In the Song Dynasty, there was no law or order.

New Year, New Atmosphere. In 1041 AD, the first year of Qingli arrived.

Historically, the Song and Xia dynasties were still in a standoff. Years of war made the Song Dynasty miserable, and the grain price in Bianliang skyrocketed.

But since the peace talks in Kangding last year, the domestic situation has been regionally stable, and the grain price has returned to normal.

Zhao Jun has been very busy recently. First of all, as the head of the Political System Institute and the second-in-command of the Song Dynasty, he has to attend various occasions.

For example, the morning court, the year-end sacrifice, the New Year banquet, etc., he also has to go to Kaifeng Prefecture and various departments to make inspections and instructions, review their work in the past year, and investigate the current efficiency of the officialdom.

Then Zhao Zhen chose a marriage for him. It was Cao Wei's youngest daughter, named Cao Miaoxin, the cousin of Empress Cao.

It is worth mentioning that Empress Cao's name is Cao Miaolian.

Cao Miaoxin was born in Cao Wei's later years. She was born in the first year of Tiansheng, that is, in 1023 AD. She is seventeen years old this year and will be eighteen in a few months. She barely meets Zhao Jun's requirements.

There is no way.

First, Zhao Jun inherited the fine tradition of the old Zhao family - liking beautiful women.

Second, he really couldn't accept underage marriage, which had something to do with principles and also with the hope that his wife would grow up and give birth to healthy children.

However, in the ancient times when women were engaged at the age of fifteen, or even at the age of eleven or twelve, or even seven or eight, it was hard to find a beautiful woman over eighteen years old who was not a widow or divorcee, and who was of equal status.

As for Cao Miaoxin, she was born into a military family and liked swords, guns, and sticks since she was a child. It was said that she had a lover, and she beat away all those who came to propose marriage with sticks, which led to her not getting married at the age of seventeen.

When Zhao Zhen heard about it, he told Cao Cong about it. Cao Cong was naturally overjoyed and told his niece, but Cao Miaoxin was not happy, saying that she had been waiting for her lover and didn't want to go on a blind date with Zhao Jun, which delayed the matter for a few days and she hesitated for a long time before agreeing to meet.

It just so happened that Zhao Jun had other things to deal with. Although Zhao Zhen mentioned to him that there was a suitable woman he could meet, he was delayed by other things halfway through the journey and stood up the woman, which was quite unexpected.

In fact, Zhao Jun could not be blamed for this, because he was caught by Bao Zheng that day. Bao Zheng returned to Bianliang in the fourth year of Jingyou and was appointed by Zhao Jun as the magistrate of Kaifeng Prefecture. He was very conscientious in his duties and was promoted to the position of Palace Minister after two years.

Although he was an eighth-rank censor, he did not despise his power. In less than a year, he impeached many colleagues and made people hate him.

Originally, this situation would definitely be suppressed, but he was appreciated by the big boss. He was promoted to Supervisory Censor last year and transferred to the position of Co-governor of Kaifeng Prefecture a year later. His promotion was like riding a rocket, and he went from the seventh rank to the fifth rank in four years.

On the way to the blind date, Zhao Jun's carriage slipped due to snow, and the horse collided with the people and was caught by Bao Zheng who was patrolling the street at the time.

Bao Zheng didn't care that the boss behind him was Zhao Jun himself. He directly scolded his boss in the street and asked him to compensate the people for all the losses.

This made people depressed and delayed the blind date. Zhao Jun had to send someone to tell Cao's house to make an appointment next time. Then he went to Lao Fan's house to discuss the new policy reform this year.

It was the beginning of the new year, the sixth day of the first month. Except for the officials on duty, most officials were on vacation.

Lao Fan has been in great glory recently. He has just been promoted from the deputy prime minister of the alternate Tongzhi to the prime minister. His prestige among the people has skyrocketed because of his two major victories. Now he has become an idol in the hearts of the people of the Song Dynasty.

Zhao Jun entered the Fan Mansion and saw Lao Fan leisurely drinking tea in the study. In previous years, Zhao Zhen would hold more banquets and invite civil and military officials to have banquets and poetry meetings every day.

But it snowed in Bianliang this year, and it was a bit cold. The Constitutional Court was a group of old men in their sixties and seventies. They were afraid of causing trouble for them, so they only held an annual meeting and cancelled the banquet afterwards. Everyone rested at home, which was quite comfortable.

Seeing that Old Fan was leisurely, Zhao Jun walked over unhappily and sat on the chair opposite him, with his feet on the edge of the charcoal basin, and complained while warming himself by the fire: "You are comfortable."

"Why? You are not comfortable?"

Old Fan was not sitting behind the desk in the study, but he actually made a wooden couch inside, with a thick quilt on the wooden couch. He lay on it diagonally and covered his chest with the quilt. He leaned on the wooden couch to read a book, drinking tea while reading.

He turned sideways, took the teacup from the coffee table next to him and took a sip, then put it down, looked at Zhao Jun and said with a smile: "I heard that the emperor has chosen a woman for you, and she is from the Cao family. Didn't you like her?"

"I didn't even look at her."

Zhao Jun took the hot tea handed over by the servant of Fan Mansion and said: "I'm so unlucky. The carriage slipped and knocked over the stalls of the people. I met Bao Zheng, who scolded me. It's not my fault, and I'm not unwilling to compensate the people."

"Isn't this good? The co-magistrate of Kaifeng Prefecture is impartial and the director of the Political System Institute does not act like an official. Even though he is in a high position, he humbly accepts criticism. You are just like Qin Shihuang playing clones - win-win"

Old Fan laughed and joked.

Zhao Jun was shocked and said: "Where did you learn this mess?"

"Yesterday, the emperor watched the popular science film you downloaded with us. There was also popular science about the strange small countries in Africa. I learned it from that."

Old Fan said.

Zhao Jun rolled his eyes and said: "Don't read that rat stuff in the future. The updates are too slow. I waited for several months to save a few more episodes before I traveled through time. When I looked back, I only updated less than ten episodes. It only took a month. Two or three episodes.”

Fan Zhongyan scratched his head. How could he understand this? He straightened up, sat on the wooden slump, and changed the subject: "I have been studying the plan you gave me recently, and I think there are some problems."

"what is the problem?"

"Agricultural reform is still somewhat radical."

"What's radical?"

Zhao Jun asked.

Fan Zhongyan took the information given by Zhao Jun from the table next to him, opened a page and said: "To carry out national governance, we require local governments to investigate local landlords and bullies. Once there are those who do evil, people's lives are on their hands, oppressing the people, Anyone who runs rampant in the countryside and commits any evil will be executed, all property will be confiscated and turned into government land, and low-lying land will be rented to the landless people."

"Is there a problem?"

Zhao Jun wondered: "I personally think it is necessary to do this, because the country's legal system must be maintained, and the interests of farmers must be safeguarded. Moreover, cracking down on gangs and evil for a long time will help the stability of the country."

"But you have to consider the actual situation. You were able to do this in your era because the social environment at that time was very different. In the Song Dynasty, even if the local government strictly enforced it, the personnel sent to enforce it were not the same as the landlords. Bullies have deep ties with local subordinates.”

Fan Zhongyan pointed out the crux of the problem: "According to later generations, the control power at the grassroots level is far from enough. A county official needs to rely on these subordinates to perform official duties, so it is only a matter of time before cover-up and concealment occurs."

"Of course I've thought of this. Do you think I've been out here all these years in vain? Why don't you know the dangers of local subordinates?"

Zhao Jun smiled and said: "I have already studied such a top-down structure. If you want to dismantle local subordinates, you must start from three aspects."

"oh?"

Fan Zhongyan became interested and asked: "What three aspects?"

“The first is to give them a source of income, the second is to give them room for advancement, and the third is to give them supervision.”

Zhao Jun said: "These huge subordinate staff are not included in the salary system of the imperial court. Their income depends entirely on food and salary, and there is no room for advancement. They do the dirtiest, most tiring and hardest work, and there is no hope. Then naturally. You will be willing to fall down, but with a guaranteed income and room for improvement, it is different. "

"You mean the two-tax system and the assessment of subordinate officials?"

Fan Zhongyan remembered several other things Zhao Jun mentioned during the restructuring.

"good."

Zhao Jun nodded: "Taxation will be changed to national tax and local tax in the future. Local taxation will be retained as local expenses and the salary of subordinate officials. The outstanding ones among the subordinate officials can be recommended by the county magistrate to take the exam in the state capital. Those who pass the exam can come to Bianliang to continue the exam. , those who pass the exam can become officials.”

Needless to say, there is no need to elaborate on the two-tax system of national tax and local tax. The assessment of subordinate officials is different from the civil service examination of later generations. It is a product based on the combination of the imperial examination system of the Han Dynasty and the imperial examination system of the Tang and Song Dynasties.

In the Han Dynasty, if a subordinate official performed well, he would be recommended as an official by the state government. This form of promotion was called recruiting talents.

The imperial examination is to take the imperial examination.

However, at the end of the Han Dynasty, this situation of promoting outstanding talents was in vain. The promotion path of the imperial examination was often monopolized by wealthy nobles. At that time, there was a saying that "the promotion of filial piety and integrity means that the father lives away. The promotion of outstanding talents does not know how to read."

Therefore, Zhao Jun combined the two and asked local county magistrates to recommend outstanding subordinate officials to participate in the state examination, which was equivalent to the provincial examination in the imperial examination. If you pass the state examination, you can take the examination organized by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. If you pass the examination, you can enjoy the treatment of Jinshi and become an official.

In this way, since local county magistrates have little energy to intervene in the examination levels of the state and capital joint examinations, passing the state examinations and joint examinations will eliminate the practice of local county magistrates recommending relatives and practicing favoritism, and to a large extent, they can select some candidates. The more outstanding subordinate officials come up.

certainly.

Since there are many people in the huge group of subordinate officials who are obviously very good, but their families are poor and cannot afford to study, their cultural level is not necessarily high. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the cultural difficulty and focus on hard work. Their knowledge is about the same as that of a Song Dynasty scholar.

Compared with studying hard, Zhao Jun values ​​​​the ability to work more.

"Well, thinking about it this way, since the qualifications for the promotion of subordinate officials are in the hands of the county magistrate, and they have local income, the possibility of colluding with landlords and bullies is indeed much smaller."

Fan Zhongyan felt that what Zhao Jun gave seemed quite similar.

"But it is only useful for a while. In this way, the county magistrate controls the promotion path of local subordinates, which will inevitably cause the county magistrate to have great influence on these people. If those landlord bullies turn around and collude with the local county magistrate, the harm will be even greater Big."

Zhao Jun shook his head and said: "So senior officials generally have a term of five years and cannot be applied to lower-level officials in prefectures and counties. It is better to serve a term of three years. Results can generally be achieved in three years, and it is not so deeply involved with the local area. Through local taxes With the assessment of subordinate officials, I hope most local county magistrates will seize the opportunity to eradicate local cancers. "

"What about supervision? It is easy for county magistrates to be deceived by subordinate officials. How can they supervise subordinate officials?"

Fan Zhongyan asked again.

"Farmers' Association."

"Farmers' Association?"

"good."

Zhao Jun said: "Each county should organize an inventory of the specific population of each county and the distribution of townships. The distance between villages should be used as the boundary, and villagers should be allowed to organize farmers' associations. Members of the farmers' association must be middle farmers, poor farmers, and farmers with only one household owning less than 20 acres of land. Composed of farm laborers.”

"What does it do?"

"Of course, it is to help local governments supervise local areas and indirectly achieve the role of supervision."

"You are talking nonsense. Let's not talk about whether the farmers' association will obey the orders of local governments. If the people form gangs, wouldn't it be easier to revolt?"

Fan Zhongyan expressed his dissatisfaction.

In ancient society, power was not decentralized to the grassroots, but was managed by local gentry, landlords, and clans. Naturally, there was a certain reason.

If the people were allowed to govern themselves, once there was a natural disaster, so many people would gather together and it would be easy to cause an uprising.

So this strategy is simply shooting itself in the foot.

However, Zhao Jun also had reasons. He said: "This is the result of my field investigation. I found that the enthusiasm of local people is still very high, but they are subject to too many constraints and productivity cannot be improved."

"If a farmers' association is established, the farmers' association will be directly responsible to the local government. It can be regarded as a township government with certain powers. If there are any problems in the township, the farmers' association should actively participate in management and report to the government, which will be very helpful for the government to control the grassroots."

"For example, fighting for water sources and village fights can be coordinated through farmers' associations and the government. In addition, the government and farmers' associations jointly organize cooperatives. The government purchases excess farm tools, livestock, granaries, etc. from farmers and serves as public farm tools to release productivity."

"After the establishment of the farmers' association, farmers help each other and help each other. This can also increase productivity and improve work efficiency. I personally think it is a way to kill two birds with one stone. If you think there is any problem, then discuss it again."

In fact, in addition to Zhao Jun's own investigation of local farmers and people, this method is also the method used by our army in the base area in later generations, and it has achieved very good results.

But if we apply the methods of later generations to ancient times, some of them may be more useful, but some may not be realized, and may even have the opposite effect.

Fan Zhongyan still shook his head and said: "Although you have done research at the grassroots level, you have not lived in ancient rural areas for a long time after all, so you are too presumptuous. Although you criticize the management of gentry, landlords, and clans as feudal dregs, at least in this era, there is a reason for its existence."

"Then tell me."

Zhao Jun did not refute, because it was indeed as Fan Zhongyan said, he did research, but he did not live in ancient rural areas.

Fan Zhongyan explained the situation.

It's very simple.

Ancient rural areas are actually a relatively closed society with its own set of grassroots operating logic.

That is, the system of gentry, clans and landlords.

Fan Zhongyan believes that if productivity does not reach a certain standard, this logic will be forcibly broken, and the government will try to intervene in the grassroots system, and the final result may be very dangerous.

For example, through the farmers' association, some bully landlords were indeed restricted, but if the government could not reach a close cooperation with the farmers' association, the result of the expansion of the farmers' association's autonomy would be that the farmers' association replaced the original gentry, clan and landlord system.

After listening to Fan Zhongyan's analysis, Zhao Jun also felt that his consideration was somewhat inappropriate.

It was difficult to achieve this in the ancient imperial society, so it was easy to cause the farmers' association to lose control.

Thinking of this, Zhao Jun said: "You are right, it is true that I did not do well, but reform is supposed to be improved step by step. Let's discuss it first and finally come up with a summary charter."

"I think we should start with the administration of officials."

Fan Zhongyan reminded: "Administration of officials is the foundation. We must first rectify the officialdom and clerks across the country before we can issue subsequent government orders."

"Yes."

Zhao Jun nodded and said: "Okay, then let's discuss the administration of officials during this period. I don't need to say more about the performance evaluation system."

"Don't worry, I have already perfected it. Various assessment systems, regulations and standards have been prepared."

"That's fine. I helped you improve the official reform in advance and divided the powers of officials for the performance evaluation system. This is for the performance evaluation system. If the management of the clerks is done well, the officials and clerks will be able to be governed well. "

"The only thing I am worried about now is the civil and military officials in the court."

Fan Zhongyan said worriedly: "I really don't know what you are thinking. You have arranged all the idle officials to work, and now you want to eliminate them with the performance evaluation system. Isn't that even more resistance?"

"Originally, so many officials are needed to form so many new departments. Otherwise, how can the work of the new departments be carried out?"

Zhao Jun shrugged and said: "Don't have any psychological burden, just do it boldly. I, the government and the entire Political System Institute are your strong backing. Make good use of the prestige you have accumulated this time, and succeed in one fell swoop. In the future, you will be a famous official in history!"

"This is a hard job, I am afraid that you will be scolded."

Fan Zhongyan rolled his eyes.

The first step of the Qingli New Deal is naturally to improve the administration of officials. Otherwise, if other policies are promoted, how can they be promoted with this dark and corrupt official environment?

Which one did the best official administration in ancient society?

That is naturally Zhang Juzheng's reform.

The implementation of the performance evaluation system and the last-place elimination system made Ming Dynasty officials roll to death.

And it also had miraculous effects.

For example, it cracked down on corruption, eliminated bureaucracy, and reformed the bad habits and leaks in the officialdom.

According to statistics, during the ten years when Zhang Juzheng was in power, a large number of incompetent and unclean "big tigers" and "little flies" were unearthed.

The officials who were dismissed because of the implementation of the performance evaluation system actually accounted for one-third of the total number of officials.

And because of the existence of the performance evaluation system, "the performance evaluation is clear at a glance". It completely broke the traditional prejudice of seniority, and boldly appointed talents regardless of their background and qualifications.

It can be said that the effect is remarkable.

The officialdom of the Song Dynasty is probably no different from that of the Ming Dynasty.

After the emergence of the performance evaluation system, it is bound to deal a heavy blow to the current lifeless and dull officialdom.

Not only will it give officials KPI assessments and eliminate a large number of incompetent and foolish people, but it will also expose the corrupt officials who were not discovered by Zhao Jun during his inspection tour.

The only problem may be that the officialdom must hate Lao Fan.

Just like the officials of the Ming Dynasty hated Zhang Juzheng!