Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 334: Storm Rectification

No matter how good a policy is, it needs to be implemented by qualified officials. The composition of officials in the Han government is complex. Most of them are poor scholars and candidates who have not received systematic education and have changed their careers halfway, as well as merchants with some cultural knowledge. Although their joining has solved the problem of insufficient number of officials in the Han Dynasty to a certain extent, as time goes by and the territory of the Han Dynasty doubles, they who have been hastily promoted to official positions are not only unable to provide help for the effective operation of the government, but also directly or indirectly damage the interests of the country.

The case involving Lin Yaxiang and the Yixing Company he controlled is a typical example of official corruption and collusion between officials and businessmen. Local officials in Yunzhou violated government laws, overtly or covertly transferred benefits to relevant personnel, and infringed on the state's public land and tax revenues. They knew clearly that doing so was not in compliance with legal requirements, but due to the lack of professional qualities of officials, many officials took the risk and did it without anyone noticing, which eventually led to the entire Yunzhou local government being in chaos and rampant corruption.

In the early days of a country, when the new ruling class replaces the old class, it is the period most likely to breed power monopoly. If the team of government officials is not rectified at the source, the longer the time is delayed, the higher the cost and consequences of reform will be.

There is no good way to clean up the ranks of officials and improve the administrative efficiency of government agencies. In view of the current actual situation in the Han State, Li Mingyuan decided to start from four aspects.

First, professional intelligence personnel were dispatched from the Ministry of State Security to conduct investigations in various prefectures and counties to collect evidence of illegal and criminal activities by local officials and businessmen, and deal with them as soon as they were discovered.

Second, a new Anti-Corruption Department was established within the Inspectorate, with a high administrative level of vice-ministerial level. It was directly responsible to the emperor and was specifically responsible for handling cases such as official corruption, collusion between officials and businessmen, and economic crimes.

Third, speed up the training of professional officials, select college graduates based on their merits to work in the administrative organs of the central and local governments, and initially engage in work that assists the chief officials, sharing their power and exercising a certain degree of power restraint on them.

Fourth, given that it is unlikely that a major war will break out in South America within the next ten years, the country will be in a long period of peace. Li Mingyuan believes that continuing to arrange those officers and soldiers with a certain cultural literacy and strong execution ability to the grassroots government agencies can strengthen the government's control over the local grassroots. Although corrupt elements will inevitably appear among the demobilized officers and soldiers, compared with those old mainland literati and businessmen who joined in halfway, Li Mingyuan believes that retired officers who have undergone a period of military education and training and have strong obedience are more reliable.

In early November 1879, after several months of exploration and investigation, the first round of cleanup and rectification work in the prefectures within the Han Kingdom began.

Lin Yaxiang and the Yixing Company were the focus of attention and were the first to be arrested and sealed off. Lin Yaxiang himself was sentenced to death and all his personal property was confiscated because he embezzled a huge amount of state wasteland and repeatedly concealed major casualties in the companies and plantations under his jurisdiction. At the same time, more than 100 officials and managers of the Yixing Company involved in Lin Yaxiang's case were all arrested. Eighty percent of the assets of the Yixing Company were sealed up and confiscated. The 6,200 workers who were illegally employed and restricted in their personal freedom by the Yixing Company were restored to free status and were allowed to receive part of the assets of the Yixing Company as economic compensation.

The first round of internal rectification storm was launched across the capital, three prefectures and eighteen states. As of November 1879, 11, a total of 24 officials of all ranks were arrested and imprisoned, 1075 businessmen and old-fashioned literati were investigated, and the total value of the confiscated land, shops and properties involved was equivalent to about 2148 million taels of silver, accounting for about half of the total fiscal revenue of the Han Dynasty in one year.

According to the Qing Dynasty's fiscal revenue of 3 million taels of silver in the same period, Han's annual fiscal revenue of 2000 million taels of silver only accounted for one-fifteenth of the Qing Dynasty's revenue. Converted into per capita fiscal revenue, Han's per capita fiscal revenue was only about three times more than that of the Qing Dynasty. However, taking into account the annual subsidies of the Han government army for immigration transportation, local land development, industrial construction and other costs, as well as the low prices of local grain, cloth and other commodities in Han, the average living standard of a Han household was four to five times higher than that of the people under the Qing Dynasty, and the per capita fiscal revenue was much more than what was on the books. The rapid internal rectification and the arrest of a large number of officials and businessmen shocked the local officials and businessmen. Those who were optimistic about the future development prospects of the Han State due to the victory in the Argentine War and Li Mingyuan's enthronement as emperor and who had planned to use various means to seek promotion and expansion of business quickly put an end to the inappropriate thoughts in their minds and did their jobs honestly, fearing that if they were not careful, they would be caught with evidence by the Ministry of State Security and the Inspectorate, which would ruin their lives and end up with their lives and wealth ruined.

Frightened by the local official rectification turmoil, many businessmen backed down and decided to leave the Han country, taking the money they earned in the Han country back to the mainland or Southeast Asia to become their own local rich people. Li Mingyuan had nothing to say to these people. He instructed government officials in one word: investigate. They must seriously investigate their business experience. If anything violates the national law, they must be punished immediately. If the degree of involvement is low or even they are law-abiding, they must pay one-third of their property as an appearance tax. After all, neither Li Mingyuan nor his officials and generals are generous people. They have taken enough benefits from the Han country. If they want to leave, they must spit out some of it.

After the policy of paying taxes upon departure was implemented, about two-fifths of the people changed their minds and chose to stay, unwilling to lose nearly half of their property. Another group of determined people, except for a part who were arrested because of illegal sources of property, a total of 648 businessmen and 215 old-style scholars and juren left South America, either to Southeast Asia or directly back to the mainland, and lived a life they thought suited them.

The composition of immigrants in the Han Dynasty was complex. They included ordinary Chinese laborers, people fleeing famine, overseas Chinese businessmen and other different categories of people. They came to South America for different purposes. In addition to the majority of people who came to South America to have a full meal and find a way to make a living with their families, there were also some speculative businessmen and gangsters who committed crimes in the mainland who came to South America in order to make a name for themselves.

In order to unify the management of immigrants, the Han government thought hard and adopted a set of measures and administrative orders to transform the Chinese who immigrated with bad intentions. From the initial landing of the transport ships, the government provided simple hygiene and education and training on the local policies and laws of the Han Dynasty to two years of collective labor, participating in the government-organized road repairs and settlement housing construction. At the end of the two-year labor period, the government rewarded the immigrants with housing and land according to their performance during the labor period.
It can be said that after more than ten years of exploration and improvement, the Chinese immigration education and reform policy was generally successful. However, it is difficult for some Chinese people with stubborn nature to be completely changed by external education and training. After enduring a two-year labor period, receiving unified militia training in settlements, and obtaining formal national status, some Chinese people who were gang members and ruffians became active again, extorting new immigrants, bribing grassroots officials, and engaging in gambling, usury and other activities.

It can be said that the old-fashioned gang members and hooligans provided a lot of room for corruption among government officials and collusion between officials and businessmen. Why was Lin Yaxiang, who had no official position and was just a businessman, able to win over more than a hundred officials of all ranks in Yunzhou? Not only the wealth in his hands played a role, but the thousands of gangs and hooligans under the name of Yixing Company and who depended on Yixing Company for survival were also a force that could not be ignored.

At the beginning of the founding of the country, the Han government issued an administrative order to ban all local gangs. Ordinary citizens were not allowed to take the muskets used for training home without government permission. In addition, it was strictly prohibited for the original gang members to form gangs and disrupt local security.

In order to intimidate the local people, a number of ruffians and gang members were dealt with vigorously between 1870 and 1874. Those who deserved to be sentenced were sentenced, while those who deserved to be exiled to Congo were exiled to Congo. After a four-year cleansing period, the social atmosphere in the local area was purified. However, with the impact of the Dingshu famine, the number of Chinese immigrants to the local area skyrocketed. The central and local governments were distracted by immigration affairs, so they relaxed their supervision of the local security environment, providing space for the newly immigrated gang members to operate, which led to the concentrated exposure of the local government's internal, economic, and social security problems in the second half of 1879.

Taking the opportunity to rectify problems in the officialdom and business, all the gang members, hooligans and thugs involved in them were cleaned up. At the same time, the arrested people were interrogated and the distribution of gangs hidden in various places was dug up. Both big fish and small fish were caught. This was for the sake of national stability and to seek credit from Li Mingyuan. Local officials at all levels, the Inspectorate, the Ministry of State Security, from ministerial officials to ordinary intelligence personnel and grassroots officials, all gathered their energy and were ready to make achievements before Li Mingyuan ascended the throne to make achievements, so that the social outlook in the jurisdiction would be completely renewed and in line with the requirements of the new atmosphere of the empire.

A group of national parasites were dug out, and the newly created official positions stimulated the enthusiasm of officials at all levels. Influenced by traditional culture, there has never been a shortage of people who want to be officials in the local area. Even if they see some colleagues around them being arrested for corruption, law-breaking and other issues, this cannot stop other officials' ambitions for promotion. The Han Kingdom is vast and sparsely populated, and government officials have no shortage of land and wealth to meet their living needs. The reason why those officials were arrested can only be blamed on their greed and ignorance of the times. If they honestly do things according to the law, although the promotion of official positions is slower, there is no risk, and they don’t have to worry all day and can’t sleep. If their ambitions match their abilities and they are self-aware, are they still afraid that there will not be a good ending?
Officials worked hard to deal with various illegal and criminal activities in their jurisdictions. The militia and the garrison were dispatched to capture fugitives. By mid-December, about 12 gang members and hooligans were captured. After a rough trial, the government exiled all of them to overseas colonies. Among them, 1878 were sent to the Congo colony in Africa, and the rest were divided into three batches, entering Zibo, Tonga, and Samoa respectively. According to the colonial exchange agreement signed with the Germans in July 7, they took over the islands of Zibo and Samoa directly controlled by the Germans, as well as the commercial base established by the Germans in Tonga.

(End of this chapter)