My life skills in Daming Liver

Shen Shixing was stunned.

Unbalanced development in various places has existed in ancient times, and this phenomenon has been acute in all dynasties. Some of these contradictions have even brought the dynasty to the point of extinction.

Shen Shixing is also a super scroll king who has studied ancient and modern times. He thought for a while and said: "Local discrimination caused by unfair education has existed since the Han Dynasty. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Hanzhong and Guandong gentry discriminated against the Xiliang gentry. Many times, They discussed abandoning Liang, and finally the Xiliang martial arts group rose up, and Dong Zhuo emerged and entered Chang'an."

"The contradiction between the northern overseas Chinese and the southern gentry in the Eastern Jin Dynasty was the hidden thread behind Sun En's uprising, which caused turmoil in the entire Eastern Jin Dynasty."

"In the Tang Dynasty, the Anshi Rebellion was simply a direct manifestation of this kind of local contradiction."

Su Ze nodded.

The examples cited by Shen Shixing are examples of local unfairness, which prevents talents from flowing into the central government, and a large number of promising talents who defect to local powerful factions, eventually leading to national unrest.

The most classic among them is the Tang Dynasty.

Su Ze said: "It is said that the imperial examination system was first introduced in the Tang Dynasty. In fact, the imperial examination system in the Tang Dynasty was far inferior to that of the Ming Dynasty."

Shen Shixing also nodded. There were thousands of disadvantages in the Ming Dynasty, but the imperial examination system was indeed perfected only in the Ming Dynasty. Even the official selection system in the southeast basically followed the framework of the Ming Dynasty imperial examination.

The Tang Dynasty was in the initial stage of the imperial examination, and there were too many problems.

Whether it was writing papers before the exam or a large amount of fraud, the Imperial Examination System of the Tang Dynasty was more like a product of the transition from the Nine-Rank Zhongzheng System to the Ming Dynasty Imperial Examination System.

Starting from the Wu Zhou Dynasty, the discrimination against scholars from Hedong prevented a large number of talents from Hedong from entering the imperial court, and eventually went to the Jiedushi of the feudal town. This was also an important factor in the Anshi Rebellion.

Su Ze said: "In ancient times, economic development mainly relied on farmland. The places suitable for farming were naturally economically developed areas. Only with land can we have food, and with food can we have a population that can completely quit production and go to school."

Shen Shixing nodded, this was already a consensus.

China's grain-producing areas are also gradually changing with the development of climate and land resources.

The prosperous Guanzhong area in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, due to the obsolescence of Guanzhong water conservancy facilities and soil erosion caused by over-development of the Loess Plateau, coupled with climate changes, reached the Kaifeng area in the Song Dynasty.

With climate change, the main grain-producing areas are moving further south.

Since the Yuan Dynasty, Jiangnan has gradually become the world's food center.

Only then did the Ming Dynasty Jiangnan culture and education become famous.

Su Ze said: "The economic base determines the superstructure, but in our southeast, the economic base has changed."

"In addition to agriculture, industry and commerce have also become an important part of local taxation, and a class of industrial and commercial owners has also formed. They are also able to allow their children to study away from work."

Shen Shixing nodded. In fact, before Su Ze's rebellion, there were already signs of this in Jiangnan.

Industrial and commercial owners are even wealthier than landowners, and Jiangnan's developed economy also allows these industrial and commercial owners to live a better life.

After the sea opened, this phenomenon became more obvious.

One characteristic of the commodity economy is that everyone begins to have a division of labor.

In the past, rural landowners actually did not live a very good life.

Because many things are unavailable.

In the era before the Ming Dynasty, everything a high-level noble needed was basically produced within his own sphere of influence.

This is well reflected in "A Dream of Red Mansions".

Everything the Jia family needs is produced in their farm, and the family's rare treasures are all produced in the family's shop or workshop.

From food to daily necessities, very few things in the Jia Mansion are purchased from outside. The entire Jia Mansion is a scaled-down version of the tribute system.

Therefore, most rural rich people can only eat the produce of their own fields, and occasionally exchange for some things from the market.

If you want to live a relatively prosperous life, you need a lot of land, which is not something ordinary landowners can do.

After the commodity economy developed, most people actually lived better.

You only need to make money to buy what you want, and all everyone needs to care about is making money, and the rest can be obtained through exchange.

With the division of labor, many people in coastal areas have time to develop themselves instead of being trapped in rural land.

Even some subsistence families began to send their children to machine workshops to learn to become mechanics, to arithmetic schools to learn arithmetic, and to enroll their children in military academies.

The three provinces of Nanzhili, Zhejiang, and Fujian that were the first to open up were the first to enter this state.

Su Ze said: "In fact, Jiangxi was also a province with a large number of imperial examinations, even surpassing Fujian at one time."

Shen Shixing nodded, Jiangxi's imperial examinations were also very good, the most famous of which was Yan Song, Yange Lao, who was a Jinshi from Jiangxi.

“But no matter how many people participated in the imperial examinations in the agricultural era, they could not compare to today’s civil service examinations.”

Shen Shixing also nodded. In a county with good culture and education, it would be good if one or two candidates could be elected in one session. However, when Su Ze took part in the provincial examination in Nanping, no one could pass the examination in the previous sessions.

In a county town, there are only about a hundred people studying at home to take the imperial examination.

But things are different now. In a county under Songjiang Prefecture, there is a three-month accelerated course in arithmetic school. Anyone who has some basic arithmetic and literacy can sign up to participate. Hundreds of students can be trained in writing and calculation in one year.

And these people are just students who took the civil service examinations related to household houses and work houses, because only the civil service examinations of these two houses focus most on arithmetic.

Therefore, after the civil service examination begins, local scholars in Jiangxi cannot compete with outsiders.

But the exams that locals want to take have already been passed! The remaining positions are occupied by candidates from three provinces.

Su Ze said: "It's different now. In addition to the agricultural foundation, the city's transportation, location, and mineral resources are all important factors affecting the development of the entire region."

Shen Shixing nodded, these are indeed important factors for the economic development of various places.

Su Ze changed the topic and said: "But culture and education are not entirely economic. It is also related to local cultural traditions and investment in education. Economics is only an objective factor."

Shen Shixing also nodded in agreement.

Su Ze said: "And what I am talking about are factors that affect economic development, not subjective development drivers of various places."

The dialectics of subjectivity and objectivity is a theory that Su Ze has written and published many times in articles and books. Senior officials in Southeast Asia such as Shen Shixing have all studied it.

Among the factors that affect the development of a place, the objective factors are natural endowment and block location, which cannot be changed.

However, the subjective thoughts of major local officials can indeed affect regional development.

This is where subjective and objective factors jointly determine the development of a place.

Before becoming Minister of Education, Shen Shixing was the prefect of Songjiang Prefecture.

As the most rapidly developing prefecture in the southeast, the development of Songjiang Prefecture is the best illustration of this dialectic.

For example, Shanghai County under Songjiang Prefecture relied on the vigorous development of successive chief officials, coupled with its superior geographical location, to rapidly develop from a small county with less than 100,000 people to a county second only to Huating County, Songjiang Prefecture. The second largest county.

Even after the port, terminal and securities trading center were established in Shanghai County, Shanghai County had a vague tendency to surpass Huating County.

This is the importance of "talent".

Su Ze said: "For a local official, the main factor driving their development is actually the assessment from their superiors."

Shen Shixing originally wanted to say some great truths, such as that the people are the foundation of the country, and that serving as an official will benefit one party.

But he soon discovered that these truths could not be explained at all.

He has also served as a local official and naturally knows what local officials think.

Even in the Southeast, where "sovereignty lies with the people", the main driving force for local officials to make progress is still not to govern the people.

Governing the people is important, but what can make local officials improve is political performance.

In other words, political performance is the standard for measuring the progress of officials. Although it represents the wishes of the people to a certain extent, it has nothing to do with the people.

Under Xu Wei's leadership, the Ministry of Civil Affairs formulated a detailed set of evaluation methods for local officials.

Through quantitative assessment, economic development and urban development have been included in this system.

The assessment standards and assessment results will also be released every six months, and rankings will be conducted within the same province and prefecture.

It is also because of this assessment standard that local officials in the southeast receive special exams and work hard to develop the county's economy.

Because being at the top of the assessment means more promotion opportunities and a bigger stage to display political ambitions.

Su Ze said: "Subjectively, the driving force for the economic development of southeastern regions is competition among various places."

"As long as the assessment is better than that of surrounding counties, the county magistrate has hope of progress. If the assessment of our prefecture is better than other prefectures in the province, then the prefect has hope of progress."

"The whole system is still top-down."

"However, a county's financial resources are also limited. Compared with things such as building roads and developing industry and commerce, developing culture and education is an investment that cannot see results in the short term. It can even be said that the predecessors plant trees for future generations to enjoy the shade. , so in many areas where the economy is not developed enough, local officials lack the motivation to develop culture and education.”

Shen Shixing nodded. He was in charge of education. This was the situation Su Ze was talking about.

Education is increasingly concentrated in developed areas, and this phenomenon is becoming more and more common.

Therefore, this incident of officials from other provinces competing for positions is nothing more than an outbreak of this conflict of uneven regional development in the matter of examining officials.

Shen Shixing immediately asked: "Then the Governor must have a solution?"

Su Ze said: "It's not a cure, it can only be a solution."

Looking at Shen Shixing's eager eyes, Su Ze said: "Transfer payment."