When Lao Zhu heard Han Du's words, his eyes widened. Because of Lao Zhu's childhood experience, what he hated most in his heart was corrupt officials. After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Lao Zhu always focused on punishing corrupt officials.
As the first priority of the Ming Dynasty, Lao Zhu even issued a special imperial edict to the people in order to give the people a place to appeal their grievances. If the people had grievances, they could use the imperial edict to directly escort the relevant officials to the capital.
Lao Zhu personally asked.
It can be said that Lao Zhu was the most active among all emperors in punishing corrupt officials.
Han Du ignored Lao Zhu and continued to explain: "As for that county, there is only one parent official in a county. One person faces tens of thousands of people in a county. Even if the county official does evil, the impact will usually be
A small number of people. On the contrary, the number of yamen servants in the county ranges from dozens to hundreds. If they do evil, the people affected will be dozens of times that number. And there are more people than yamen servants, such as li chiefs and grain chiefs.
People."
"There are so many of these li chiefs and grain chiefs that they go deep into every township and village. If someone with good character takes the post, that's fine, and it will be of great benefit to the local people. But once their position is stolen by cunning people, not only will it be
It will do no good to the people. Instead, it will gather in the countryside, oppress the people, and cause harm to the whole country."
Lao Zhu was stunned when he heard this. He had never heard of such a situation before.
He said in surprise: "Is this really so? It shouldn't be the case. One of the purposes of setting up Li Changbaojia is that these people and the people are fellow villagers after all, and they should not bully people in the same village."
Lao Zhu hated corrupt officials so much that he no longer trusted officials at all. He would rather let the people manage themselves than let officials go to the countryside to harm the people.
But Lao Zhu never thought about a problem. Power can easily change a person. It can turn a person who has been kind to others since childhood into a man-eating beast in a very short period of time. These people in the countryside
During the period, he had almost unlimited power, but the county government could not control this kind of power. The system of village chief and grain chief was good at the beginning, but Lao Zhu established this system, but did not treat these people
included in the scope of supervision.
And as these village chiefs and grain chiefs passed away from father to son, and accumulated from generation to generation, a strange class was born among the common people and officials, the squires.
The boy who slayed the dragon finally became an evil dragon.
When Han Du heard this, he smiled bitterly and explained to Lao Zhu: "Your Majesty, without the power of supervision, it would be a huge disaster for the people. Fortunately, these first-generation li chiefs and grain chiefs have not returned yet.
After thinking about it, they have no idea how to use the power in their hands. When they react in the future, each of these villages will become a three-acre land that is completely independent of them, impermeable to wind and rain.
Not entering."
Han Du looked into the void, sighed, and continued: "They can completely speak their minds on their own territory. Whether the people are right or wrong depends entirely on their words. At that time, even the imperial court will not
Even if I try to reach in, I'm afraid it's beyond the reach of the whip. In some places, family law is better than national law, and that's how it was formed."
After listening to this, Lao Zhu looked cold. He wanted to refute Han Du's words, but he opened his mouth but nothing came out. It was not uncommon in the Yuan Dynasty for family law to be more important than national law. Lao Zhu has always wanted to
He wanted to know what was going on in this situation. But he had never been able to find an answer that satisfied him, and now Han Du accidentally gave him an answer.
To put it bluntly, this is a cognitive difference. In the eyes of the imperial court, only those with good grades are officials, but in the eyes of the common people, anyone with power, whether it is a scribe or a government servant, as well as the chief of the district and the chief of grain.
.
"Do you want the imperial court to take over both the li chief and the grain chief?" Lao Zhu asked in surprise. Without waiting for Han Du's answer, he shook his head and said, "This is almost impossible. The imperial court lacks talents.
, where to find so many people to take charge of all the li chiefs and grain chiefs?"
Talking about the Hongwu Year, what did Lao Zhu lack the most? The first one was, of course, money. He had to fight for years to pacify the four directions, and went north to conquer the remaining Yuan Dynasties. Military expenditures were like the Yellow River bursting its banks, and he could not make ends meet every year. The second one was that
After more than ten years of war in the last years of the Yuan Dynasty, not only the people's livelihood was in decline, but also the number of scholars was greatly reduced. After all, with a safe environment, people will have time to study books carefully. In a war-torn and precarious world,
In that era, who could still calm down and study? Even if there were, it was only a rare official family that had this condition. But how many of these people were there? For the entire Ming Dynasty, it was just a drop in the bucket.
When the Ming Dynasty was first established, there was no need to take any imperial examinations to become an official. As long as you were a scholar, recommended by others or favored by Lao Zhu, you could become an official.
When the Ming Dynasty was first established, there was an endless stream of people who came to Jinling to seek official positions. However, even this could not meet the needs of the entire Ming Dynasty court.
It was not until more than ten years after the world became stable that this situation eased a lot. At least, the people employed in the imperial court did not just grab one and throw it into the official position. Lao Zhu occasionally held imperial examinations to make selections.
It is impossible for scholars to meet the larger demand for talents such as li chiefs and grain chiefs, unless they wait until comprehensive education.
"Your Majesty, your Majesty, it is naturally impossible to fill Manli Chang and Grain Chief with talents. However, the tasks undertaken by the Chief and Grain Chief here are not complicated. You can just select people from among the people as you do now.
." Han Du said.
After hearing Han Du's words, Lao Zhu gave him a strange look and asked in confusion: "Didn't you just say that the li chiefs and grain chiefs selected from the common people would in turn oppress the common people in the future? Why now?
..."
Han Du replied sincerely: "Your Majesty, I think there is nothing wrong with the system of chiefs and grain chiefs."
What are the problems with this system? Many people have a very superficial understanding of the system. Once there is something bad, they think it is the fault of society and the system. But if you think about it carefully, is there anything wrong with the system?
The system is dead, but talent is alive.
There is no right or wrong for a dead thing, only people can be wrong. As for Lao Zhu's system of village chiefs and grain chiefs, if this system is implemented well, it will naturally be beneficial to the people. But
If it is not implemented well, this system will naturally do a lot of harm to the people without any benefit.