Taking advantage of the rainy season, the Tang Army began to free up its hands to rest and replenish various units. In addition, it seized the time to complete the reorganization of the five existing temporary regiments and reorganize them into regular mixed regiments. In addition, it also made appropriate preparations.
A small-scale strengthening of the strength of the frontline units was carried out, mainly by increasing the number of artillery and guns and starting to equip plate armor on a small scale.
Then the cabinet also urgently needs to completely bring the newly conquered southern Huguang and southern Jiangxi areas into its rule, so that these places can provide soldiers and taxes for the Tang Dynasty!
Conquering one area and controlling another is the core military and political strategy of the Tang Dynasty at this stage!
They are not bandits, they will just leave them alone after the fight!
Therefore, although the fighting on the front line has stopped, Li Xuan is still busy. Not only Li Xuan, but actually the entire administrative system of the Tang Dynasty continues to operate at a high speed.
Not only are there many administrative matters, but the palace examination for the third year of Xuanping is about to begin!
Strictly speaking, this imperial examination was the first formal imperial examination of the Tang Dynasty. Unlike last year's hurried imperial examination, the imperial examination this time was held in a very standard manner.
From the county examination to the prefecture examination, the hospital examination, and then to the township examination, the joint examination, and the palace examination, everything is strictly in accordance with the traditional imperial examination process.
In February, when the frontline troops were fighting hard, thousands of scholars from all over the country gathered in Zhaoqing to participate in the first official meeting of the Tang Dynasty.
Although many of the scholars who participated in the original examination were just to make up for the numbers, and their quality was not very good. According to the imperial examination standards of the Ming Dynasty, among the thousands of scholars, probably one-tenth of them had real qualifications.
No, but Li Xuan and even the entire Tang Dynasty don't care!
This time, because most scholars in the three provinces were opposed to the Tang Dynasty, they did not participate in the imperial examination as enthusiastically as the Ming Dynasty held the imperial examination. However, this also lowered the threshold accordingly.
Basically, those who apply for the exam can get the title of scholar if they are just a little bit decent!
It’s also relatively easy to take the exam!
The National Juren Examination was also simple. Thousands of people took the exam, and more than 300 honorary scholars in the Jinshi program and more than 80 honorary scholars in the doctoral program were admitted.
In total, there are more than 400 people, accounting for one-sixth of the candidates for the examination!
What's interesting is that more than half of these students who were able to pass the palace examination and obtain the title of Jinshi or doctorate were born in the Imperial College.
Because the students of the Imperial College will be awarded the title of Juren and have the right to directly participate in the imperial examination, and the content of the examination is basically based on the teaching content of the Imperial College, so the students of the Imperial College have a very high chance of passing the exam!
Of course, this is also related to the fact that there are not many local candidates to take the exam!
In April, Li Xuan officially held the palace examination and personally took charge!
He also personally reviewed more than 80 examination papers for all doctoral programs, and also reviewed the top 30 examination papers for Jinshi subjects.
Zhao Lin, a young student from Guangzhou Prefecture, was appointed as the top scholar in the new Jinshi subject, and Liu Linhan, a student from Guozi Supervisory College, was the top candidate in the doctoral program!
At the same time, he personally ordered the first-class Jinshi in the Jinshi Department and the second-class doctorate and above in the doctoral program to enter the Hanlin Academy, and were awarded various official positions in the Hanlin Academy.
However, Li Xuan allowed them to enter the Hanlin Academy not to raise their hopes, but to train their abilities.
Because the Hanlin Academy in the Tang Dynasty, unlike the Hanlin Academy in the Ming Dynasty, was not an institution to provide support, but an institution that actually dealt with government affairs. These new Hanlin Academy members entered the Hanlin Academy, a de facto secretarial agency, to train themselves to be familiar with government affairs.
of.
But it is impossible to be like the Hanlins of the Ming Dynasty, who could stay in the Hanlin for more than ten or twenty years, and then directly go to the cabinet. In the Tang Dynasty, there was no such shortcut.
Because Li Xuan has already stipulated that Hanlin officials are not allowed to be promoted within the Hanlin Academy system. If they want to be promoted, they can go to external transfers, even if they don’t want to be external transfers, because Hanlin officials can only hold one position for three years. After three years, they don’t want to be transferred.
External transfer must also be external transfer.
And even if there are vacancies in the Hanlin Academy, young key officials must be recruited from outside to fill them, and they will not be selected directly from the Hanlin Academy!
After a scientific conference, Li Xuan looked at the list of hundreds of officials and was deeply gratified. There are so many talented people from all over the world who have gathered them all!
At the same time, after this formal science and technology event was completed, the foundation of the Tang Dynasty was firmly established!
When a feudal dynasty started the imperial examination, it was almost a sign that the dynasty was becoming more stable. At the same time, these new scholars joined the Tang Dynasty. Behind them were hundreds or even thousands of key families of this era who joined the Tang Dynasty.
This carriage.
These days, a student is never alone. Behind them are teachers, friends, and clan members.
Naturally, a new scholar is nothing in a place like Zhaoqing, because this place, like the capital in the north, is now full of officials, but this new scholar usually has great influence in the local area.
Not to mention the scholars who have passed the imperial examination, even a qualified scholar has great influence in the local area. He is the backbone of the local gentry!
As long as the Tang Dynasty holds more imperial examinations, more and more scholars will join. By then, I dare not say all of the elites in the three provinces, but most of them will directly or indirectly join the Tang Dynasty.
system and became the enemy of the Ming Dynasty!
This is also the reason why Li Xuan supported the establishment of the imperial examination and even held his nose to recruit scholars who could only write eight-legged essays.
On the surface this is for talent, but in reality it is to win over the elites from the three provinces!
Since the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, it has always been on the opposite side of the elite, especially in terms of taxation. The three major types of taxes adopted by the "gentry, commercial tax, and agricultural tax" almost severely suppressed the local elite.
, and constantly aroused their resistance, either overtly or covertly.
In the second year of Xuanping, countless people were confiscated and exterminated by the Tang Dynasty. Countless people were suppressed by armed resistance to tax, and so many people were killed, and most of them were elite gentry represented by landlords and big businessmen.
But governing the world cannot rely solely on killing. If everyone is killed, who will Li Xuan govern?
Therefore, the imperial examination was an important means used by Li Xuan and the Tang Dynasty to ease relations with the gentry class!
What these gentry care about most is actually not land or making money, but being an official!
For thousands of years, the elites in China have cared most about being an official!
There is no way, the official-oriented thinking formed over thousands of years is not so easy to reverse.
Li Xuan's current method is to forcibly implement various new policies and kill for them, and on the other hand, it also gives those gentry who obey the rule of the Tang Dynasty a step forward. To put it more simply,
To describe it, it’s like holding a stick in one hand and candies in the other.
And to put it in more straightforward terms: those who obey me will prosper and those who go against me will perish!
After the imperial examination in the third year of Xuanping came to an end, Li Xuan instructed that preparations for next year's imperial examination should begin this year as well!
Yes, that's right, Li Xuan is an imperial examination that has been held every year in recent years. On the one hand, it is to win over the elite, and on the other hand, it is also to alleviate the lack of talents.
Even if the talents in Li Xuan's heart are students from the Young Military Camp or the Imperial Academy, such a large empire needs not hundreds or thousands of officials, but tens of thousands. The current rule of the Tang Dynasty
As the district grows larger, the demand for officials also increases.
In particular, the political power of the Tang Dynasty was directly sent to the countryside. It was not established at the county level like the Ming Dynasty. There were only a few officials in each county. The proportion of officials in the Tang Dynasty was relatively large.
Moreover, there is no such thing as an official in the Tang Dynasty, but everyone who eats the royal food has an official status. Even the lowest-level clerk or patrol officer has an official status from the ninth rank!
This also makes many people misunderstand that the Tang Dynasty had many officials, but in fact, this fact did not exist, because the officials and officials of the Tang Dynasty were actually merged into one with the Ming Dynasty.
Although compared with the Ming Dynasty, there will be an increase in personnel salary expenses, but the increase is not much, because although these people in the Ming Dynasty do not take money from the court, they still need to get wages. Where do the wages come from?
Comes from the fat of the people and the anointing of the people.
Now the Tang Dynasty implemented a strict tax system and implemented a system of separation of national and local taxes. In fact, most of the salaries of local officials were borne by local finance themselves, and the central finance only borne a very small part.
Therefore, it does not deepen the financial pressure, let alone increase the tax burden on the people!
However, only a brand-new dynasty like the Tang Dynasty could establish such a system. If the Ming Dynasty were allowed to carry out such reforms, the Zhu Dynasty would be reformed in minutes!
But Li Xuan was still dissatisfied with the various existing systems of the Tang Dynasty. The current systems of the Tang Dynasty still did not meet the ideal requirements he envisioned.
For example, in the most important tax system, there are still too few types of taxes. There are only a few major tax types such as commercial tax, agricultural tax, customs duty, and salt tax. Among them, the more important commercial tax is not divided in too much detail.
The only thing that is relatively complete is the tariff, because Datang's tariff was built directly from scratch without any reference from the previous dynasty. From the beginning, different proportions of import taxes and export taxes were levied on different goods!
Moreover, tariffs do not belong to local governments, but are directly collected from the central government!
However, as for commercial tax, a simple one-size-fits-all approach was adopted at that time, which mainly consisted of business tax for shops and workshops and taxes at various checkpoints. The business tax was basically fixed, and the mainland tariffs were also levied in a relatively simple and rough manner. A merchant with a tax card
A one-time tax will have to be paid.
Therefore, Li Xuan is preparing to make a detailed division of commercial taxes in the near future!
However, before the detailed division of commercial taxes, the Tang Dynasty still had another task to do, which was to draft and issue a series of business-related laws, also known as the "Datang Commercial Law".