Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 436 July of the th Year of Zhizheng

Regarding the reform of the Xin Dynasty system, in addition to starting to establish various systems, there is another key issue, that is, who will pay for the money and salaries of so many departments set up by Lu Jin?
The salaries of court officials were actually not bad. Although there were more than a dozen ministries, the previous dynasties also had six ministries and nine ministers, plus some miscellaneous departments. The number was actually not small, but they were not called ministries. The difference was that Lu Jin integrated all of them into formal ministries and changed the name. If you really count the number of officials, it is not necessarily more than that of the Tang and Song dynasties.

The most crucial point is, the one million teachers that Lu Jin mentioned, as well as the employees of state-owned companies, doctors in hospitals across the country, and departments like police stations, are these people considered officials or clerks? If not officials, what should they be considered, and who will pay their salaries?

Before the discussion on establishment and salaries was completed, the new dynasty's calendar, work-rest system, and specific issues of textbook compilation were brought up.

Wang Guangyang suggested that we could imitate the Song Dynasty system and have a system of officials, posts, duties and clerks with salary, but not copy it completely. Instead, we could change them into real posts and just borrow the names and systems.

However, Qin Conglong expressed his firm opposition to this, arguing that the redundant officials and staff in the Song Dynasty were caused by this system.

Since the Song Dynasty came to power illegitimately, Zhao Kuangyin obtained the throne through a military coup, and he himself had experienced the rebellion of the Five Dynasties, so after the establishment of the Song Dynasty, it went too far in correcting the wrongs.

The emperor did not dare to call himself the emperor, nor did he dare to wear the dragon robe. He only dared to wear official uniform and be called an official. He lacked confidence.

He was afraid that others would follow his example and launch a mutiny, and seize his throne, so he used civil power to control military power, gave up military power over a cup of wine, shared the world with the literati, dressed the same as the literati, and called himself an official. Isn't this exactly the image of the literati?

The separation of powers at the local level ensures that local warlords will not appear again. In the civil service system, three different independent systems of salaried officials, positions, and salaries are created. Not only will military generals be unable to form local warlords, but even civil officials will be unable to do so, because the three systems of official positions are incompatible with each other.

The advantage is that it prevents the re-formation of feudal lords, but the disadvantage is that there are too many officials and staff, and the administrative efficiency is extremely low!

For example, the Ji Lu Guan in the Song Dynasty was a nominal title with no real power. It was just a standard for distributing salaries. It was inherited through favors or obtained through imperial examinations. As long as you passed the imperial examination, you would immediately have a Ji Lu Guan, which was equivalent to your salary grade standard, but had no real power.

Then there is the position, which is also an honorary title, like the Grand Secretary of a certain hall, which is mainly used for commendation.

Finally, there are the magistrates, prefects, chief clerks, and transport envoys. These things represent your specific job positions, and these are the ones with real power.

How did the redundant officials and staff in the Song Dynasty come about? For example, your assignment was changed, you changed your position, or you were demoted and lost your position, but your salaried official position remained the same and you were still receiving a salary from the court. This led to redundant officials and staff, and financial waste. There were many similar situations in the Song Dynasty!
Therefore, Qin Conglong suggested that the official positions of the Xin Dynasty should be directly tied to salaries, and official positions should correspond directly to actual positions. The salary should be determined by the position you hold. You can have honors, such as the honorary title of Doctor Lang, but they are only used for commendation and represent personal honor. They cannot be linked to salaries and actual positions, so as to avoid the emergence of redundant officials like in the Song Dynasty.

As for the separatist regimes? Given the fragmented power structure that Lu Jin had dismantled, those who could create separatist regimes were talented.
In the end, it was Lu Jin who made the decision. The new dynasty implemented the system of officials, honors, posts, military ranks, and titles. The specific organizational divisions could be divided into officials, clerks, and staff.

Officials were selected through the imperial examination, and their salaries were directly tied to their official ranks; honors were only honorary titles, representing the court's recognition of the individual, and had nothing to do with salary or real power.

Here, it refers to all employees of government-run institutions, such as teachers, doctors, and ordinary employees in state-owned factories and telegraph offices.

Then there was the issue of employee salaries. Lu Jin directly borrowed from the job titles of later generations and paid corresponding salaries according to the level of their job titles, which were slightly different for each industry.

Having settled all this, the last question remains: who will pay the employees’ salaries?
Police officers are officials, and of course their salaries are paid by the court. Employees in state-owned factories and telegraph offices can make money for the court, so there is no problem in paying them salaries. It is equivalent to them supporting themselves, and they do not need to be supported by the court.

The most critical issue is the teaching staff, which is huge in number. In addition, Lu Jin also wants to implement basic compulsory education. Not to mention that all primary and junior high schools should be included in compulsory education, at least five years of primary school should be included? The question is, with the current population size and fiscal revenue at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, can the court afford five years of compulsory primary education across the country?
Lu Jin’s psychological bottom line on this issue is that as long as it does not exceed one-third of the fiscal revenue, he will grit his teeth and do it!

With this bottom line, we can calculate the cost of running a primary school. The money for building the school can be paid by the local government, which can provide the building materials. The people can then be asked to do corvée labor to build the school, and free labor can also be used to build the school. Therefore, the initial construction cost does not need to be considered. The key is the salaries of the teaching staff.

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the salary standard in society was that the lowest-level waiter in a restaurant earned 100 wen a day; the dock laborer earned 200 wen a day, and the senior craftsman earned 300 wen a day. Surely the teacher's salary cannot be too low? At least it should be higher than the dock laborer.

If the teacher's daily salary is calculated at 20 wen, only the wages for working days are counted, and the work and rest system is adopted, with five days of work and two days of rest per week, and four weeks per month, that is to say, the teacher works 300 days a month, with a daily salary of wen, which is six strings of money, or six taels of silver, per month.

There are two semesters in a year, which means ten months, which is sixty taels. During the winter and summer vacations, only half of the salary of the working months is paid, and paid leave is allowed. So the winter and summer vacations are two months, which means three taels per month, a total of six taels, and 66 taels for the whole year.

Finally, there is the size of the school. Based on the current total population of 50 million and an average life expectancy of 6 years, we create a mathematical model and find that primary school-age children aged 10 to 7, both boys and girls, may account for about % of the total population.

Because the low average life expectancy means a high adult mortality rate, a couple of parents may have several children, and children will definitely account for a larger proportion of the entire population structure, so 7% of the total population is reasonable. That means there are approximately 480 million primary school-age children nationwide.

If there are 50 students in one primary school and 2400 teaching staff, that means 12 primary schools and 66 teaching staff. If each person gets 792 taels of silver per year, the annual salary will be million taels of silver. This is the cost of five years of compulsory education.
When everyone saw the figure that Lu Jin had calculated, eight million taels a year, it was too exaggerated. It was basically the same as the current annual salt tax revenue. If five-year compulsory education was really to be implemented, it would be equivalent to spending all the salt tax. This really became what Lu Jin said, spending one-third of the fiscal revenue on education.
What should we do? Should we continue to provide free primary schools? Everyone feels the pain, including Lu Jin himself, but the importance of basic education to industrialization is self-evident, and we have to grit our teeth and do it.

So Tao An suggested that we should remove the girls and use the simplest method of half boys and half girls. If we remove the girls, we can run half the schools and immediately cut the funding in half, which would be much easier at 4 million taels a year. However, Lu Jin disagreed.
Basic education can be used to shape people's worldview, change the Confucianism's ideological constraints on the people, guide the direction of social development, and improve the cohesion of the people in the north and south through historical education, improve the indifference and contempt of the people in the south towards the north, and let the northern Han people who have lost their roots for more than 400 years return to their roots. Besides, it is impossible for men to do everything in this world. Do textile factories need female workers? Can telegraph companies use women as employees? If girls cannot receive education, who will do these things?

Since basic education must be provided, we have to find a way. Everyone started brainstorming and trying to find ways to save money.

Chen Yu suggested that the school did not need so many faculty and staff. There should be 40 classes, one teacher in each class, plus a principal and a vice-principal, so the number of people could be controlled to 42. Physical education teachers could be sent by the Internal Security Army to work part-time. In this way, the salary expenses could be reduced to 665 million taels, saving 130 million taels at once.

Tao An also suggested that half of the salary should be paid during the winter and summer vacations. The paid leave benefit is too good and there is no need to pay this money.

The purpose of paid leave is nothing more than to retain teachers and not let them leave, but if they don't go to work, they will not get paid. After all, teachers also have to support their families. If this is the only purpose, then they can not pay salaries during winter and summer vacations, but only give food. Although the country has no money, it still has food.

During the two months of winter and summer vacations, two shi of rice are given each month, for a total of four shi of rice. Based on the market price of 50 wen per dou, four shi of rice is only two taels of silver, which is much cheaper than the six taels of paid leave during the winter and summer vacations. In this way, the annual salary can be compressed to 62 taels, and the total expenditure will be reduced to 625 million taels, saving another 40 taels than before.

Tsk, it's really being picked down one ounce at a time.

Inspired by Tao An, Li Shanchang finally came up with an even more ruthless move. He directly reduced the monthly salary of teachers to 3 taels of silver, but gave them two shi of rice every month. Rice was not valuable, and two shi of rice was only one tael of silver. Adding 3 taels of salary, the monthly salary cost was 4 taels. In this way, the annual salary could be compressed to 42 taels, and the total expenditure cost would be reduced to 435 million taels, cutting 190 million in one fell swoop, saving another one-third.
Qin Conglong also said that if they wanted to continue saving money, they could give all grain instead of money, or increase the proportion of grain and reduce the amount of money, such as three stone of rice and two taels of silver per month. In this way, the monthly salary would be 3.5 taels, the annual salary would be 37 taels, and the annual salary would be 373 million taels, which could save another 60 taels. However, Lu Jin did not agree.

His original intention was to keep teachers' salaries at a relatively high social level, so as to attract more people to join the education cause. Now these people have cut it three times, directly cutting it in half from eight million taels a year to an annual salary of 37 taels, which is directly reducing it to the same level as a waiter. Even if you say you are making contributions, you can't let teachers' families eat coarse food, right?

Therefore, the final plan was set according to Li Shanchang's standard, 435 million taels per year, of which only 302.4 million taels needed to be issued as banknotes, and the remaining 132 million taels were actually issued as rice, about 242 million shi, accounting for one-tenth of the total grain tax and one-third of the salt tax.

After the five years of free education in primary school are completed, the remaining junior high and high schools will be easy to deal with. Junior high and high schools will no longer be free of charge, so students can be asked to pay tuition fees, and the teachers' salaries can be evenly distributed among the students. The school does not need to make a profit, as long as the tuition fees can support the teachers. In addition, the number of junior high and high schools will also decrease sharply. It has to be admitted that at this stage, it is still very difficult to let girls and boys go to junior high school together. In ancient times, men and women were generally separated at the age of 13. The prince was also 13 years old when he got married and moved from the inner palace to the outer court to be canonized as a king.

Even if children start primary school at the age of seven and graduate at the age of 11, there is no problem with mixed education for boys and girls. There is no need to prevent such a young child. However, this is not the case in junior high school, unless a special girls' school is opened. But then again, how many people are willing to pay tuition for girls to study?
This is the sadness of this era. The main reason is that productivity cannot keep up and the country's fiscal revenue is limited. If Lu Jin had money, he would directly include junior and senior high schools in compulsory education. In this way, even if he runs a separate girls' school, as long as he does not charge tuition, there will still be people willing to send their daughters to study. But if he charges tuition, there will definitely be few people. So there will definitely be girls' schools, but not many.

In this way, the number of junior high schools will be reduced by half, after all, half of the female population will be reduced. Then the enrollment rate of primary school students to junior high school will be controlled to 840%, and 500% of those with poor academic performance will be eliminated. There are about junior high schools, and the enrollment rate of junior high school students to high school will be controlled to %. There are about high schools in the country, and high school graduates every year will compete for a limited number of university places. It is estimated that the college entrance examination elimination rate will be even more cruel.
After sorting out the entire school system, the topic turned to the weekly work system mentioned by Lu Jin, and then to the calendar. This is very important because the work and rest system must be determined first before the semesters and class hours can be divided. The textbooks can then be compiled according to the class hours, and all the knowledge points must be taught within the specified class hours.

Lu Jin himself was used to the rhythm of the weekly system, and felt that the ancient ten-day rest system was difficult to maintain. Working nine days in a row, nine days off, one day off, wouldn't he be annoyed? But the others present had been using the ten-day rest system, and they had long been used to it.

In addition, if Lu Jin wanted to promote the week system, he had to find a basis. Although the week system was not originally invented in China, it was introduced to China very early. China probably knew about it during the Tang Dynasty. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the week system was incorporated into the calendar and adapted to the local culture. It was called the Seven Days System, also known as the Day System. There were seven days in a week, one day each for 'gold, wood, water, fire, earth, month, and day'.

Otherwise, why would you call it the week? Why is the seventh day of the week called Sunday? Westerners call it Sunday because they go to church to worship. Chinese people certainly don't go to church, so they call it the week or Sunday. Influenced by China, Japan and South Korea still call it the seventh day of the week.

Although the Northern Song Dynasty included the Seven Suns in the "Yingtian Calendar", it was only used to calculate the calendar and was not promoted in the production and life of the people. Otherwise, Lu Jin would not have to go to so much effort to promote it. Why was it not promoted in the Northern Song Dynasty? Wang Guangyang raised a practical question about this.

Calendars are things like solar calendars, which are used to determine solar terms and guide agricultural production, while lunar calendars, which are monthly calendars, are mainly used to determine urban production and life. Why did the three-day holiday system in January become popular? Because it is convenient.

People can tell whether it is the first, middle or last month by looking at the moon. But if the week system is promoted, how can people determine the specific date? Can you tell which day of the week it is by looking at the moon? So if we want to promote the week system, at least every household should have a calendar so that people will not mess up their days.

To put it bluntly, it's still a productivity issue. Making a large number of calendars requires a lot of paper and ink.
A similar problem is precise time. If you want workers to go to work on time, schools to start classes on time, and trains to depart on time, you must first let the people know the precise time.

In the past, farmers in the countryside worked from sunrise to sunset and rested at sunset, so they did not really need precise time. In the city, there was a bell and drum tower set up by the government, with a sundial and a clepsydra. The hereditary Yin-Yang households were sent to stare at the sundial and beat the drum and ring the bell every day, and to stare at the clepsydra at night, and to send people to beat the night watch to tell the time. However, if one wants to promote modern production and living patterns, these alone are not enough, and more precise time is needed.

Fortunately, Lu Jin had already made a clock, so he could let the Shaofu open a clock company. As a royal enterprise, printing a calendar with the week was not a problem. Zhu could print millions of Ming Dagao, so Lu Jin couldn't even print a calendar? Therefore, the proposal to promote the weekly work and rest system was also forcibly passed by Lu Jin.

In fact, the Han Dynasty had adopted a similar way of working and resting. In the Han Dynasty, people worked five days a week and rested one day, which was called Xiu Mu, the day to go home and take a bath. How is this different from the weekly system of working five days a week and resting two days a week? It is nothing more than splitting the ten-day period into two five-day periods.

Finally, there is the holiday system. The Ming Dynasty in history was notoriously miserable. Not only were there few holidays, but wages were also low. In addition, many officials were old officials from the Yuan Dynasty, and the corruption problem had always been high. Zhu Yuanzhang established a system of ten-day rest and holidays in parallel, with one day of rest every ten days. There are 36 ten-days in a year, which is 36 days. Add to that holidays such as the winter solstice, summer solstice, and Spring Festival, and the total number of holidays for the whole year is 50 days.

It seems like a lot, but compared with the previous dynasties, the Song Dynasty had 120 days of vacation a year, and the Tang Dynasty had about 90 to 100 days. Lu Jin, Lu Jin is also rolled! Although he cursed Lao Zhu, his body is also very honest.
After the full implementation of the week system, schools adopted a two-day weekend, working five days a week and having two days off; factory workers adopted a big and small week system, alternating between single and double days off, working six days a week and having one day off next week, working five days a week and having two days off, hence the name big and small week, for a total of 78 days off.

Add one day for the Winter Solstice, three days for the Qingming Festival, one day for the Dragon Boat Festival, one day for the Mid-Autumn Festival, and seven days for the Spring Festival, and there will be 91 holidays throughout the year. In the future, we can add seven days for the National Day, and there will be 98 holidays throughout the year, which is about the same as the level of the Tang Dynasty. But this is a factory, and the government must roll it up.
The imperial court and government offices adopted a single-day-off system, with six days off per week, for a total of 52 days. Add in 20 days of holidays, for a total of 72 days of holidays throughout the year, which is a little looser than Zhu Yuanzhang's 50 days and a little more flexible than the Tang Dynasty's 90 days.

This preparatory meeting for the establishment of the nation's system, which was comparable to the 'Two Sessions', lasted for more than half a month. It started with Lu Jin setting the outline of the system, and then the details of each aspect were discussed every day. By the time everything was almost done, it was June 20th.

In late June of the 13th year of Zhizheng, two major events occurred. First, Fang Guozhen returned from buying horses. He bought more than 3,000 horses from Dadu and 4,000 horses from Goryeo, totaling more than 7,500 horses, all of which were landed in Haining Prefecture (Lianyungang). At the same time, he also sold more than 100,000 dan of grain to Dadu and made some money.

In addition, the Intelligence Bureau had made arrangements with Dadu, Liaodong, and Goryeo to continue trading horses in the coming year. The Intelligence Bureau also contacted the current Prime Minister of the Yuan Dynasty, Hama, through Shen and Fang Guozhen, and also received a piece of inside information that Tuotuo might be dead.

After Tuotuo was defeated by Hama and Empress Ki, he was exiled to Yunnan. However, because Lu Jin cut off the land route to the south, Tuotuo was sent by sea. Perhaps at Hama's instruction, Tuotuo was killed on the boat before he could land in Guangzhou. This guy was afraid that Tuotuo would come back to seize power from him, so he simply killed Tuotuo.
Well, Lu Jin didn't react much to the news. In history, Tuotuo was poisoned to death by Hama's forged edict, and it seems to be no exception now.

On the contrary, Lu Jin is more concerned about the current situation in Dadu.

Dadu is now very short of food. Thanks to Lu Jin's occupation of Jiangnan and the interruption of the grain transport to Xuzhou, Dadu is now cannibalizing people.
The good thing is that the Yuan court could no longer provide food and fodder to raise a large army, and was unable to organize a large military group to go south to suppress the Red Turban Army. The task of suppressing the Red Turbans could only rely on local militia warlords, such as the Left Prime Minister of Sichuan Province, Dashibadulu, Chagan Temur (Wang Baobao's adoptive father), and other famous warlord leaders in the late Yuan Dynasty.

The downside is that the population in the north has been consumed again. When this wave of chaos ends, I don’t know how many people will be left in the north.

Another one is Hama, who has been worried about the food problem in the past few months. Now Fang Guozhen has come to his rescue by sending more than 100,000 shi of grain to solve the urgent problem in Dadu. Fang Guozhen's envoy, the intelligence agent sent by Bao Yu, was immediately treated as a guest of honor by Hama. As long as you can send food to Hama, you can enter and leave Prime Minister Hama's mansion at will.

Through this route, the Intelligence Bureau immediately gained a foothold in Dadu, and penetrated the intelligence station into the political center of the Yuan court. They were able to obtain some important intelligence from the Yuan court from Hama in a timely manner. The Intelligence Bureau had made a great contribution!!!
This guy is truly a traitor to others and a hero to me.
The second thing was that the Jinqu Campaign, which was originally scheduled to be launched on June 20th, officially began.

The Third Front Army on the Eastern Front was led by Zhang Desheng, deputy commander of the Second Army Group. He led the main force of the newly formed 52nd Army to attack Wuzhou Road. With the cooperation of Tao Guangyi, the commander of Wuzhou Road who had secretly surrendered, Zhang Desheng defeated all the enemies in one fell swoop and captured the outer cities of Yiwu, Dongyang, Yongkang, Wuyi and Lanxi without bloodshed. He finally led the main force to encircle Jinhua City.

Yang Hui, the inspector of eastern Zhejiang, was kidnapped, Sengzhu, the Darughachi of Wuzhou Road, was killed, Ning Anqing, the colleague of the Yuan court's Privy Council, chose to surrender under the persuasion of Tao Guangyi and Li Xiang, and Temureisi, the assistant censor of the Yuan court's Jiangnan office, saw that the situation was hopeless, and committed suicide by cutting his own throat on the top of Jinhua city wall.

From then on, the last administrative command center of the Yuan court in Jiangnan was wiped out by the Shengwu Army. Wuzhou Road was officially renamed Jinhua Prefecture, and the city gates were opened. Zhang Desheng led the Shengwu Army to enter Jinhua Prefecture. Tao Guangyi also took the captured Yang Hui, the surrendered Ning Anqing, and the chief official Li Xiang, and set off for Jiankang to meet Lu Jin.

On the western side, the Fifth Front Army also gathered elite troops, led by Deng Shunxing and Qin Rong, and led the 46th Army to attack Quzhou Road.

Quzhou Road knew that Jinhua was there to resist the enemy in the east, so it had no defense at its rear and put all its forces in the west to resist Deng Shunxing. However, Tao Guangyi rebelled in advance, causing Wuzhou Road to fall quickly. Before Quzhou Road could react, Zhang Desheng's 52nd Army marched westward from the east, fiercely attacked Quzhou Road's back, and quickly captured the two cities of Longyou, which were short of troops, and "Xi'an", the capital of Quzhou Road. This Xi'an was also changed to Quzhou Prefecture.

The Yuan army located in the three cities of Kaihua, Changshan and Jiangshan on the western front saw that their hometowns were attacked from behind by the Shengwu Army. Their morale collapsed immediately and they all surrendered under Deng Shunxing's attack. The three cities on the western front also changed hands.

At this point, the Jinqu Battle was over in less than ten days. It came and went quickly, and even many local people had not yet reacted before the flags on the city walls had changed.

At the same time, in order to cooperate with the Jinqu Campaign and prevent the Jiangxi Yuan Army from attacking the flank of the Fifth Front Army from the west, Liao Yongan's First Front Army also took the initiative to attack, mobilizing an army group of more than 50,000 troops to feint at Jiangzhou City (Jiujiang), scaring the Jiangxi Yuan Army so much that they dared not to support Quzhou at all. After the battle of Quzhou was over, Liao Yongan immediately retreated to Huangmei and Suzhou.

After this battle, the Shengwu Army has completely cleared the obstacles for attacking Jiangxi, and they can just wait until the autumn grain is harvested in September to launch a full-scale attack!

At the beginning of July in the 13th year of Zhizheng, despite the scorching heat of the Lesser Heat and Greater Heat, the rice ears of summer grain were rapidly filling with grain and maturing, but Lu Jin was fully armed, wearing the nine-tasseled and twelve-chapter crown of the King of Chu newly made by Zhang Yunxiu, with a sword hanging from his waist, and practicing the ritual of offering sacrifices to the sky with Tao Arrangement.

It was also at this time that Tao Guangyi brought his whole family from Jinhua to Jiankang.

(End of this chapter)