Li Shanchang came to meet with Lao Zhu, mainly to discuss one of the most important matters, which was the staffing of Zhongshu Province, who should be arranged among the six ministers, as well as various rules and regulations, and even official uniforms and hats. These things must be in place
Just a conclusion.
As usual, Li Shanchang had drawn up a draft and came over to discuss it with Zhu Yuanzhang. According to usual experience, Zhu Yuanzhang would discuss it with him seriously, weigh the pros and cons, and then finalize it, arriving at a result that satisfied both the emperor and his ministers.
This is also a tacit understanding between the two of them. After all, Zhang Ximeng has already taken care of enough, and he is not very involved in this kind of thing.
But it happened that Zhang Ximeng was here today, so Li Shanchang had to cheer up and explain to Zhu Yuanzhang carefully, so as not to make any mistakes.
He continued talking for almost a quarter of an hour, his mouth was dry and his throat was filled with smoke. Zhu Yuanzhang actually just listened without any intention of interrupting. This was completely different from before.
Lao Li's heart was beating wildly, and his uneasy premonition was getting stronger and stronger. What on earth did Zhang Ximeng say? He peeked at Zhang Ximeng and found that Zhang Ximeng was looking up, wandering in his thoughts.
Helpless, Li Shanchang summoned up the courage to peek at Zhu Yuanzhang and found that Old Zhu was also smiling slightly, "Mr. Li, we understand, you have upgraded the original Zhongshu Province. Although you have more control and more careful distinctions,
But there aren’t many changes. You just have to make the decision on this kind of thing. If there is any difficulty in operation in the future, just let us know.”
"Tell me the next thing!"
Lao Zhu's tone was relaxed, and he took the draft casually. He just glanced at it twice and decisively wrote the word "as planned", and then stamped it with the seal of King Wu. From beginning to end, there was no question and the agreement was clean and tidy.
Seeing this scene, Li Shanchang was completely dumbfounded. Something was wrong!
Why did his familiar routine change?
Shouldn't we study it carefully?
How could Zhu Yuanzhang let such an important personnel arrangement go by so easily?
This is not scientific!
Li Shanchang looked at Zhang Ximeng again. Zhang Ximeng was stunned and asked for my opinion?
"Prime Minister Li, the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China worked well in the past, and there were no major mistakes. It's good like this. I am also the right prime minister, and I support your arrangement with both hands!"
Li Shanchang hesitated for a moment, but after all he couldn't say anything more, so he could only continue... God is pitiful, Zhu Yuanzhang was much easier to talk to today than ever before. He almost didn't ask questions, he just listened, and he was absolutely obedient, without any embarrassment.
Lao Li.
Even if some obviously hasty proposals contained obvious loopholes, Li Shanchang deliberately left them to Zhu Yuanzhang to correct. After all, as a subordinate, he had to give his superiors room to express themselves.
Li Shanchang knew this very well.
But the strange thing is that Zhu Yuanzhang didn't pay attention to these loopholes, as if he didn't notice them.
Everything was done according to Li Shanchang's wishes, without even making any changes.
Lao Li was panicked. He was not worried about these small loopholes. After all, with Li Shanchang's methods, they could be easily eliminated during execution.
The problem is that he can't figure out what kind of medicine Zhu Yuanzhang is selling in his gourd?
Could it be that the superior in front of me is fake? He is using a puppet to fool things around?
Otherwise, there is no way to explain clearly. How could Zhu Yuanzhang, who used to do everything personally, be willing to delegate power to himself?
Lao Li is getting more and more confused.
And because of Zhu Yuanzhang's cooperation, he prepared a large number of official documents, which could be discussed for a whole day, and even discussed the contents until midnight. It only took less than a morning to solve them all.
In Li Shanchang's hands, there was only one last thing left, which was the issue of officials' salaries.
It's interesting to say that it has been several years since Lao Zhu launched his army, but the officials' salaries have not yet been determined.
This is mainly because there were not many civil servants in the early days. At that time, gold and silver were too useful to be distributed casually. The printing of treasure notes had not yet begun... The civil servants followed the soldiers' example and received Lumi together, and they were still in the same system. To be precise,
At this time, the Zhu Jiajun had no concept of salary, only military pay, and the same was true for civilian officials.
Fortunately, food was hard currency at this time. Occasionally, Zhang Ximeng would persuade Zhu Yuanzhang to give some rewards, and during the holidays, he would give an extra three or two stones...
Generally speaking, officials can still get by.
After crossing the river, the number of officials became more and more swollen, especially after the imperial examinations were held, which resulted in too many local officials. If they still paid as much rice as before, they had to leave the military garrisons.
The military generals have long been unable to bear it and are in urgent need of reform.
By the way, after Lao Zhu ascended the throne and formally established civil and military officials, Li Shanchang came up with a separate salary system, which was attached to the six ministries of officials, division of responsibilities, hats, hats, and many other things.
Compared with the previous ones, salary was naturally a trivial matter. Li Shanchang thought that Zhu Yuanzhang would agree after a day of discussion, so he didn't pay much attention to it.
But today's situation has changed. The most inconspicuous salary issue has become the finale. Lao Li only feels that the pressure is overwhelming, but he must cheer up.
"In the upper position, hundreds of officials represent the herdsmen, and they have the most important responsibilities. The level of official salary is related to the morale of the people and cannot be careless. However, the country is a primitive country with hundreds of wastes waiting to be revitalized, and it cannot bear too much salary. Therefore, I thought again and felt that we should refer to the Song Dynasty
Yuan standard, appropriate profit and loss..."
When Li Shanchang mentioned this, he found that both Zhang Ximeng and Zhu Yuanzhang were silent, as if they had some opinions. Li Shanchang's heart dropped more and more, not good!
During this period of time, the Song Dynasty was the dynasty that criticized the most, and the Yuan Dynasty was a weak and puppet dynasty that wanted to be overthrown. Considering these two things, how could Zhu Yuanzhang be satisfied?
Therefore, Li Shanchang hurriedly said: "I refer to the salary of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, but it has been lowered a lot, less than one-third of the salary of the Song Dynasty... If the superior has any doubts, I will revise it now!"
Lao Li trembled and handed the list of salaries to Zhu Yuanzhang.
Zhang Ximeng, who was on the side, secretly laughed in his heart. This old Li was really good at calculating. Zhao Song was famous for his salary...not to mention the scary official salary, which was given to the prime minister every New Year.
The reward given to an important official is enough to stun people.
Even if it is one-third of the salary of the Song Dynasty, it is an astronomical figure!
There really is a mountain of gold and silver that can’t be spent all.
Zhang Ximeng didn't say anything. Anyway, let Lao Zhu decide. If you can't even see this, your painstaking teachings will be in vain.
As expected, Zhu Yuanzhang frowned and said, "Mr. Li, put this month's salary aside, how did you get this job money?"
Li Shanchang was startled, and said quickly: "If we return to the top, this will also follow the arrangements of the Song Dynasty, and is for the daily expenses of the yamen."
Zhu Yuanzhang frowned, "Isn't that right? How do we remember that all levels of yamen have special expenses? What's going on?"
"This, this is specially for officials to use in the yamen... mainly to deal with their own affairs..." Li Shanchang's voice became lower and lower. To put it bluntly, this is the money for officials to welcome and send, eat and drink, of course.
, you can also put it in your pocket, in short, you have the final say.
How could Lao Zhu agree?
"Public and private cannot be confused! Yamen's expenses must go to the public account, and you can't ask for money from this position!"
"Yes!" Li Shanchang agreed obediently.
Zhu Yuanzhang still refused to give up, "How can I repay this and still have a job?"
Li Shanchang grinned, "This, too, is modeled after the Song Dynasty system, and it is convenient for local officials to govern..."
"no!"
Lao Zhu interrupted directly and glared at Li Shanchang angrily, "Mr. Li, you don't know, right? The word "Jiuntian" means "Jiuntian" in our country. How dare you create "Zongtian"?
For a moment, Li Shanchang actually felt the murderous intent coming towards him, and Lao Zhu was really angry.
He hurriedly saluted, trembling all over, "My lord, I was confused for a moment, please forgive me."
Lao Zhu took a deep breath and looked down again. The anger he had just suppressed suddenly surged up again.
There are a lot of things behind this, such as rice, flour, salt, oil, tea, silk, charcoal, wine... Lao Zhu saw it straight. Since he was given a salary, why are there so many things?
We give money to officials just to buy these firewood, rice, oil and salt, and then I give you another one. If that's the case, why do we still give you a salary?
Isn't this crazy?
"Li Shanchang! What are you thinking? Do you want to line your own pockets, or do you want to win over people's hearts? Why don't you give all our treasury to all the officials?"
thump!
Lao Li couldn't bear his anger anymore and fell to his knees directly.
"Both superiors, superiors, I am confused. I, I, I should not imitate the regulations of the Song Dynasty. I, I, I will modify them immediately!" Li Shanchang was trembling all over and was very frightened.
At this time, Zhang Ximeng suddenly said: "My lord, can you let me take a look?"
Zhu Yuanzhang threw the official document to Zhang Ximeng, and after glancing at it briefly, Zhang Ximeng said: "My lord, I think this is a misunderstanding with Prime Minister Li. Zhao Song has always been willing to sacrifice his own resources to support scholars, and he is still proud of himself! The so-called nourishing scholars, all
On top of the salary, Zhao and Song officials had a generous salary for their own posts, and a sum of money for dispatch, which was also amazing. Furthermore, as Prime Minister Li said, there was job money, job land, clothing materials, rice, flour, grain and oil, salt and tea
Silk and silk were given out, everything was given out. During the festivals, the emperor lived a long life, and there were additional rewards. All added up, a third-rank official would have to use the taxes of a prefecture to support him every year. Of course, he was the poorest prefecture, but even if
This is also very shocking!”
"Absurd! Ridiculous!"
Zhu Yuanzhang was so angry that he stamped his feet and cursed angrily: "We have already said that we must get rid of the bad habits of Zhao and Song Dynasties and make everything new. Li Shanchang, why don't you have a long memory?"
Lao Li was scolded so badly that he was frightened to death. He could only keep saying: "Please rest assured, sir, I will revise it now!"
Zhang Ximeng said: "My lord, don't be too busy, and don't rush to blame Prime Minister Li. Salary is not something that can be conjured out of thin air. It is understandable that Prime Minister Li will refer to the experience of the previous dynasty. It is reasonable for the lord to disagree. This matter is settled.
It’s not Prime Minister Li’s fault, but I do have a suggestion. I would like to ask my lord to consider it, and I would also like to ask Prime Minister Li to review it in detail.”
Zhang Ximeng said with a smile: "There are three hundred and sixty industries, and officials are one of them... Just refer to the income and expenses of ordinary people every year, and then refer to prices, and draw up an algorithm to pay salaries to all officials from top to bottom.
Already."
After Zhang Ximeng finished speaking, Li Shanchang was simply dumbfounded!
These words are even more frightening than Zhu Yuanzhang's harsh words. I compared Zhao and Song's salary, but you directly use the people's income and expenditure as a reference. You, you want all the officials to die of poverty?