Chapter 800 Jiangnan Scholars' Curves to Save the Nation
Chen Lifu didn't stay at his friend Zhong Cai's house for long. He left in the afternoon. After picking up his wife and little sister, he returned to Dongchen Village. However, on the way back, there was an extra man on his carriage.
Stacks of books.
These books are all published by the Royal Publishing House, with different types. Naturally, these books are not about the Four Books and Five Classics, but some miscellaneous books. For example, scholars under the rule of the Tang Dynasty, regardless of whether they have the intention to apply for the university entrance examination.
Most people who took the imperial examination or became an official in the Tang Dynasty would buy a book called "Introduction to Science".
This is an introductory book to science, but it is a book used by the Royal Press to popularize science knowledge. In addition to simple arithmetic knowledge, it also contains simple physics, chemistry, astronomy, geography, climate, and biological knowledge.
Although after reading this book, it is impossible to know any advanced knowledge or the principles of some phenomena mentioned in the book, but it is not important. This book does not tell you why the earth is round.
, but simply and straightforwardly tell you: the earth is round!
I won’t tell you why water is still not hot when boiled in places with high waves, but I will tell you directly: when boiling water in high mountains, the temperature is so low.
To put it simply, this book will directly tell you the results, but it will not go into a long and extensive demonstration of why there is such a result. Otherwise, let alone a book, even a large room of books would not be able to finish it.
If you want to understand why this is the case, then please study in depth books such as "Elementary Physics" and "Elementary Chemistry". If you want to specialize, then you should enter a college of higher learning or the Imperial College for systematic and in-depth study.
Others include an overview of the countries in Europe and the West and an overview of East Asia, two books that broadened their horizons.
At the same time, there is also "On Farming and Mulberry", which is dedicated to farming and mulberry affairs.
Of course, these are not important. The most important thing is a manuscript in his hand, titled "Administrative Essentials for Officials in Prefectures and Counties of the Tang Dynasty". This is not a publicly published book, but compiled by the Royal Publishing House.
Books were then printed internally and distributed to local officials at all levels within Datang.
The content of this book is compiled based on the governance experience of the Tang Dynasty in the past few years, with the intention of allowing local officials to better govern the country.
Well, the core purpose is to prevent local officials from messing up!
Many contents in the book emphasize several special words. The first one is enlightenment, but this enlightenment is not about teaching more scholars, but about allowing officials to strengthen the people's understanding of the Tang Dynasty.
A sense of belonging and loyalty to the Eternal Saint King. At any time, the ideological education of loyalty to the King must be regarded as the most important thing to do.
The second is people's livelihood. We must ensure that the people under the rule live and work in peace and contentment. They have food to eat, clothing to wear and a house to live in.
The third is the economy: I hope that all localities can make use of their own advantages, such as the development of mineral resources, the fertile land for a wide variety of grains, and the convenient transportation and development of trade and transportation. In a word: relying on mountains and rivers to rely on
We hope that officials at all levels will make full use of local advantages to develop the economy, make the people rich, and increase tax revenue.
The second and third items actually mean almost the same thing, but the former is a basic task, while the latter is an advanced task.
The Ministry of Rites came up with this policy essentials, on the one hand, because the level of officials under the current Tang Dynasty is uneven, and there are also many who were demoted in the former Ming Dynasty, and the governance methods of many of them are still stuck in the Ming Dynasty.
, that is to govern by doing nothing.
And Li Xuan is very disgusted with this. Now that you are in power, you actually travel around the mountains and rivers and visit brothels every day. You don't do anything, and you still claim to be ruling by doing nothing. You are so lazy that you let people review memorials every day.
How unbearable my feelings are!
This is simply intolerable, so in the past two years, Li Xuan has removed the hat of many officials who travel to the mountains and rivers and visit brothels every day under the banner of governing by doing nothing!
Chen Lifu was very interested in this policy guideline. He started reading it on the way back. Even the many regulations and even specific examples listed in it made him frown.
For example, there is a serious warning in big black letters that local officials must not interfere in military affairs, local officials must not interfere in the independent operation of the Supervisory Office and the Grand Court, and violators will be severely punished.
Then it went on to say that local officials were prohibited from using private taxes, fees, corvee, etc. in any name.
Most of the content in this huge policy guide is to warn officials not to do this or that.
After a while, Chen Lifu sighed: "It seems that it is not easy to be an official in Li Tang!"
Isn't that right? Being an official in the Tang Dynasty is naturally not easy. If you are a military officer, it will be fine. Now is their most prosperous time, but the civil servants will have to work harder.
Insufficient funds and manpower, they worked hard to revitalize the local economy and raise taxes. As a result, most of the tax revenue was taken away by the military and used as military expenses, and then they were left to mess around in the wind.
But even so, the officials in the Tang Dynasty still gritted their teeth and persisted, because they knew that the current situation would not last long, wars could not be fought every year, and the pace of military expansion was not
Never ending.
After the Tang Dynasty completely unified China, their good days would come.
After all, in the founding stage of the country, everything was naturally tilted towards the army, but when the world was at peace, this huge country would still have to be governed by civilian officials like them.
Looking at the past dynasties, it is possible that in the early days of the dynasty, the emphasis was on military force but not on literature. However, after entering the stable period, the emphasis was basically on culture but not on military force.
So they are waiting, waiting for their civil official period to come!
In addition, those who dare to rebel with Li Xuan now, even if they are civil servants, have great ambitions. Among the senior civil servants in the Tang Dynasty today, every one of them wants to be the founding hero and then gain glory and wealth.
This kind of opportunity to rebel and found a country will not happen once in hundreds of years!
Now that they have seized the opportunity, they will naturally not give up easily!
Expectations for the future and their own ambitions, coupled with the general trend, so although the civil servants in the Tang Dynasty are living a very hard life now, they are all enduring.
Of course, this is just an exaggerated adjective. If we really talk about it carefully, in fact, the salary of being an official in the Tang Dynasty was not low, especially the salary of middle and senior officials was actually very good.
The annual salary of a seventh-grade county magistrate can reach about a thousand taels of silver. The specific figure fluctuates depending on the financial situation of each province, but generally speaking, the difference is not too big.
Although this income is not worth mentioning compared to corruption, the income of one thousand taels a year can actually allow officials to maintain good dignity and support a large family.
After all, people's incomes these days are generally very low. For example, the average worker in Zhaoqing Arsenal's monthly salary is about one to two or five taels of silver, and his annual income is only 20 taels.
As for low-level technical workers or low-level managers, their salary is generally around ten taels per year, and rarely exceeds one hundred taels.
Only middle and senior management and technical personnel can earn more than a hundred taels of silver or more per year.
Generally speaking, if the annual income is more than one hundred taels of silver, it can basically maintain a decent life for a family of several people, and you can also hire a mother-in-law, a maid, etc.
If the income is five to six hundred and two years, then it is definitely a super-high-income class. If it is more than a thousand taels, it already belongs to the powerful class.
The head of a county happens to belong to the powerful class.
Therefore, although there are many restrictions for being an official in the Tang Dynasty, the legal income is much higher than that of being an official in the Ming Dynasty. Of course, corrupt officials have to be dealt with separately. People are too lazy to look at a thousand taels of silver.
After serving as a county magistrate for three years, I would be embarrassed to say that I was a corrupt official unless I made tens of thousands of taels of silver.
But with such a high income, why are the civil servants of the Tang Dynasty still working hard, especially the middle and senior officials!
Because the Tang Dynasty often delayed wages, especially the wages of senior officials, which could be delayed as long as possible!
This high income is only in the mirror, you can see it, but you can’t get it!
Most of the salaries of officials have been turned into national debt!
As an orthodox dynasty, the Tang Dynasty naturally cannot publicly delay salary arrears, but the finances have no money, how can they pay them?
In the past, IOUs were issued and officials were called on to make donations. However, since the Royal Bank came out, it has changed its approach and issued a kind of treasury bonds specifically for officials with relatively high interest rates, and then transferred the funds of middle- and senior-level officials to
A portion of their salary is converted directly into five-year Treasury bonds and issued to them.
Of course, in order to reassure officials, interest will still be paid every year.
Although some people were dissatisfied with the court's almost cheating method, there was nothing that could be done. After all, everyone knew that the court had no money.
Otherwise, cabinet ministries and even local government offices would not be thinking of various ways to increase income.
Being an official in the Tang Dynasty was hard, but no matter how hard it was, there were still people who wanted to do it, and Chen Lifu was one of them.
Unlike former Ming officials like Chen Lifu, who could be directly recruited into the officialdom, those who were successful candidates or scholars could either continue to take the imperial examinations and then gain the title of Jinshi and rise to the top, or they could take the provincial examinations and directly join the officialdom, even though they started from a low level.
It took a while, but there were still many people actively participating.
This situation is the same as the imperial examination. After the Tang Dynasty captured Jiangnan, almost overnight, the attitude of people all over the world, especially scholars, towards the Tang Dynasty changed instantly.
This can be seen from the name of the Tang Dynasty by Jiangnan scholars. In the past, it was all Pseudo-Tang Dynasty, but now, many people no longer say that, but changed it to Li Tang Dynasty. In special places and
On this occasion, the words Li and Tang were no longer mentioned, but directly referred to as imperial court and national dynasty.
This court is naturally not the Ming Dynasty, but the Tang Dynasty!
At the same time, many people, like Chen Lifu, were preparing to serve as officials in the Tang Dynasty to change many of the chaos and tyranny of the Tang Dynasty and benefit the people.
For the sake of the common people in the world, they did not hesitate to join the Tang Dynasty traitors and feed tigers with their bodies, but they also had to go through all kinds of twists and turns to save the country and the common people in the world!
Therefore, for a time, the sales of various books published by the Royal Publishing House, especially the basic books related to the Imperial Examinations of the Tang Dynasty, were quite good, which made the Ministry of Rites extremely happy.