I did it all for the Han Dynasty!

Chapter 343 Auspicious Omens Before the Emperor's Proclamation
Liu Miao summoned Yuan Huan, the former governor of Wu Commandery, who had been sent by his beloved General Yuan Shu.

Although Yuan Huan was not in the central government, he had made outstanding contributions to the improvement of the Three Chiefs and the Fubing system. Furthermore, under Yuan Huan's governance, Wu Commandery achieved almost the best performance, second only to Danyang Commandery, which benefited from the influence of Jinling.

When Liu Miao inquired about the issue of officialdom, Yuan Huan spoke frankly—

"Firstly, the current system of prefectures, counties, and districts is based on a three-tiered system. Among them, officials at the prefecture level hold high positions, but when it comes to official duties, they are the most leisurely, which is obviously not in line with common sense."

"Secondly, in each county, the larger ones should have a magistrate, and the smaller ones should have a chief. Both are responsible for governing the people, promoting good and righteousness, prohibiting evil and punishing wickedness, handling lawsuits and suppressing bandits, taking care of the people's affairs, collecting taxes in autumn and winter, and reporting to the subordinate prefectures and kingdoms. Although each office has clerks and scribes, their responsibilities are unclear and urgently need to be addressed."

"Thirdly, in the past, each village was staffed with a 'Youzhi' (有秩), 'Sanlao' (三老), and 'Youjiao' (游徍). The 'Youzhi' were appointed by the prefecture, with a salary of 100 shi (石), and were in charge of the people of one village; in smaller villages, the county would appoint a 'Sefu' (瑟夫). All of them were responsible for knowing the good and evil of the people, the order of labor services, the poverty and wealth of the people, the amount of taxes levied, and the fairness of their social status. The 'Youjiao' were in charge of patrolling and prohibiting theft and robbery. There were also village assistants, subordinate to the villages, who were in charge of collecting taxes from the people. And then there were the 'Sanlao' in charge of education and moral guidance."

"Now that the Three Chiefs system is in effect, the positions of Chief of the Imperial Guard and the Border Guard are practically defunct. Yet some counties still appoint officials according to old customs, who then draw salaries without contributing anything, which is truly inappropriate."

"Fourthly, although I am the governor of Wu Commandery, I have heard officials from Kuaiji, Yuzhang, Changsha and other commanderies complain that their territories are very large and that it often takes ten days to travel between the counties... This may cause delays in government affairs and must be investigated!"

The more Liu Miao listened, the deeper his brows furrowed.

He knew that there were many problems with the administration under his rule.

But because I had been focusing my energy on military affairs, I was unaware that there were so many problems with the administration!

in fact.

If we still follow the old production relations, with aristocratic families and powerful clans, the four problems Yuan Huan is now raising are not problems at all.

For example, positions like "Youzhi" and "Youjiao" have become mere figureheads. Without the "Three Chiefs System," these would still be the nails in the coffins of government rule at the grassroots level, rather than useless positions that draw salaries without working.

However, with the changes in land allocation and grassroots order, many things should also be changed accordingly.

The official system of the Later Han Dynasty was originally designed to align with its policies. Now, Liu Miao is using that old system and then forcefully injecting his own new ideas into it; it's a miracle that it has been able to operate for so long!
"It's a little difficult."

That's why Liu Miao left the issue of officialdom until the end.

"But no matter how difficult it is, we have to change it!"

As the war against Yuan Shao continues, Liu Miao is confident that he will reclaim more and more land, and then gradually unify the nine provinces, allowing a new Han dynasty to stand tall on this land once again.

If you don't change it now because it's too troublesome, it will only become more troublesome later!

The first issue is the government structure at the prefecture, county, and county levels.

In fact, a prefecture was not originally an official government agency. It was simply the establishment of the regional inspectorate system by Emperor Xiaowu in the fifth year of the Yuanfeng era, which divided the country into thirteen supervisory regions. These supervisory regions were called prefectures, and each prefecture was headed by an inspector.

The actual administrative regions were only at the prefecture and county levels. The prefectural governor with a salary of 2,000 shi (a unit of grain) could directly contact the central government without having to deal with the governor of the prefecture.

However, with Emperor Xiaoling's "abolition of the prefecture and establishment of the governor," the existence of the governor completely made the prefecture-level administrative unit stand out and become a third-level administrative institution.

In other words, the administrative body at the "prefecture" level should not exist in the first place, which explains why Yuan Huan complained that the officials at the prefecture level were idle.

“We can abolish the state-level units and return to the prefecture and county system... As for these redundant officials, we can divide up the prefecture and county system to ensure their status.”

Yuan Huan nodded, clearly thinking the same thing.

However, Yuan Huan worried, "This might displease these officials."

These officials, who were doing well in the state and were superiors to county-level officials, were suddenly dismissed and demoted to the same level. These officials would definitely harbor resentment.

Moreover, Liu Miao's plan to divide the prefectures and counties meant that the number of prefectures would increase significantly.

As the number of prefectures increases, the number of prefectural governors will also increase.
As the number of prefects increases, their power and status will decline.

In other words, abolishing state-level units and creating redundant county-level units completely offended two groups of people, making both groups unhappy!

"There is a way!"

"What method does my lord intend to use?"

"Recruiting people."

Reforming the bureaucracy is like playing with fire; one wrong move and you'll get burned.

In particular, Liu Miao's reforms, while clearly aimed at alleviating the problem of redundant officials and preventing excessive local power from being exercised and strengthening central authority, also caused extremely serious damage to the interests of local officials.

Therefore, Liu Miao wanted to win over some local officials and have these newly won-over local officials confront those officials whose interests were harmed.

Although this will cause growing pains, it is an inevitable path to reforming officialdom.

“Promote more county-level officials. In particular, county magistrates and county heads who have performed well in recent years can be appointed as prefectural officials. This will suppress the voices of the previous officials.”

"Furthermore, in any case, splitting up the prefectures and counties will increase the number of government positions. More capable people can be selected from the three chiefs to serve as officials."

Since the local officials are destined to be dissatisfied with Liu Miao, he can't possibly fawn over them and coax them not to be angry.

Promote county-level officials and the three chiefs (head of the county government, county-level administrative division, and county-level administrative division) as much as possible to dilute the voices of these local officials. As long as we act quickly enough and are determined enough, we can silence these people.

Of course, it also needs to be divided internally.

Some outstanding local officials could take advantage of the central government reforms to be transferred to the central government to serve as court officials.

The ass decides the head.

At that time, these capable officials will definitely cheer for the central government, rather than help those "former colleagues" whose interests have been harmed.

exactly.

When it comes to selecting talent, aside from Liu Miao, who had an extraordinary talent for it, Zhang Zhao and Gu Yong were both excellent at it. While not all of the people they recommended were talented, at least half of them were capable.

The talent pool he had built up over the years gave Liu Miao the confidence to fill this huge talent gap. If that still wasn't enough, Liu Miao also had all-round talents like Lu Yi, Zhuge Liang, and Sima Yi... Although transferring them to local posts would be somewhat of a waste of their talents, it wouldn't be a bad thing to hone their skills!

With this reform, two of the four issues raised by Yuan Huan have been resolved.

The remaining two issues can actually be categorized into one: reforming grassroots governance to make their responsibilities clearer.

Fortunately, Yuan Huan was extremely skilled in grassroots administration. Based on the different administrative functions, he quickly proposed a leadership team that a county should have, one that conformed to the current system.

There is one county magistrate's assistant, who serves as the deputy to the county magistrate or chief.

One county constable was responsible for managing the affairs of the county, training the county soldiers, and preparing the armory.

One Censor was responsible for compiling and recording documents, checking for errors, and reporting corrupt officials.

Political affairs, military affairs, and supervision.

Thus, the system of the three officials basically continued the system established since the Qin and Han dynasties, without much change.

The real change occurred among the various departments within the county.

The nine officials in charge of public works, granaries, households, fields, soldiers, justice, personnel, markets, and schools could basically handle all the administrative affairs of a county.

Merit, treasury, household registration, land ownership, military affairs, laws, scholars, markets, and schools.

If you grasp these things, you can also grasp the affairs of that county.

At the same time, this also clarified the responsibilities of grassroots officials, completely sweeping away the chaotic situation of various clerks and officials since the Later Han Dynasty.

With this framework established, two more major issues arose regarding Liu Miao.

One is a person.

One is money.

To keep this clear and complex state apparatus running, a large number of people are needed to maintain it.

Hiring a large number of people means a significant expenditure on public finances and tax revenue.

So ultimately, it all comes down to money, which is essentially a matter of productivity.

Liu Miao grimaced in the end: "With such a reform of official positions, will the funds and taxes be enough?"

Yuan Huan also pondered this question seriously.

The final conclusion was—not enough!
In these chaotic times, a large portion of the treasury is destined to be swallowed up by the military.

Although the soldiers were required to provide their own food, clothing, and even weapons, the tax reduction or exemption policies for them actually consumed a large portion of the government's revenue.

There were also losses during the training of the soldiers, as well as rewards and compensation after the war—all of which amounted to real money! These weren't things that anyone could simply add up with a stroke of the pen.

The army took the lion's share.

The remaining funds were mostly spent on routine agricultural expenses such as water conservancy repairs, spring plowing loans, and cattle rentals. In addition, there were miscellaneous expenses such as establishing schools and repairing cities. As a result, the funds left for Liu Miao to reform official positions were actually very little.

Therefore, Liu Miao obviously couldn't achieve everything at once and directly carry out comprehensive reforms of the bureaucracy; otherwise, the treasury would probably collapse.

In response, Yuan Huan suggested that the pilot program should be implemented first in Jiangdong, and that it should not even be extended to Huainan.

After reforming the bureaucracy, not only will they spend money, but they will also be able to make money.

For example, the tax collection process will be more transparent and fair, and the tax authorities will provide standardized guidance. These are all good ways to collect taxes that were previously inexplicably "disappeared".

However, Liu Miao also knew this.

So-called taxation is nothing more than transferring money from one hand to the other.

At best, it cuts off some corrupt elements and makes the treasury surplus, but it does not increase the total amount of wealth.

Even if Liu Miao perfected the system, even if he found 100,000 selfless saints to serve as officials, he could not increase the total amount of wealth.

The only thing that can truly increase wealth is the improvement of productivity.

Just as Liu Miao was pondering whether to take drastic measures, Zhou Tai suddenly burst through the door.

"My lord! Yi Ji has returned!"

"?"

Liu Miao quickly thought of the Yijibo who had been tricked by him into going south of Jiaozhi to look for Champa rice.

"Wait a minute!"

Now that I've returned, does that mean...?

Liu Miao stood up abruptly.

"Where is he? Take me to see him right now!"

Liu Miao was quite impatient at this moment!
"I consider all the other people's random auspicious omens as nonsense!"

"But if Yiji really brings that thing back, it will be a truly auspicious omen!"

(End of this chapter)