Lord of the House - v12 Chapter 40

On the way north, meeting an old bureaucrat like Zhou Wenyun really made Lin Fu depressed.

Lin Bie didn’t 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 Bing’s frowning face, and smiled: “This elm lump, doesn’t look right, kick him away, and replace him with someone who can do the job. If the former secretary comes to be the magistrate, that’s fine…”

“This Zhou Wenyun,” Lin Fu said with a wry smile as he watched Su Mei and Xiaoman come out, “although he has little brains, but he can openly speak out this absurdity, which shows that he still trusts me, compared to those who are behind the scenes. People with hidden knives are still worth fighting for. Another, keeping these people can let everyone see the problem, instead of hiding the problem, and finally stabbed a big problem, it’s not good…”

“Then you are still frowning?” Xiaoman asked.

“Zhou Wenyun, these old bureaucrats, the problem is still not big, the real resistance is still the local gentry clan,” Lin Fu turned to face Su Mei and Xiaoman and sat down, “I thought about this and felt that it was difficult to do. The core prefectures and counties along the Yangtze River are better, but deviating from these areas, the general prefectures and counties, especially the areas below the county, are still controlled by the gentry clan. You do the math, Guanyun County, and the master of Zhou Wenyun. There are only 20 or 30 people in the printing officer, auxiliary officer and official staff, and Guanyun County is a hundred miles wide and has a population of 150,000. Not to mention the old bureaucrats like Zhou Wenyun * New Deal, the following is a little bit in the local area Powerful gentry clans, if they want to resist the New Deal, have many means, and the New Deal can only be superficial and cannot be really implemented…”

Su Mei said: “Since the implementation of the new policy, these gentry have not only received no benefits, but also the various privileges they enjoyed in the past have been cancelled again for you; although they occupy a large amount of land, they have to pay more than the basic land tax. The tax burden is twice as high, how come there is no resentment in my heart? The ministers are afraid that the work of the internal defense department is not thorough enough, but you don’t care about it…”

“If you want to change this situation, you still need to set up a township department below the county level. You can’t call the rural society below the county level to be controlled by gentry and clan,” Lin Fu said. The Secretary is in charge of uniting the poor peasants who will benefit from the New Deal, establishing peasant associations or peasant soldiers’ organizations, and taking charge of autumn training and other matters, so as to suppress the arrogance of the local tyrants and evil gentry…”

In Lin Fu’s plan, only when the township system is truly established can the central administrative executive power penetrate into every corner of the new empire.

Today, there are more than 700 counties under Jiangning’s rule, and there are 6,000 to 8,000 township divisions.

At present, the new schools in Jiangning, Chongzhou, Mingzhou and other places can only train more than a thousand officials of the new government every year.

Lin Fu arranges veterans to retire every year, and they are the main force in the current construction of the township system. However, in order to affect the combat effectiveness of the Huaidong Army, every year, only three or five thousand meritorious veterans can only be gradually added to the place.

At this rate, it will take at least ten years to perfect the township division system.

In fact, in addition to a large number of grass-roots officials, there is also a need for a financial source that can support the township department system.

For this reason, in the new tax policy, Lin Tie classified the basic land tax and city business tax as local; and the revenue controlled by the Ministry of Household, mainly from the land and mouth taxes, will be reduced from the original 10 million taels of silver. on the basis of a sharp drop of 50%.

All affairs are linked together, and if any link goes wrong, the implementation of the entire New Deal will be delayed, or even go back to the old path.

Lin Fu summoned Song Jia, the Zuo sisters who accompanied Song Jia, and Ayaori Ijiang to have a meal together, and he couldn’t stop after nightfall. An urgent letter from western Zhejiang woke Lin Fu from the bed again in the middle of the night.

The severe drought in western Zhejiang this year has affected more than 20 counties, and even Shangrao and other prefectures and counties in Jiangxi have been affected. After the fall, the drought in western Zhejiang was so severe that the central government had to directly intervene in the disaster relief work.

The urgent letter from western Zhejiang at night was Sun Jingtang’s further investigation of the disaster after he went to western Zhejiang.

More than 20 counties in western Zhejiang and southeastern Jiangxi were affected by the severe drought. Nearly 40% of the fields failed to harvest for two seasons, and other grain fields also generally reduced production. More than 20 counties were affected, involving more than 2.5 million people.

The drought in western Zhejiang this time is similar to the drought in Henan and Guanzhong after the autumn of the eighth year of Chongguan, and it is even more serious.

The collapse of Yuanyue and the invasion of Yanhu to the south were only a factor, and the great chaos in the Central Plains caused by the drought in Henan and Guanzhong, which took several years to subside, was a more important factor.

The severe drought in Henan and Guanzhong began after the autumn of the eighth year of Chongguan and lasted until the ninth year of Chongguan. There were almost two dozen counties with no crops for two consecutive seasons. At that time, the financial capabilities of Zhongzhou County and Yanjing had already exhausted the war on the north and south fronts, and there was no institution like Huaidong Bank to provide sufficient elasticity for the central finance. Millions of disaster victims have fled.

However, the outflow of the disaster victims and the impact on the surrounding prefectures and counties resulted in the formation of larger-scale refugees. In the end, almost two or three million refugees poured into the Jianghuai area. Underneath, there were Liu Aner and other ambitious people who made waves, and finally prepared to attend Huaihuai in the Central Plains. The Siliu army was in chaos.

Therefore, after the severe drought in western Zhejiang with no harvest for one season, the Privy Council was also extra nervous about the drought in western Zhejiang. First, it ordered the two Zhejiang propaganda and envoys to pay attention to the disaster, and finally sent them to disaster relief and people’s organizations. Sun Jingtang, who has rich experience, went to western Zhejiang for disaster relief.

Lin Fu put forward two requirements to Sun Jingtang: first, the unorganized exodus should not be allowed to attack the surrounding prefectures and counties, and secondly, no one should be allowed to starve to death.

In addition to making further investigation conclusions about the disaster, Sun Jingtang’s urgent letter also drew out a large list of disaster relief. The most fundamental one is to transfer 2 million stone rice grains from peripheral counties into western Zhejiang, which requires a special disaster relief fund of 3 million silver dollars from the central government.

In the old days, three million silver dollars was a tongue-in-cheek sum.

The two Zhejiang Xuanfu envoys and the police envoys both countersigned on Sun Jingtang’s urgent letter, Lin Fu sighed and said, “It’s another three million silver dollars in extra expenses, and Lin Meng has about hair and hair. I’m so worried…”

“I thought I wouldn’t be fighting a major war this year, so I could breathe a sigh of relief, but I didn’t expect that the money saved would be exhausted by the drought in western Zhejiang, so it’s impossible for Duke Mengde’s mood to be good.” Song Jia said with a smile.

“If only three million silver dollars can solve the problem in western Zhejiang, Zhidu Division can barely bear it,” Lin Fu said. There is a severe drought, but many people want to see the good show of the Guogongfu, I am afraid that they will be disappointed…”

“Shangrao Prefecture is also involved. Guanxi County should be at the center of the drought, but it is the least affected county in the more than 20 counties, and it even has spare capacity to supply grain to the surrounding affected counties. It seems that building a dam to block the river is indeed a big deal. It’s helpful…” Su Mei looked at the official letter and said.

Guanxi County was the main battlefield of the Shangrao Battle. To commemorate the battle, it was renamed Guanxi County.

During the battle of Shangrao, Lin Tie was on the upper reaches of Shanxi, blocking the river and building a dam, attacking the defense line built by the Shejia downstream, opening the dam to discharge the lake, and impacting both sides of Shanxi beyond recognition.

After the war, in order to compensate the local area, Lin Fu specially provided money to Guanxi County to build a permanent dam on the upper reaches of Shanxi River.

In addition to reclaiming more fertile fields, dams and reservoirs are mainly used to alleviate the serious problems of over-flooding during the flood season and over-drought droughts on both sides of the Shanxi River.

The dam was built after last autumn, and the water storage was officially opened this year.

Although western Zhejiang is involved in the severe drought in some areas of Jiangxi, it has shown its power since the beginning of summer, but the dam still stores a certain amount of water before the drought, instead of letting these water sources flow into the Ganjiang River in vain, and then flow into the river again. Poyang Lake, called Guanxi County, passed the worst dry season with ease this time.

It’s just that other places are not as lucky as Guanxi County.

Building dams to improve hydrogeography and regulate droughts and floods is just one of the ancient water weir projects; the most famous one in the pre-Qin period, the most famous of which is the Dujiangyan in the last years of the Warring States Period. At that time, the western Sichuan Plain was flooded for thousands of miles when it was flooded, and the land was red for thousands of miles when it was dry. After the construction of Dujiangyan, nearly 3 million mu of fertile soil on the western Sichuan Plain became a fertile field with guaranteed yields under drought and flood.

Although western Zhejiang is located in the south, the situation of excessive flooding during floods and excessive drought during droughts is also very serious. The good thing is that the surrounding eastern Zhejiang and northern Zhejiang are high-yield areas of grain, so whenever there is a disaster, even if the disaster victims flow out, the prefectures and counties such as eastern Zhejiang and northern Zhejiang have a strong ability to bear, so that it will not cause chaos.

However, this severe drought in western Zhejiang is also rare in the past century.

Although Sun Jingtang asked to transfer three million silver dollars for disaster relief from the center this time, and purchased two million stone grains from peripheral counties to enter western Zhejiang, of course, he would not distribute it to the affected people for no reason~www.mtlnovel.com~ but It is necessary to use these funds to build water conservancy, transportation and other public projects in western Zhejiang, and to exchange work for relief for the affected people 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 improve the western Zhejiang more thoroughly. The basic appearance of the county.

With Sun Jingtang sitting in western Zhejiang, the center can pull out 3 million silver dollars, and the surrounding prefectures and counties can also guarantee the supply of 2 million shi of surplus grain. There will be no major problems in western Zhejiang, and the New Deal can be borrowed this time in western Zhejiang. The opportunity took root more deeply – Lin Fu was also relieved, signed the opinion on Sun Jingtang’s urgent letter, and sent a letter and cavalry to Jiangning overnight, and asked the Privy Council to deal with it according to the system.

The New Deal cannot solve all the problems that may arise in the future once and for all, and even the New Deal itself will produce many serious problems.

Lin Fu never expects to be able to eliminate all crises in advance. His ultimate goal is to establish a flexible central government, to establish a system in the face of important disasters and wars, and even in the face of the invasion of enemy countries. At the same time, there is a flexible central government capable of resolving major crises.

If a country or nation will last for thousands of years, it will inevitably face all kinds of serious crises. The most important thing is the ability to deal with serious crises; The perfect regime system that has been snuffed out in advance.

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