On the way north, Lin Fu was indeed depressed when he met old bureaucrats like Zhou Wenyun.
Lin Fu did not reprimand Zhou Wenyun and sent him away impatiently.
Zhou Wenyun resigned, and Xiaoman, who was sitting behind the screen and listening to the matter, came out, looked at Lin Fu's sad face, and said with a smile: "This elm lump seems uncomfortable, so kick him away and replace him with someone who can do the job."
It’s enough for the former secretary to become the county magistrate..."
"This Zhou Wenyun," Lin Fu said with a wry smile as he watched Su Mei and Xiao Man come out, "Although he has little brains, he can speak out these absurdities openly, which shows that he still trusts me. Compared with those who are behind the scenes,
Characters with hidden knives are still worth fighting for. Furthermore, keeping people like them can also help everyone see the problem, instead of hiding the problem and finally revealing a big problem, which is not good..."
"Then you still have a sad face?" Xiaoman asked.
"The old bureaucrats like Zhou Wenyun are still not a big problem. The real resistance is the local gentry clan." Lin Fu turned to face Su Mei, sat down and said, "I thought about this and felt that the matter was difficult to handle.
The core prefectures and counties along the Yangtze River are better, but outside of these areas, the general prefectures and counties, especially the areas below the county level, are still controlled by gentry clans. If you look at Guanyun County, including Zhou Wenyun, the leader
There are only twenty or thirty seal officials, auxiliary officials and civil servants in total, while Guanyun County covers an area of hundreds of miles and has a population of 150,000. Not to mention that old bureaucrats like Zhou Wenyun resisted the New Deal, let’s take a look at the local
If the powerful gentry clan wants to resist the New Deal, they have a lot of means. The New Deal can only be superficial and cannot be truly implemented..."
Su Mei said: "Since the implementation of the New Deal, these gentry have not only received little benefit, but all the privileges they enjoyed in the past have been completely canceled again. Although they occupy a large amount of land, they have to bear more than the basic land tax."
The tax burden is twice as high, but why don't you feel resentment in your heart? The ministers are afraid that the work of the Department of Internal Health is not thorough enough, but you still don't care..."
"If we want to change this situation, we still need to establish township bureaus at the county level and below. We can't let the rural society below the county level be controlled by the gentry and clan guardians," Lin Fu said. "Simple township bureaus are not enough.
The Secretary is responsible for uniting the poor peasants who have benefited from the New Deal, establishing a peasant association or a rural soldier organization, and is responsible for autumn training and other matters. Only in this way can the arrogance of the local tyrants and evil gentry be suppressed..."
In Lin Fu's plan, only when the township system is truly established can the administrative execution power of the central government penetrate into every corner of the new empire.
Nowadays, there are more than 700 counties under Jiangning's administration, and there are 6,000 to 8,000 townships and bureaucracies. At least 30,000 to 50,000 people are needed to support the grassroots officials.
At present, the new schools set up in Jiangning, Chongzhou, Mingzhou and other places can only train more than a thousand New Deal officials every year. These people with a higher level of education mainly serve as supplements to the central government, county bureaus and prefectural and county offices.
Lin Fu arranges for the retirement of meritorious veterans every year, and they are currently the main force in building the township system. However, in order to affect the combat effectiveness of the Huaidong Army, only three to five thousand meritorious veterans can be arranged and gradually replenished the local area every year.
At this rate, it will take at least ten years to perfect the township system.
In fact, in addition to a large number of grassroots officials, a financial source that can support the township system is also needed.
For this reason, in the new tax policy, Lin Fu classified the basic land tax and municipal commercial tax as local; and the annual income controlled by the Ministry of Household, which mainly comes from land tax and oral tax, will be reduced from the original 10 million taels of silver.
On the basis of a sharp decrease of 50%.
All affairs are connected one after another. If there is a problem in any link, the implementation of the entire New Deal will be delayed or even go back to the old path.
Lin Fu summoned Song Jia and the Zuo sisters who accompanied Song Jia, as well as Irie Ayazhi, to have a meal together. They could not rest after nightfall. An urgent letter from western Zhejiang woke Lin Fu from his bed again late at night.
This year's severe drought in western Zhejiang has affected more than 20 counties, and even affected prefectures and counties such as Shangrao in Jiangxi. After autumn, the drought in western Zhejiang was so severe that the central government had to directly intervene in disaster relief work. Lin Fu appointed Sun Jingtang as the minister of disaster relief.
He personally went to western Zhejiang to cooperate with the Propaganda and Fu Envoys of the two Zhejiang provinces to handle disaster relief matters.
The urgent letter sent from western Zhejiang at night was Sun Jingtang's further investigation into the disaster after he went to western Zhejiang.
More than 20 counties in western Zhejiang and southeastern Jiangxi have been affected by the severe drought. Almost 40% of the fields have lost their harvests in two seasons. Other grain fields have also generally experienced a reduction in production. More than 20 counties have been affected by the disaster, involving more than 2.5 million people.
This severe drought in western Zhejiang is similar to the severe drought in Henan and Guanzhong after the autumn of the eighth year of Chongguan, and is even more serious.
The collapse of Yuan Yue was only one factor caused by Yan and Hu's southward invasion. The Central Plains chaos caused by drought in Henan and Guanzhong, which took several years to subside, was a more important factor.
A severe drought in Henan and Guanzhong began in the autumn of the eighth year of Chongguan and lasted until the ninth year of Chongguan. Almost 20 counties had no harvests for two consecutive seasons. At that time, the financial capabilities of the Zhongzhou County Secretary and Yanjing had been consumed by the war on the northern and southern fronts.
It was clean, and there was no institution like Huaidong Bank to provide sufficient flexibility for the central finance. The disaster relief was ineffective, which led to rampant epidemics and starvation, leading to the exodus of nearly a million disaster victims.
The outflow of disaster victims hit surrounding prefectures and counties, resulting in a larger scale of refugees. In the end, almost two to three million refugees poured into the Jianghuai area. Underneath, Liu An'er and other ambitious people stirred up trouble, and eventually brewed the Huaihe River disaster that swept the Central Plains.
The Siliu people's army was in chaos.
Therefore, after a severe drought occurred in western Zhejiang that resulted in a season of no harvests, the Privy Council was extra nervous about the drought in western Zhejiang. First, it repeatedly ordered the Propaganda Department of Zhejiang and Zhejiang to pay attention to the disaster. Finally, it also sent out disaster relief and mass organizations.
Sun Jingtang, who has rich experience, went to western Zhejiang to provide disaster relief.
Lin Fu made two demands to Sun Jingtang: first, the unorganized exodus of victims should not be allowed to attack surrounding prefectures and counties, and second, no one should be allowed to starve to death.
Sun Jingtang's urgent letter, in addition to further investigation and conclusions on the disaster, also issued a large disaster relief list. The most fundamental item was to transfer 2 million tons of grain from peripheral counties to Zhejiang.
West, the central government needs to allocate a special disaster relief fund of three million silver dollars for this purpose.
In the old days, three million silver dollars was a staggering amount of money.
The Propaganda and Prosecution Departments of the two Zhejiang provinces and the Procuratorate Department both countersigned Sun Jingtang’s urgent letter. Lin Fu sighed lightly and said, “It’s another three million silver dollars in additional expenses. Lin Mengde probably needs more hair.”
I’m so worried that I’ve turned a few white…”
"I thought that by not fighting a big war this year, I would be able to breathe a sigh of relief, but I didn't expect that the saved financial resources would be completely consumed by the drought in western Zhejiang. Naturally, Meng Degong's mood would not be better." Song Jia said with a smile.
"If the problem in western Zhejiang can be solved with only three million silver dollars, Zhitusi can still barely afford it," Lin Fu said, "There is no need to increase taxes, and there is no need to ask for help from Huaidong Bank and Settlers Bank; in western Zhejiang
There is a severe drought, but many people want to see the show of the Duke's Mansion, I am afraid they will be disappointed..."
"Shangrao Prefecture is also affected. Guanxi County should be at the center of the drought, but it is the least affected among the more than 20 counties. It even has the ability to supply food to the surrounding disaster-stricken counties. It seems that building dams and blocking rivers is indeed a serious matter.
It's helpful..." Su Mei looked at the official letter and said.
Guanxi County was the main battlefield of the Battle of Shangrao. To commemorate this battle, it was renamed Guanxi County.
In the battle of Shangrao, Lin Fu blocked the river and built a dam in the upper reaches of Shanxi River, attacking the defense line built by the She family in the lower reaches. He opened the dam and released it into the lake, destroying both sides of Shanxi River beyond recognition.
After the war, in order to compensate for the local area, Lin Fu specially allocated money to Guanxi County to build a permanent dam on the upper reaches of Shanxi River.
In addition to cultivating more fertile farmland, river dams and reservoirs are mainly used to alleviate the serious problem of droughts and droughts on both sides of the Shanxi River.
The dam was built last fall and will be officially used to store water this year.
Although Western Zhejiang is involved in the severe drought in some areas of Jiangxi, which has shown its power since the beginning of summer, the dam still stores a certain amount of water before the drought, instead of letting the water flow into the Gan River and then into the Gan River.
Poyang Lake and Guanxi County weathered the worst drought season more easily this time.
It's just that other places are not as lucky as Guanxi County.
Building barrages to improve hydrology and geography and regulate droughts and floods is just one of the ancient water weir projects. The history can be traced back to the pre-Qin period, and the most famous one is Dujiangyan in the late Warring States. At that time, the plains in western Sichuan were flooded thousands of miles away.
After the construction of Dujiangyan, nearly 3 million acres of fertile soil on the western Sichuan plain became good farmland that can guarantee harvests despite droughts and floods.
Although western Zhejiang is located in the south, it is also prone to flooding during floods and droughts during droughts. The good thing is that the surrounding eastern Zhejiang and northern Zhejiang are grain-producing areas, so whenever there is a disaster, even if the victims flee, Zhejiang
Prefectures and counties in eastern Zhejiang and northern Zhejiang also have strong capacity to withstand the situation and will not cause major chaos.
However, this severe drought in western Zhejiang is also rare in the past century.
Although Sun Jingtang requested three million silver dollars in disaster relief funds from the central government this time and purchased two million grains of grain from peripheral prefectures and counties to enter western Zhejiang, of course he would not distribute it to the victims for no reason.
The construction of water conservancy, transportation and other public projects in western Zhejiang requires the affected people to exchange work for relief to solve the problem of food and clothing after the disaster. Once these large-scale water conservancy and transportation projects are completed, they will be able to completely improve the basic appearance of the counties in western Zhejiang.
With Sun Jingtang in charge in western Zhejiang, the central government can draw out three million silver dollars, and the surrounding counties can also ensure a supply of two million silver dollars. There will be no major problems in western Zhejiang, and the New Deal can be asked to borrow this money in western Zhejiang.
Opportunity to take root more deeply - Lin Fu also breathed a sigh of relief, signed his opinion on Sun Jingtang's urgent letter, sent a letter to Jiangning overnight, and asked the Privy Council to deal with it according to the regulations.
The New Deal cannot once and for all solve all the problems that may arise in the future, and the New Deal itself may even cause many serious problems.
Lin Fu never expected to be able to eliminate all crises from the beginning. His ultimate goal was to establish a flexible central government that would be able to survive major disasters, wars, and even the invasion of the entire country by the enemy.
At the same time, a flexible central government is capable of resolving major crises.
If a country or a nation lasts for thousands of years, it will inevitably face various serious crises. The most important thing is the ability to deal with serious crises; there has never been a country that can handle all crises at the beginning.
A perfect political system that was eradicated in advance.
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