My father is Yongzheng, and I am Qianlong?

Chapter 187 Institutional Innovation
Hongli explained his actions as supporting Yongzheng's new policies, and Yongzheng naturally nodded in satisfaction.

“Fo Biao sent me a secret report, saying that your phosphate fertilizer has indeed significantly improved the growth of winter wheat in Rehe.”

Emperor Yongzheng then brought up the matter of the secret memorial submitted to him by Fobiao, the military governor of Rehe.

Hongli replied, "This is because the soil in the Rehe area is indeed highly alkaline, so this kind of phosphate fertilizer is even more necessary."

Emperor Yongzheng nodded: "Since we are helping farmers, we should not set the price too high. It is better to have small profits but quick turnover."

"Whoo!"

Hongli responded.

He never intended to take the opportunity to make a huge profit.

Then, Hongli went to the East Study to begin learning about politics.

Furthermore, since Lu Jinxian was dismissed, Li Wei has been promoting the national policy of merging land tax and poll tax in Jiangsu very smoothly, and has not filed any further complaints against officials in Jiangnan.

However, Li Wei mentioned that the gentry in Jiangnan resisted his use of the allowance for maintaining integrity to hire more clerks and tax collectors in order to monopolize tax revenue.

Therefore, Li Wei requested permission to deal with the Jiangnan gentry who had arbitrarily monopolized tax revenue.

Hongli knew that local gentry liked to monopolize many powers at the grassroots level, such as monopolizing taxes and lawsuits.

This is partly due to the fact that ordinary people were unwilling to deal directly with the government, preferring instead to first interact with local gentry and then contact the government through them to smoothly pay taxes and resolve disputes between officials and the people.

However, this also made it easier for local gentry to evade taxes and enrich themselves, sever communication between the imperial government and the people, and thus control the power to mobilize the masses at the grassroots level.

Therefore, officials like Li Wei, who were proactive in their work, would inevitably be tempted to use the tens of thousands of yuan in annual allowances to strengthen their local control. They would hire more scribes and tax collectors, thus bypassing the gentry and directly levying taxes on the common people, in order to prevent the gentry from evading taxes.

of course!

After the implementation of the anti-corruption allowance system, Li Weineng was able to control not only his own tens of thousands of anti-corruption allowances, but also the anti-corruption allowances of his subordinate officials.

This is because officials from the provincial governor to the county magistrate all received varying amounts of allowances for maintaining integrity.

This adds up to a considerable sum, enough for Li Wei and his colleagues to hire tens of thousands of tax collectors in the Jiangnan region, thus bypassing the gentry to do their work.

Moreover, what Jiangnan has in abundance is poor scholars who can write and calculate.

Emperor Hongli naturally approved of Li Wei's actions to strengthen the court's control over local areas. During his internship in government affairs, he approved Li Wei's proposals and prohibited gentry from monopolizing tax collection and litigation.

In addition, Zhejiang Governor Fahai recently reported that he had negotiated an order for one million catties of foreign copper with foreign merchants.

However, he was not comfortable entrusting the business of one million catties of copper to others, so he decided to supervise it personally. But this would delay the implementation of the land tax reform in Zhejiang, so he requested an imperial decree to postpone it.

Hongli knew that Fahai was worried about the Han officials who were registered as commoners, fearing that they might cause problems in the sale of foreign copper for the benefit of wealthy families.

However, it is a fact that there are more Han Chinese officials than Eight Banner officials in the country. This is determined by the population structure. Even if the court prioritizes the use of Banner people, it is impossible to do things without relying on Han Chinese officials.

Therefore, Hongli criticized Fahai's behavior, blaming him for not taking the initiative to find ways to innovate the system.

Hongli proposed his own solution, allowing Fahai to request the appointment of reserve officials as needed. In a specific assignment, when arranging an official, two or three reserve officials would be appointed as the first and second priority officials to supervise the current official in charge of the matter.

If the current official in charge of this matter is of poor conduct or engages in deceitful practices, the alternate official can secretly expose him. Once verified, after the official is dealt with, the first-in-line alternate official can directly replace him.

The original second-in-line alternate official can then become the first-in-line official and continue to supervise the newly appointed official.

Thus, if this probationary official wants to become a powerful incumbent official, he will be able to seriously supervise the incumbent official in charge of this matter, and will be eager to be promoted and transferred to replace him as soon as possible.

Because the Qing Dynasty needed to both maintain the dominant position of the Eight Banners nobles in the bureaucratic group and use the imperial examination system to win over Han scholars and officials, it did not reduce the number of Jinshi and Juren recruited through the imperial examinations that had been common in the late Ming Dynasty. This resulted in a shortage of civil service positions.

In addition, due to the need to sell official positions to raise funds for the pacification of the Three Feudatories, a system of reserve officials was established.

Many officials, though not immediately appointed, could become probationary officials.

When powerful officials at the level of governors and viceroys need to create new official positions such as provincial administration commissioner, deputy provincial surveillance commissioner, or assistant provincial surveillance commissioner to take charge of a specific task, they will ask the court for approval to let these reserve officials take charge of the task and thus become officials with real power.

Therefore, Fahai, the governor of Zhejiang, could also request the emperor to appoint a special official to be in charge of the foreign copper matter.

However, Hongli now instructed him to set up a special censorate to oversee this matter, and to appoint several reserve officials as those awaiting appointment, thereby taking advantage of the Han Chinese scholar-officials' desire to become officials and having them supervise each other.

Hongli believed that these people would work even harder than the Manchus in supervising them.

This system was invented by Emperor Yongzheng in his later years, and it was very effective and continued to be used until the end of the Qing Dynasty.

Many alternate officers thus served on the front lines of major battles and disaster relief efforts as commissioners.

Many high-ranking officials and governors during the late Qing Dynasty even emerged from this group.

"Appointing reserve officials is a good idea, but I'm afraid that even the slightest mistake by the current official will be magnified. The ruler needs to be even more careful in handling this and must focus on the major issues and let the minor ones go."

When Emperor Yongzheng saw Hongli's comments, he said the following to Hongli.

Hongli cupped his hands and said, "Your wisdom is beyond reproach, Father. This is also my plan. I think that even if a candidate official sues a current official, the current official can be pardoned once and given a chance to redeem himself. For the court, it is only necessary to encourage the candidate official to supervise, rather than actually allowing them to become officials."

"This is like drawing a picture of a cake to satisfy hunger; the cake is only useful when the person being depicted is hungry and cannot obtain it."

Hongli added in reply.

Yongzheng nodded and smiled, then put down his pen and turned to Hongli, saying, "Since you understand this point, then this system can be implemented first, allowing those candidates to be appointed to supervise the current officials."

Hongli smiled slightly. He believed that in the Qing Dynasty, many Han officials awaiting appointment would become much more motivated to work after this.

Next, Hongli continued to learn about politics in the East Study.

Yongzheng continued to review the memorials and formally copied the comments drafted by Hongli into vermilion ink as vermilion annotations.

Now, after Hongli gave him origami birds, Xiao Fuhui became much more cheerful. When Hongli was learning about politics in the East Study, he took the initiative to come over and talk to Hongli.

"Don't disturb your fourth brother!"

However, after a stern reminder from Yongzheng, Xiao Fuhui returned to Yongzheng's place. But when she left Hongli's place, she secretly took some of the memorials from Hongli's place and placed them with Yongzheng.

After reviewing the documents for a while, Yongzheng realized something was wrong and looked at Xiao Fu Hui: "You're worried about your fourth brother getting tired, but aren't you worried about me getting tired too?"

Xiao Fuhui pouted and replied, "I think Fourth Brother has time to play with me."

"Then I will assign him fewer tasks in the future."

Yongzheng replied.

Hongli couldn't help but smile.

During this period, the production of calcium phosphate fertilizer has been on track.

Wu Fu had already trained nine orphans who were household servants and had them teach the unemployed bannermen under Hongli's command.

The entire fertilizer workshop began producing large quantities of calcium phosphate every day.

Li Yu's family has also begun purchasing large quantities of phosphate ore from outside sources.

Hongli also arranged for some bondservants to go to Rehe to sell calcium phosphate to the Manchu self-cultivating farmers who were reclaiming land in Rehe.

These Manchu self-cultivating farmers have already seen the effects of applying phosphate fertilizer to the experimental fields. In addition, the price set by Emperor Hongli was not high, so they all bought it and tried to apply phosphate fertilizer once before the end of the heading stage.

Emperor Hongli believed that this would significantly increase winter wheat production in Rehe this year.

At that time, the government would not necessarily have to force the Manchus to farm; many Manchus who were willing to become rich through hard work would achieve a prosperous life by reclaiming wasteland.

"Fourth Master, they have uncovered some secrets about Lu Jinxian that are unknown to others. It turns out that he has a close relationship with Hongsheng, the heir of Prince Cheng's mansion."

“Lu Jinxian once presented Hongsheng with a slender horse.”

The bondservant whom Hongli had recently assigned to investigate Lu Jinxian's situation has also made progress in this matter.

On that same day, Li Yu reported this to him.

Hongli nodded after hearing this: "So it's someone from Hongsheng."

then.

Hongli then instructed Li Yu, "Keep a close eye on things and see if Hongsheng will do anything for Lu Jinxian, who has been dismissed and arrested."

"Whoo!"

Prince Cheng's Mansion.

Lu Jinxian's nephew, Lu Zongjiang, was kneeling before Hongsheng, earnestly saying, "Your Highness, if Li Wei doesn't fall, at least a million taels of silver from Jiangsu that could have been transported to the capital and divided among Your Highness and other princes will have to go to the public!"

Hong Sheng nodded.

Then he stood up and walked out, saying, "Get up first and come with me to Xishuiguan."

"Whoo!"

“Li Wei should be dealt with, but the Emperor must also be disgusted with him. Fortunately, the Emperor has banned opium now, and his family happens to be doing business with the eunuchs around Hongli. So, I have already bribed his people to turn the phosphate mines that his family gave to Hongli into opium.”

"Now we're just waiting for this opium to be seized, then we can confirm his crime as an opium smuggler who also tried to drag Hongli down with him!"

At this point, Hong Sheng continued speaking to Lu Zongjiang.

After hearing this, Lu Zongjiang said frankly that Hongsheng's actions were brilliant.

Hong Sheng just smiled and said, "Let's go and see if the tax officials at Xishuiguan dare to strictly inspect goods from Jiangnan."

"Whoo!"

Xishuiguan was located on the Tonghui River west of the capital city. Goods from Jiangnan were inspected and taxed here before entering the city.

When the phosphate ore brought by Li Wei's men arrived at Xishuiguan, and Li Yu personally came to wait on the willow-lined bank outside the pass, a tax collector from Xishuiguan boarded the ship loaded with phosphate ore.

Hong Sheng also revealed a cold smile, he was just waiting for these tax collectors to discover the clues.

"Report: No embargoed items!"

But soon, the tax collector who had finished the inspection went ashore and reported to the customs, and Hong Sheng's expression immediately changed.

Moreover, relying on his noble status, he forced his way onto the ship and had the cargo boxes opened, only to find that they were indeed full of phosphate ore.

(End of this chapter)