Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 310: Rectification Completed

With the responsibility of leading the rise of Chinese in South America, Li Mingyuan has not had time to rest for a long time. Today, he will temporarily deal with the work at hand. Li Mingyuan plans to take advantage of the good weather and take the Andean eagle Heize, who was domesticated in Bolivia, to the plains outside Chang'an (Cordoba) for a leisurely tour.

Nothing in the world can withstand the test of time. The Andean condor, which was just in its infancy ten years ago, has now entered its twilight years. I wonder if the once majestic condor will be able to soar in the blue sky again after a year or two. Li Mingyuan takes the condor out, not only to relax his tired body and mind, but also to accompany Kurosawa, his old friend who has followed him for ten years, for the last time.

At present, the area controlled by the Han Kingdom stretches for thousands of miles from north to south, with a land area of ​​more than 340 million square kilometers. The vast territory has different scenery. The majestic Andes Mountains and the beautiful Paraná River basin all have unique charms. Li Mingyuan has always had a dream in his mind, that is, to gallop across the country on horseback, not to miss every area on the Han Kingdom, and to see with his own eyes the magnificent rivers and mountains that he has fought for future generations.

Li Mingyuan's wish may not be realized in the short term, as the short rest time does not allow him to leave the central government and visit other places.

A group of hundreds of National Defense Army soldiers left the Chang'an Palace and stayed outside for a whole day. At night, every returning soldier had harvested prey on his horse's back. Some were fat rabbits, pheasants, and foxes, while others were large animals such as wild deer and camels weighing hundreds of kilograms.

Ordering the soldiers to disperse with their prey, Li Mingyuan got off his horse and walked into the palace.

The heavy door was pushed open by the guards on both sides. As soon as Li Mingyuan walked into the gate, he heard the sound of horse hooves.

"Your Highness, Sun Bin, Zheng Huaide, and He Yanliang have made some progress in their investigation of Yunzhou. Lord Zhang and Lord Zhao are worried that Your Highness may be waiting anxiously, so they asked me to come and report to Your Highness in the evening."

Minister of Commerce Liu Pu, Deputy Minister of Revenue Zhang Guanghai, and Deputy Minister of Finance Zhao Yan got off the carriage and saluted Li Mingyuan.

"I was just strolling around the outskirts of the city, and I just happened to run into you guys when I came back. Come in, don't stay outside the door."

Li Mingyuan smiled and invited a few people to enter the palace, then sat casually on a chair and asked, "Tell me, what's the situation in Yunzhou?"

"Your Highness, the phenomenon of collusion between officials and businessmen in Yunzhou is very serious. According to the intelligence statistics submitted by Lord Sun, there are 4 county-level officials in Yunzhou's 12 counties who are suspected of colluding with illegal businessmen to sell the state's wasteland reclamation rights at low prices. There are 50 government officials at the department level and above who secretly participate in business activities. There are more than section-level officials who violated the regulations on the appointment of officials, are suspected of power-for-money transactions, and privately arrange for their relatives to serve in grassroots township and town-level administrative districts. …………"

Zhang Guanghai, the deputy minister in charge of the Ministry of Households, was the first to report, "The above data is only the initial investigation results of the three gentlemen Sun Bin, Zheng Huaide, and He Yanliang. If the investigation is thorough, I am afraid that more officials and illegal businessmen will be involved in the case."

"Humph! The total number of officials in Yunzhou is only over a thousand, and nearly 10% of them are involved in the case after only half a month of investigation and evidence collection. If we dig deeper, I think the officialdom of Yunzhou will be turned upside down!"

"Your Highness, please calm down. Yunzhou was developed relatively late. Most of the officials and merchants there moved here from the Nanyang region. Most of the officials were recommended by themselves without undergoing a unified government assessment. The relationships between officials are complicated, and it is inevitable that there are more corruption and illegal activities than in other regions."

"The unified official examination and selection system was only implemented this year. In Yunzhou and other states, nine out of ten government officials at the state, county, township, and town levels are businessmen and scholars who have fled from overseas. The number of local college graduates who are actually selected and appointed by the government only accounts for 10% of the total number of government officials.

There are quite a few officials in the government who were born as businessmen. Many of them bring the bad habits they had when they were doing business into the officialdom. If this continues, the consequences of officials and businessmen colluding to control the officialdom will be unimaginable. We really need to be ruthless and make a thorough rectification of the officialdom. "

Liu Pu was born in the remnants of the Taiping Army. He had always been disgusted with the habits of some officials who gave up business to join politics. He said angrily, "At the beginning of the founding of the country, Your Highness treated overseas Chinese merchants well, allowing them to move to South America and buy land and houses at low prices. All the overseas Chinese merchants who obeyed Your Highness's arrangements now have thousands of acres of fertile land and houses. However, some people are so ungrateful that they have more wealth than they can spend in their lifetime, but they still reach out to our compatriots who have fled. We really disdain to associate with them!"

"Lord Liu, you may have never heard the saying, 'You can't get rich without killing the poor.' Overseas Chinese businessmen made their fortunes by withholding the wages of their fellow Chinese workers," Zhao Yan echoed.

"Deputy Minister Zhang, you and Zheng Huaide are in charge of the Ministry of Household Affairs. The review procedures for new naturalized immigrants in the local states are in your Ministry of Household Affairs. You should be familiar with the relevant situations in the local states."

After listening to Liu Pu and Zhao Yan’s statements, Li Mingyuan continued to ask.

"Your Highness, collusion between Chinese merchants and government officials has occurred from time to time since the founding of the country. If we want to completely change the trend of government officials and curb official corruption and businessmen's illegal activities, we still need to consider it carefully and wait until everything is ready before trying to resolve it."

"We should take it step by step. Killing a few or a group of officials and businessmen who have committed crimes will not solve the various problems currently existing in the country."

Li Mingyuan disagreed with Zhang Guangyuan's moderate and peaceful way of handling the matter. He said with a firm look in his eyes, "No matter how good the system is, it will still be full of loopholes without effective executors and supervisors. Four years ago, overseas Chinese businessmen poured into the textile industry, exploiting and squeezing ordinary female workers, illegally using and punishing child laborers. At the beginning, considering that they were first-time offenders, they were treated leniently once. Now, not long after that incident, the businessmen's illegal and criminal behavior and collusion with government officials have not been restrained at all.

Four days ago, on the night before my mission to Brazil, Mr. Yuji came to the palace in person to discuss with me for half the night. Do you know why Mr. Yuji, who is already 64 years old, suddenly came to the palace in the evening? "

Li Mingyuan glanced at the three people and continued, "Because of the news of the diplomatic mission to Brazil, many people believed that the ceasefire negotiations would be successful. By then, Yu Ji, who had made great contributions, would be promoted further and his official position and power would be even greater. So they couldn't wait to go to his house to give gifts and build relationships. If it were you, what would you think at that time?"

Seeing the three people sitting in the chairs without saying anything, Li Mingyuan gave the answer himself. "Good fields, beautiful jade, gold and silver, each gift given is valuable. They gave such valuable gifts, and even if you don't think deeply, you can guess what kind of reward they are seeking. No wonder they are seeking official positions, money and advice. Ladies and gentlemen, in the places under the jurisdiction of the central government, there are so many people knocking on the door of a senior official's house to give gifts and bribes. Imagine what the scene is like in front of the government gates of those local counties far away from the central control, where the sky is high and the emperor is far away. Would you be surprised and scared?"

Although Li Mingyuan's subsequent words deliberately exaggerated the corruption of local governments, it can be roughly estimated based on the operating system of the Han Dynasty that in the ten years of development and construction, the military, government, and state-owned industrial and commercial enterprises accounted for roughly 50% of the economic achievements since the founding of the People's Republic of China, private businessmen accounted for about 10% of the economic benefits, and ordinary farmers and workers obtained the remaining 40%.

Half of the fruits of the country's economic development were occupied by the government and the army, which were actually composed of officials. Extensive economic development brought the most important primitive accumulation in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, but corrupt officials, illegal businessmen in state-owned enterprises, and businessmen who colluded with officials stole funds from government funds, which greatly weakened the benefits of economic development. These people have degenerated into parasites attached to the Han State, relying solely on embezzling national interests to fatten themselves.

The lower-class Chinese immigrants paid the highest price in the ten years of development and construction, but they gained only the least. After ten years of development, the Han Kingdom entered a new stage of development. At this time, it is unfair and inconsistent with Li Mingyuan's long-term plan for national development to let the lower-class people bear the cost of a second round of reform and development.

In Li Mingyuan's plan,

The Han Kingdom must carry out a second reform, and must make the economic pie bigger, while also redistributing the pie shares according to economic contribution.
The grassroots people who have already borne the cost of nation-building and development deserve to be compensated in the second round of reform, and part of the economic benefits required by the second round of reform should be paid by the officials and businessmen who illegally embezzled state assets in the previous stage. It is absolutely intolerable that they continue to exploit the blood and sweat of ordinary people in the second stage of national development.

Li Mingyuan is confident that he has a vision that surpasses his contemporaries. He believes that only he can lead the Chinese in South America to a path of powerful rise. Therefore, on the fundamental issues of national development, Li Mingyuan always insists on his own ideas and will not give up easily because of the worries and concerns of his officials.

Only a few people knew about the conversation in the palace. At midnight, when Liu Pu, Zhao Yan and Zhang Guanghai walked out of the palace, an internal cleansing and rectification campaign that had been planned and lasted for a year began in the dark.

(End of this chapter)