Fu Shanhe

Chapter 111: Removal of Redundant Officials
After the brief meeting, Li Mu took the group to visit the military camp.

In the Dayu Dynasty, the weight of a military general never depended on the rank of his official position.

Whoever has stronger military power can speak more confidently.

As a lieutenant general appointed by the imperial court, the troops under his command were all registered soldiers of the imperial court, so there was no need to hide anything.

To fool a group of civilian officials who know nothing about military affairs, as long as they look good, they can be declared as elite soldiers.

The cavalry training time is short and they are temporarily unable to perform.

Fortunately, these soldiers were elite troops selected from the infantry and had seen blood several times under the guidance of Li Mu.

They are neatly arranged together, and one can feel the murderous aura from afar.

"Commander Li is really good at training his troops!"

Some people in ancient times couldn't help but sigh.

The Yangzhou Camp had only been established for more than three months, but it had already achieved the current level of quality.

If a few years pass, he will definitely be the elite in the Dayu army.

When he was in Beijing, he heard that the court was going to strengthen its control over the southeastern provinces, but he did not take it seriously.

Now it seems that the rumors were not groundless.

Once this force is successfully trained, if there are changes in the south in the future, the troops can be deployed nearby.

There is no need to travel thousands of miles to transfer troops from the capital.

In peacetime, this kind of troop deployment is sufficient to deal with minor disturbances.

"Your Excellency the Prefect is overly flattering. I was only performing my duty.

All the elite soldiers in the world are fed with money and food.

If the financial resources were available, there would be many more people in the world who could train elite soldiers."

Li Mu answered frankly.

These are all true. As long as the money and food are guaranteed, the Dayu Dynasty has no shortage of talented generals.

Especially in the Nine Border Areas, there are quite a few capable generals.

If the imperial court could raise enough military funds, it would only take three to five years to eliminate foreign threats.

"Haha, I still have things to do in the government office, so I'll leave first!"

When he heard the words "money and food", Gu Youwen laughed hurriedly and quickly found an excuse to run away.

His intuition told him that if he stayed here any longer, he would bleed heavily again today.

It's not that he was against spending money on military training. On the contrary, Gu Youwen was one of the few civil servants who supported increasing military spending.

When he was in the Hanlin Academy, he wrote a letter to the court, hoping to increase military spending.

Political support is one thing, but paying for it yourself is another.

Only after I became the head of a household did I realize how expensive firewood, rice, oil, salt and other necessities are.

The greatest support for Li Mu now is that he himself does not come out to cause trouble.

Li Mu was helpless when he saw Prefect Gu turned around and left without even giving him a chance to stay.

It's just asking for more military funds a few times. Any military general would fight for this kind of thing.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. If you don't actively strive for military funds, people will think that the allocated money and food is enough.

People don’t complain much in normal times. When the government has money, they go there and the opportunity is gone.

Even though the Yangzhou Camp was having a good time, the other armies in Yangzhou that were being rebuilt were having a harder time than the other.

The inspection offices and garrison camps under the prefectures and counties are all empty shells.

Yangzhou Wei, which has put up its sign again, has a bright future but is still struggling at this stage.

The military funds allocated by the imperial court to Yangzhou gave priority to recruiting soldiers with greater combat effectiveness, and all treatment of local troops was given a lower priority.

Only after the Yangzhou Camp demonstrated its own value was it able to squeeze money out of the government office.

Many local generals now only have a few personal soldiers at their disposal and can't even put up a defense.

They went to the government office to ask for money and suffered a beating from society, learning what it meant that civil officials were noble and military officials were despised.

Without a generous gift, you can't even get through the door.

……

In Wenyuan Pavilion, the five ministers gathered together.

"My dear colleagues, our plan to cut redundant staff has run into difficulties.

The reason we gathered everyone here today is to discuss how to proceed.

Mr. Shi, you were in charge of the Ministry of Personnel before, and you are most familiar with the problem of redundant staff. Please tell us the details first!"

Pang Hengsheng spoke first.

A new official has three things to do when he takes office, and the first big fire he started after the cabinet reshuffle ran into trouble.

If we give up at this time, it will be a major blow to the authority of the cabinet.

"Prime Minister, based on the investigation, there are mainly three types of redundant officials in the court.

Some of them are daily rewards from His Majesty, and most of these people are members of the royal family, nobles, and relatives by marriage.

It is definitely not okay to just expel people from the court.

The Ministry of Personnel's plan was to retain the titles of these people and allow them to enjoy treatment of corresponding grades, but to increase the proportion of treasure notes when paying their salaries.

At present, the progress is relatively smooth, and these people do not rely on the court's salary to make a living.

Apart from a few curse words, there wasn't any big trouble.

The latter two are the more troublesome.

In addition to the imperial examination system, our dynasty also has the system of inheritance and the system of recommendation.

The second part of redundant personnel mainly comes from the inheritance of officials. Because of their personal ability problems, most of those who entered the government through inheritance were assigned to idle government offices.

As time went on, this group grew larger and larger, leading to overstaffing in many government offices.

The third part of redundant staff are those who entered the officialdom through the orthodox imperial examination system.

Some officials have been marginalized, either because they failed the assessment or were demoted.

These officials are equivalent to empty titles and have nothing to do in normal times.

Apart from collecting his salary, he would not report to the government office throughout the year. "

Shi Yuanhu said with a gloomy expression.

The context was not clearly understood in advance and the difficulty of laying off redundant staff was underestimated.

Others could understand it, but it was totally inappropriate for him, the former Minister of Personnel, to make the same mistake.

Although no one said it out loud, everyone still had doubts about his ability to get things done.

But he also has his own troubles.

The Minister of Personnel is not omnipotent, and there are some sensitive matters that he cannot interfere in.

Before entering the cabinet, he absolutely did not dare to talk about cutting redundant staff, nor did he even pay attention to it.

The standards for layoffs drawn up by the cabinet are themselves very lenient.

As long as there is work to do, no matter how important it is, it is not considered a redundant official.

The embarrassing thing is that after the investigation, it was discovered that there were more officials who received salaries without doing anything than those who actually worked.

This kind of work that offends the bureaucracy cannot be carried out unless the cabinet is strong enough.

“It seems that we didn’t think it through before. Since there is no problem with the way everyone entered the government, we can’t just send them back home.

I think the main approach to dealing with idle officials is to persuade them to return.

For those who are about to retire, they will be arranged to retire early and all their treatment will be in accordance with the normal treatment for retired officials.

The court would not take coercive measures against those who were unwilling to leave.

When the Ministry of Revenue distributes salaries, it will gradually increase the proportion of their treasure notes, and in the future, the main form of payment for retirement will also be treasure notes. "

Xu Wenyue spoke.

The number of redundant officials is too large and it is imperative to cut them down.

Otherwise, the increasingly large bureaucratic system would be able to hollow out the Dayu Dynasty.

But the officialdom is also a society of personal relationships, and sending people back home directly is too inhumane.

If this is enforced by force, there will definitely be a lot of resistance from those below.

After much thought, he chose to compromise.

After the shock of the layoffs news, people were much more receptive to the proposal of reducing salaries.

What's more, they did not directly cut the salary, but only increased the proportion of treasure notes in the salary. The nominal treatment remained the same.

Everyone's face was saved.

If a few more unlucky guys were persuaded to return, the rest would just feel lucky and wouldn't care about the small matter of salary reduction.

After all, 99 percent of the officials in the Dayu Dynasty did not rely on salaries to make a living.

There are only poor scholars in the world, but I have never heard of a poor candidate, let alone an incumbent official.

Even if he did not receive a penny in salary, he could still earn a considerable income just by accepting tax-free land donated by his neighbors.

The descendants of the powerful and wealthy who inherited Cheng Yin's throne have never lacked money, and there is no need for everyone to worry about their livelihood.

"Mr. Xu is right. We really can't take things to the extreme.

We cut redundant staff mainly to reduce the burden on the court.

Now that the goal of reducing the burden has been achieved, layoffs are no longer so important.

I think we should just set a goal to dismiss 100 redundant officials and give an explanation to the outside world.”

Elder Lu on the side spoke up and echoed.

No one wants to do a job that offends others.

The first fire after the cabinet reshuffle was so big, in fact it was forced by the situation.

The previous cabinet completed the salt administration reform. Even if the silver contributed by the salt merchants is not counted, the salt tax reached a record high of 5 million taels.

The fact that Song Ge Lao was honored after his death was largely due to the successful salt administration reform.

Even though he did not lead the completion of the project, since the cabinet cooperated with the work, he should have contributed to it.

If he personally led the completion of it, then the posthumous title he received might be raised even higher.

In order to maintain a good reputation during life and after death, everyone has to do something.

It is difficult to lay off redundant staff, but the risk is not high.

After all, the scale is in their hands and can be adjusted flexibly.

"Lord Lu, we made such a big fuss earlier, and now it ends so hastily, which has a great impact on the authority of the cabinet.

There is no problem with the handling of idle officials, but laying off one hundred redundant officials is far from enough.

You have to know that these things will be recorded in history books in the future.

We are so petty. If future generations see us doing this, we will become a laughing stock.

Now that you have decided to do it, you might as well achieve some results.

I think we should cut a total of 1,000 redundant officials from the local to the central level to show our determination to eliminate redundant officials! "

Pei Xueqing's words made everyone fall into deep thought.

Reputation during life and after death, this is something no one can ignore.

(End of this chapter)