Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 105: Even if you take the wrong road, you can still reach the destination
Lu Jin really didn't know where Hu Weiyong was from, but he knew that Hu Weiyong had defected to Zhu Yuanzhang before crossing the river, either in Dingyuan or in Heyang.

That being said, if he had stayed in this place the whole time, he would have been able to catch up with the exam.

Regarding this person's historical rebellious behavior, Lu Jin said he would not comment on it. History has a certain inertia, but people have a certain degree of contingency.

Now the time and space have been changed beyond recognition by him. No one can say for sure whether some people will still do certain things. However, for a person like Hu Weiyong, Lu Jin is still confident that he can deal with him.

Such a person, who did not rebel before he pacified the world, wanted to rebel after he pacified the world? It was simply wishful thinking!

Especially the one about colluding with Japan. If he really dares to collude, then Japan will be destroyed as well.

What's more, in the system designed by Lu Jin, the military and politics are completely separated. If you can't get the military power, how can you rebel?

Picking up the man's paper, Lu Jin began to read it with curiosity, wanting to see what level this guy who became the prime minister in history was at.

In terms of criminal law, Lu Jin asked each person to write down twenty laws that they considered to be the most important, but he did not say that additional explanations were not allowed.

This depends on how flexible people's minds are. Some people are very honest and only write twenty laws, while others are more flexible and will add a paragraph to explain why they wrote it that way.

Hu Weiyong added an explanation. This guy advocated "using severe punishments in troubled times" and punishments should be severe, especially now that the territory is limited and punishments such as exile cannot be implemented. It is better to simply change to hanging and directly hang the person.

The laws he wrote included not only those for punishing the common people, but also those for punishing officials. In particular, he believed that now was the time to conquer the world and the city might be attacked by the enemy at any time. He suggested that officials who dared to betray and surrender to the enemy should be directly charged with treason.

Wow, Lu Jin has really broadened his horizons. This isn't writing laws at all. This is clearly using the opportunity of writing laws to show loyalty to Lu Jin!
"Look, Marshal, I severely punished officials who betrayed and surrendered to the enemy, which means I must be the most loyal and have never thought of surrendering to the enemy, right?"

Looking at the encouragement of agriculture, Hu Weiyong's approach was quite stable. He could give certain tax rate preferences to the people who were willing to cooperate in switching to double-season rice.

If someone wants to plant or doesn’t know how, the government should send experienced people to teach them.

Now that the population is small, we need to make full use of manpower. For those who want to farm but have no capital, the government should try its best to lend them oxen and seeds, and provide tax exemptions for reclaimed land, etc.

These things seem to be fine and all good, but Lu Jin knows with just a little thought who will get these benefits in the end.

If you change to double-season rice, you will get preferential treatment. The big landlords will definitely be the most enthusiastic. They have a lot of land, so they can be exempted from taxes. In addition, the government will lend seeds and oxen to help the people open up wasteland, and exempt them from taxes for three years. I am afraid that in the end, it will all become the government that pays and helps the landlords open up wasteland.
Basically not feasible.

Let's look at defending the city. This guy also wrote it in a clear and organized manner. First of all, you should prepare more supplies for defending the city, especially water wells, firewood, and food. With these three things, you can survive in the city.

Then, when the battle is about to begin, the walls outside the city must be fortified and the fields cleared, leaving not a single grain of food or well for the enemy outside the city.

The city should also be organized into militia groups, with several families protecting each other. All outsiders in the city should be arrested and temporarily imprisoned to prevent spies from sneaking in and causing chaos in the city.

When it comes to defending the city, this guy can be considered to have scored full marks.

The official documents were even more interesting. The topic posed by Lu Jin was, "enemy situation, disaster situation, people's situation", and one of them should be chosen to write into an official document report. This guy chose people's situation, and then began to compile how many acres of land were reclaimed, how many canals were dug, and how much fertile land was irrigated under the administration. Drought and flood were caused by people, and the bumper harvest was all thanks to the wise and brave commander.

If Lu Jin hadn't told him in advance that he had to be brief and to the point, this guy would have been so flattering that he could do nothing. Lu Jin could even tell from the article that "he has become very restrained."

Seeing this, Lu Jin suddenly remembered the guy who flattered before the exam. Could he be Hu Weiyong?
Let’s look at the arithmetic problem. This problem is not difficult either. It purely tests whether your IQ is normal.

For the last policy essay question, Hu Weiyong’s solution was even more tricky.

Lu Jin asked "What is a country?" and the writing requirement was to combine it with the current situation in the world.

This guy understood the question very well. Hu Weiyong first talked about the achievements of Yao, Shun, Yu and Tang. They were the ancient sage kings who created the country. What is a country? A country with beautiful clothes is called Hua, and a country with great etiquette is called Xia. Hua Xia is China.

The main difference between China and the four barbarians is that China has etiquette and is a country of etiquette, while the barbarians have no etiquette.

Then he quoted Confucius' Spring and Autumn Annals, "If the princes use the barbarian etiquette, they are barbarians; if they advance into China, they are Chinese." It can be seen that who is "Chinese" is not determined by who he is, but by whether he uses Chinese etiquette.

The Mongols entered China but were unwilling to abide by Han etiquette and still used barbarian rituals, so they were still barbarians and unworthy of "ruling China."

Then he quoted from The Analects of Confucius: 'It is better for the Chinese to have no ruler than for the barbarians to have one.

What this sentence means is that the uncivilized barbarians have a monarch but lack the proper relationship between monarch and subjects. It is better for them to have a system of rites and laws in the Central Plains without a monarch.

This further highlights the advantages of China's rites, laws and systems, especially when combined with the current world, and especially when looking at the powerful officials of the Yuan Dynasty, this is even more true.

The Yuan court was like a barbarian country with a monarch but no relationship between monarch and subjects, so the powerful ministers caused so many troubles and made the country into this state.

The Marshal's action of "expelling the Tartars and restoring China" was precisely an act of restoring order.

It is much better than Xu Shouhui's "equalizing the rich and reducing the poor" in the south and Liu Futong's "three thousand tiger soldiers marched straight to the land of Youyan, and the dragon flew to the sky to reopen the sky of the Song Dynasty" in the north.

One of them is a traditional rebel who is equal in wealth, and the other is a warrior who only clamors to attack Dadu. Only Marshal Lu is the wise leader who truly realizes the need to "set things right", so the Marshal should rule China!
Emmm, Lu Jin looked at this article and didn’t know what to say for a moment.

Although it completely deviated from his original intention of asking this question, Hu Weiyong did hit the point, did combine it with current politics, did curse the Yuan Dynasty, and also proved the legitimacy of Lu Jin's rebellion.

But the idea is completely different from what he thought, but you can't say that he wrote it wrong. This is a wrong way, but it still reached the end.
Feng Guoyong saw Lu Jin staring at a test paper with a complicated expression, and couldn't help asking, "What article did you read, Marshal, and why do you look like that?"

Lu Jin handed the paper over directly, "Take a look."

Li Shanchang and Feng Guoyong hurriedly gathered together to read, and both of them nodded frequently as they read.

Feng Guoyong even commented, "This article is well written, with clear logic and precise solution ideas. It also points out the crux of the Yuan court's lack of relationship between the ruler and his subjects, and the fact that powerful officials brought disaster to the country and the people. Why does it seem that the Marshal doesn't like this article?"

"I can't say I don't like it." Lu Jin said tangledly, "It's just that it's not the one I want."

Li Shanchang seemed to be thinking about something, not knowing what kind of solution Lu Jin wanted. He took out the one he had examined, handed it to Lu Jin and said.

"General, this man's criminal law is interesting, maybe he can join the Academy of Literature to teach criminal law."

"Oh? Let me take a look."

Upon hearing this, Lu Jin immediately became interested. To be evaluated by Li Shanchang as someone who could enter the Academy of Literature to be in charge of criminal law, one must know that this position is equivalent to the Minister of Justice among the Six Ministries, not a small official.

I glanced at the name. Li Yinbing? I don't think I've heard of him.

The twenty laws written by this man are relatively complete, covering all aspects. The key lies in his supplementary explanations.

Lu Jin said that the key to judging a case is to have laws to follow, but there are no laws now, so they temporarily "set up three rules" to let everyone think of a few to use as a makeshift basis. This is better than having nothing and making blind judgments.

Li Yinbing said that the most urgent task should be to first determine the "sentencing standards". With the sentencing standards, other laws are not so important. It is more important to apply the sentencing standards according to the case.

It is better to have laws than to have no laws; it is better to have measurable punishment than to have laws. The sentencing standard is the yardstick, the rule.

He also argued that this is a special period and the laws are not sound enough, so it is inevitable that there will be errors and omissions in judgments, or wrong judgments, so the sentences should not be too heavy. Even if a serious crime has been committed, the case should be carefully reviewed to see if it is true.

Otherwise, they would just go up and kill the person. If they killed the wrong person, it would easily cause resentment from the people. If the punishment was lighter, even if it was a wrong judgment, there would be remedies. But when a person dies, everything is gone and there is no way to remedy the situation.

That's an insightful idea, and it seems to be true.

"This person's idea does make sense."

Li Shanchang then said, "The commander-in-chief asked the students to make three rules. Each student should write twenty rules. In fact, if we put them together, there will be more than a hundred rules. It is enough to compile a temporary law.

"In comparison, the most urgent task is indeed to set the punishment standard first. This person has this idea, which shows that he has many insights into criminal law. Why not let him compile this set of temporary laws?"

"Yes." Lu Jin nodded immediately and said, "First tick the name. If there is no better one, it will be him."

So the three of them continued to mark the papers, and soon Feng Guoyong recommended another paper.

"General, this man's article on encouraging agriculture may allow him to go to the Academy of Literature to take charge of the Construction Department."

"Construction Bureau? Ministry of Works?" Lu Jin suddenly asked curiously, how is agricultural persuasion related to the Ministry of Works?

When I took a look at the paper, I saw that the man's name was Xu Jichuan. He believed that agriculture depended first and foremost on water conservancy. In recent years, Huaixi has suffered from severe disasters, either drought or floods. If one wants to develop military farms, water conservancy irrigation facilities are a prerequisite.

After having water conservancy, we also need good agricultural tools.

The key to planting double-season rice lies in the "double rush" during the change of seasons. The rush to harvest and plant means racing against time with God, so your sickle must be fast enough and your plowshare sharp enough so that you can turn the soil immediately after harvesting and plant the second crop of seedlings right away.

As the saying goes, if you want to do your work well, you must first sharpen your tools. The same is true for farming.

At the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, private merchants were allowed to open iron mines on their own, and they only had to pay enough taxes to the government. However, iron smelting was a highly profitable business, so the Mongolian and Seljuq nobles forcibly monopolized a number of iron smelters. They sold iron at a high price, but the quality of the iron they smelted was not very good, so the people did not like to buy it.

A few years ago, Bayan’s ban on ironware dealt a devastating blow to the iron smelting industry.

In recent years, Tuotuo has lifted the ban on iron farming, but in a short period of time, the quantity and quality of iron farm tools in the hands of the people have not improved. How can you grow crops well if your hoe, sickle and plowshare are not sharp enough?
Therefore, if one wants to establish military farms, the most urgent task is to build water conservancy projects and create agricultural tools.

Well, this is really the job of the Ministry of Works. It would be a waste of his talent to let him manage military farms. It would be better to let him open an iron mine or build water conservancy facilities.

"Xu Jichuan, this person is not bad. He is a candidate for the Construction Department. Let's pick and choose and see if there are any other talents that can be used." Lu Jin also checked this person's name.

After a while, Li Shanchang recommended another test paper. He turned directly to the last policy essay question and said with a smile, "Marshal, please take a look at this first to see if it is the article you want."

"Oh?" Lu Jin immediately became interested, and his eyes lit up as soon as he finished reading the first paragraph.

Finally someone understood my intention and knew how to solve the problem starting from Dayu's flood control. The most interesting thing is that this person also linked Dayu's flood control to the great unification, and his writing was better than Lu Jin expected!
I looked at the name again. Yan Shiguo? I didn't seem to have any impression of him.

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(End of this chapter)