used to determine salary and rank, and was greatly confused with dispatch.

In this reform, while "returning power to officials", it is also possible to "change officials by rank" and rename unofficial officials as main officials. The original main officials were from Kaifu Yitong Sansi to Jiang Shilang Thirty-seven. grades, organized and merged into salary grade names, used as "send salary".

After the two were exchanged, at least in name, the Song Dynasty court restored the system of the Han and Tang Dynasties.

These are probably all the contents of Zhao Xu Yuanfeng's restructuring in history. They changed the soup without changing the medicine, which resulted in administrative efficiency not being improved and making it appear more procrastinating than in the past.

The benefit gained is only a saving of 20,000 yuan in administrative expenses, but this comes at the expense of lower administrative efficiency because its essence has not been changed.

In order to avoid these problems, Su You stated in the memorial that, firstly, it has been hundreds of years since the Tang Dynasty. Even in the Kaiyuan period, the most powerful period, the population, economic scale, lifestyle, and social structure were compared with those of today. , have undergone tremendous and profound changes.

The fundamental purpose of restructuring is not to restore the old system for the sake of restoring the old system, but to better serve the new dynasty.

Therefore, while collating "Tang Liu Dian", it is also necessary to sort out the current official system of the Song Dynasty simultaneously and clarify the relationship between the two. It is best to move the ones that can be moved directly, and the rest must be added or subtracted to ensure that a prerequisite is met. The need is that everything must be done by someone.

The second is that things have different levels of authority and cannot be implemented across the board. For example, the departmental functions of Zhongshu require checks and balances and supervision, but if we continue to do so at the grassroots level, there is no benefit at all except reducing efficiency and increasing administrative costs.

In addition, there are procedures and procedures, such as river construction funds of 500,000 guan, major murder cases, crimes of rebellion and rebellion, reimbursement of one or two travel expenses, and social security incidents of surreptitious behavior. The procedures are of course different. This is also Detailed analysis of specific positions is required.

This cannot be underestimated. The huge failure of Yuanfeng's restructuring in history was that it took a lot of time to approve small matters, causing government affairs to stagnate, and ultimately existed in name only. In the Huizong Dynasty, it was basically changed again without changing the medicine.

After the institutional issues have been sorted out, there are still personnel issues.

There are two main personnel issues, one is the exit mechanism of personnel, and the other is the salary mechanism for officials and low-level civil servants.

Historically, once officials quit the government, their income was completely gone. The Song Dynasty made some reforms, but the results were not obvious. Retired ministers were given more posts as palace guards for retirement purposes, which led to the rise of redundant officials.

If a civil servant has no job security, he cannot be expected to have professional qualities. Now that the finances have improved, Nanhai's income has increased by tens of millions of guan every year, and as much as tens of millions of guan has been included in national tax revenue. In addition, the problem of redundant troops in the capital has been solved.

Millions more have been saved, and this part of the fiscal surplus is as high as 20 million guan each year. Part of it can already be used to solve the problem of pensions for civil servants and income distribution of staff.

Just like doing business, in order to get rewards, you must first pay.

Officials' pensions must begin to be paid after the official retires. If an official is eliminated from the bureaucracy early due to corruption, crime, etc., he will not receive a penny.

Similarly, part of the salary increase for middle- and lower-level petty officials must be deducted and paid at the end of the year based on their performance.

This will ensure that they can actively work, and it will also make a large number of people from humble backgrounds interested in participating in the operation of grassroots governments, and local officials will no longer have only local powerful people to rely on.

This will be a profound social change. With this, it will be possible for feudal society to realize the transfer of political power to the countryside. The grassroots political power of society, which has always been controlled by village elders, patriarchs, and gentry, will be torn apart by this system.

Ordinary people can also get greater breathing space.

The salaries of these people are in the hands of the government, and in the hands of the county and state magistrates. In this way, even if they are exiled from official positions, even if they are new to a new place, they will naturally gain the power to fight against the old rural gentry and stand on the side of the government.
Chapter completed!