Chapter 198: Day Off

Should Hong Chengchou and Lu Xiangsheng bring their troops with them when they take up their posts?

This needs careful consideration.

Because it touches on several different issues.

The main problem is grain and supplies.

Lu Xiangsheng originally commanded six thousand Tianjun troops, five thousand Shandong troops, and six thousand Sichuan troops; accounting for casualties from the string of major battles, he should still have around fifteen thousand men.

This does not include the five thousand men of Liu Guoneng's newly surrendered force — after weeding out the old and weak, he should still have three thousand.

Zu Kuan and Li Chongjin are also not counted.

Even just those fifteen thousand men consume no small amount of grain and supplies each month. Xuan and Da border garrisons were never wealthy to begin with; if Lu Xiangsheng brought so many men with him, the Sihai Trading Company would have to divert enormous manpower and resources to supply them, which would seriously disrupt the company's normal operations. Silver is not lacking at present, but the company's more important role is to keep goods flowing smoothly between north and south on a large scale — this more powerfully promotes the development of manufacturing and lifts more people in related industries to prosperity.

Moreover, the Tianjun troops have been away from Daming Prefecture for eight years now. Though the remains of those who fell in battle have been sent back, and the wounded have returned home to proper arrangements, the living soldiers have not seen their families in all these years — their homesickness must be at a breaking point. Over these eight years many families have undergone great changes, and many soldiers' loved ones have already passed away. Not letting these men go home to rest and see their families would be simply inhumane.

Lu Xiangsheng and Lu Xiangtong also need to go home to visit their parents — their elderly mother is in poor health. Lu Xiangsheng once submitted a memorial saying that once the bandits were wiped out he would resign and return home to fulfill his filial duty by his mother's side. Zhu Youjian rejected that request, but surely now this great filial son should be allowed to return home in glory?

Hong Chengchou too — he should also go home for a visit.

Old Hong has a strong sense of career and has never once mentioned returning home, but as his superior, I ought to show some human warmth.

In any case, there is nothing pressing right now — at the very least, no large-scale fighting will occur this year.

The Sichuan troops should go home too, and take their pay and war spoils back with them. Returning alongside them will be the ashes of fallen soldiers and the maimed veterans missing arms and legs.

Let them all go home. With silver in hand, they can find themselves a wife, or help their brothers marry as well, carry on their family lines, and fulfill their parents' wishes.

In my later life, when I was away at university, what I longed for most each year were the two holidays. The thought of returning to a home that was not wealthy but full of warmth, seeing my parents' aging faces lit with genuine joy — my heart was always filled with impatience to be there.

Living is not merely about building achievements or chasing money and pleasure; the most important thing is that unbreakable bond of family love and concern. No matter where you are, no matter what hardship you face, that deep family affection and expectation in your heart is a silent encouragement and support.

Qin Liangyu's White Pole troops should also return home. Zhu Youjian will arrange for their pay to be delivered to Shizhu.

Though the White Pole troops have not taken part in major battles recently, their loyalty and obedience are worthy of this pay.

The Shandong troops should go home too. These honest lads joined the army and immediately threw themselves into major battles, performing excellently — they too deserve to go home and rest a while.

Huang Degong can take the Shandong troops to open military farmland in Shan County — farming while training. For the hardy, enduring Shandong soldiers, this counts as a form of rest and recuperation.

As for the Shaanbei government troops and the Liaodong cavalry, they too should return home; the specific date for reporting back to camp can be set by each commanding general. Surely, to win their soldiers' hearts, they will not set the leave too short.

I must be the most humane sovereign in history, no?

A gentleman delights in helping others achieve their wishes.

This should be an unprecedented army-wide furlough — and paid leave at that, with monthly wages still issued throughout.

I imagine every official and soldier who receives the decree will be astonished. What boldness and vision this is!

An emperor so magnanimous and generous to his troops — probably no one has ever heard of such a thing. This should surpass even Li the Second, the greatest emperor of a thousand years, shouldn't it? Even that brilliant sovereign never dared grant the entire army such a large-scale furlough.

Soldiers are not machines; they are normal people with thoughts and the full range of human emotions.

Prolonged tension, harsh military discipline, continuous campaigning across thousands of li, the blood and gore and screams of desperate battle — under such enormous pressure, the fact that these soldiers have not broken down is already astonishing. Their bodies and minds deserve full rest and recuperation. Going home is the best remedy; all negative emotions dissolve the moment they step through their doors and see their loved ones' faces.

Should I apply for a Guinness World Record?

Let the court officials carp as they will — my army, my rules.

The only ones I feel sorry for are that uncle-nephew pair Cao Wenzhao and Cao Bianjiao. They are far off in the northwest, likely even now fighting bravely against the Tartars.

And Sun Chuanting — he cannot yet return home to visit his family, though his merits are no less than Hong's or Lu's.

But he is different from Hong Chengchou and Lu Xiangsheng.

Those two were released from their temporary commissions and have nothing pressing, which is why they can return home.

As a provincial chief official, however, he cannot leave his post without an imperial decree.

Over the following days, teams of swift riders galloped out of the capital, carrying Zhu Youjian's edicts to Shaanxi, Huguang, Sichuan, and other regions.

Zhu Youjian did not place much importance on the upcoming metropolitan examination.

Though the candidates were cramming desperately, burning the midnight oil to bone up on agricultural administration, knowledge gained from books alone is ultimately shallow — only practice will reveal the true effect.

That effect and result will only become apparent after two or three years. By then, who is talent and who is mediocrity will be clear at a glance from the living conditions of the people under their governance.

In the future, every prefecture and county will be assigned Censors and Embroidered Uniform Guard officers who will compile reports of all they see and hear; the Ministry of Personnel will make promotion and demotion decisions based on these reports.

This is an important step Zhu Youjian is taking to guide the Ming officialdom toward a pragmatic transformation, gradually changing local officials' mindset of valuing politics over economics.

Whether a County Magistrate performs well and whether he will be promoted will no longer depend solely on tax collection, but on the people's standard of living — the newly cultivated acreage each year, whether per-mu yields have increased, whether irrigation works are complete, whether the commodity markets are thriving.

Prefectural and county chief officials should, based on local conditions, encourage the flourishing and development of distinctive handicraft industries.

For example, if a county has abundant forestry resources and the local people have a tradition of weaving vessels from branches, then you, as County Magistrate, should vigorously support this local specialty industry, encourage farming households to establish and expand workshops, and strive to give more people income beyond just grain.

Zhu Youjian will have the Sihai Trading Company participate in this.

The Sihai Exchange Bank will conduct small-scale lending in such prefectures and counties, with interest reduced to a minimal profit; product purchasing and distribution will be handled by the Sihai Trading Company.

The bank's main role toward such micro-industries is to promote their development, not to seek profit. This trifling gain is utterly negligible to a giant like the Sihai Trading Company, but to people who have long been impoverished, one coin or ten coins might solve their most pressing needs.

In addition to the Censors and Embroidered Uniform Guard officers assigned to each county, the Court of Censors and the Embroidered Uniform Guard will also dispatch special agents on unannounced inspection tours to prevent corruption from arising anywhere.

Through this kind of gradual, subtle guidance and change, only after several years will a prefecture or county chief's administrative ability become apparent — which is why the results of this metropolitan examination are not important.

If any local official performs outstandingly, promotion and heavy use are certain; the court will also circulate their successful experience in official documents throughout the entire Ming, creating a beneficial model effect.

As for how to deal with lazy, mediocre, and negligent officials, Zhu Youjian has not yet decided.

In this era, officials with outstanding ability and practical grounding are far too few; most officials lose all ambition once they secure their golden rice bowl.

The unwritten rule that officials can only be promoted, never demoted, is very hard to change — too many people are involved, the scope too broad. Even the strict systems of later ages could not solve it, let alone now.

"The capable rise, the incompetent fall" — that notion is far too idealistic. Without breaking the established system, how can it be achieved?

Though Zhu Youjian has ordered Sun Chuanting to take the lead in Shaanxi — a province being rebuilt after destruction — in selecting officials based on ability regardless of status, he has not yet received any specific report from Sun Chuanting on this matter. It seems he too dares not lightly alter the existing system and rules.

The literati bloc's grip on official positions and power is very hard to break.

You may be a capable clerk or minor functionary, but you never passed the juren exam, nor the jinshi exam — on what grounds should you become a local chief official? What place does that leave for us legitimate juren and jinshi who studied hard by the cold window?

The only solution Zhu Youjian can think of at present is the separation of powers.

Dividing up the power held by officials who came up through the examination system.

Below the County Magistrate aren't there the County Vice Magistrate and the Registrar? Then try strengthening the power of the deputy officials, modeling it on the later system of divided responsibilities.

In name, the County Magistrate and Prefect remain the chief officials of their locality, and major matters are still decided by the chief official, but the power to handle specific affairs must be dispersed.

In fact, these measures are all minor details. Zhu Youjian's ultimate goal is to reduce government interference in local production activities, and to the greatest extent lessen the exploitation of commoners and merchants by officials and clerks — especially the various kinds of fee-collecting practices done under fabricated pretexts.

If viewed in proportion, relative to the Great Ming's population of roughly one hundred million, the number of Ming officials is not large.

Later ages once had records proving that over the more than two hundred years of the Great Ming, from Grand Ancestor to Chongzhen, there were only a total of over one hundred thousand officials, of whom more than twenty thousand were jinshi officials.

That is to say, at the height of the Ming emperors' reigns, they had at most a little over twenty thousand officials under their command — utterly negligible compared to the vast body of public servants in later ages.

This figure of over twenty thousand officials is even calculated based on emperors who reigned long, such as Shizong and Shenzong.

But although officials were few, the clerks, yamen runners, and miscellaneous servants in the prefectural and county offices were far too many.

The court would not pay these people's salaries, so how did they support themselves and their families?

Exploiting and squeezing the common people became the most important avenue of their income.

What methods they used to exploit the people Zhu Youjian did not know clearly, but he could be certain they racked their brains to scrape wealth from the commoners.

The consequence of this was that the people transferred their hatred of these men onto the government offices themselves.

But local officials truly could not do without them.

Collecting the various taxes each year required a great deal of manpower in local government — without these people, who would do the work?

How then to restrain this group?

First, they should be placed on the payroll, making them members of the system.

Second, limit the number of miscellaneous servants and reduce all kinds of temporary workers.

Third, have the local Embroidered Uniform Guard strengthen supervision over them, and use harsh measures to weed out the bad apples among them.

Dealing with these people would not arouse opposition from any quarter — it would only earn unanimous praise from all sides.

All of this must be carried out after imperial power reaches down to the prefectures and counties. At present, the Embroidered Uniform Guard has not yet been dispatched to the prefectures and counties on a large scale; once the literacy campaign is complete, they will begin to be sent down. With a vast force of tens of thousands of men, there will be enough manpower to use.

Sending down Censors is a bit more troublesome — their numbers are pitifully small to begin with, and dispatching one to every prefecture and county is simply unrealistic.

This is not difficult to solve either.

Aren't the several thousand provincial candidates currently in the capital preparing for the metropolitan examination ready-made candidate Censors?

Zhu Youjian's proposal earlier to rebuild the Imperial Academy was his single most important means of reforming the Great Ming's officialdom.