Standalone Northern and Southern Dynasties

Chapter 336: [Speaking on hearsay] and [Solving cases like a god]

A group of young scholars entered the hall. Su Ze looked at these young faces and felt quite proud.

Among them are Dugu Xin, Wei Xiaokuan, and Wang Sizheng, all famous and outstanding figures in history, as well as talents selected by Su Ze, and finally two orange followers summoned by the system.

[The cruel official who spoke out on hearsay]

Name: Su Wen;
Grade: Orange;
effect:

A cruel official, he treats his political opponents as coldly as the cold wind.

They can spread rumors and fabricate charges to defeat political opponents.

Comment: "Hearing the wind is like rain."

Price: 800 wen tai and 100 baht coins, and a maintenance fee of wen tai and baht coins is required every month.

In fact, the tactic of reporting things based on hearsay was not first invented by Wu Zetian. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, there were cases of ministers being impeached based on "rumors".

For example, when Xiao Yan's younger brother Xiao Hong embezzled money and secretly stored the armory, the ministers impeached Xiao Hong for treason based on rumors. After Xiao Yan was sure that his brother was only embezzling money and not treason, he did not pursue the crime of embezzlement, but he also did not pursue the ministers' wrong impeachment.

In the early Tang Dynasty, censors also had the power to report things based on rumors. Especially during the reign of Wu Zetian, this power was expanded and cruel officials used it to attack political enemies. Any minister who was impeached had to resign and apologize first. Some ministers were impeached repeatedly based on rumors, which was tantamount to direct retirement.

After Li Longji ascended the throne, he restricted rumors and required censors to impeach people by real name, and those who impeached falsely would be held accountable.

Later, Li Longji required that the censors must be "signed by the Censorate", that is, they must be signed by the head of the Censorate before they could write a letter of impeachment, which completely destroyed the combat effectiveness of the censors in the Tang Dynasty. From the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the supervisory ability of the censors continued to decline.

In the Song Dynasty, the requirements for rumors were relaxed and censors were no longer required to guarantee the authenticity of "rumors". Censors in the Song Dynasty became tools for party struggles, and many famous officials rose to power from the position of censor.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, censors were also given the privilege of reporting on what they heard.

Of course, Su Ze is still in the stage of accumulating strength, and it is not appropriate to give the censors too much power. If a "clear stream" group is nurtured like in the Ming Dynasty, and the censors become tools of political struggle, then nothing can be done.

Therefore, Su Wen, the orange follower, has more of a directional attack function and is a special weapon used by Su Ze to eliminate enemies in the bureaucratic system.

As long as he becomes the Inspector General, he can secretly collect some black materials on weekdays and use this trump card when necessary.

The other one is also an orange follower.

[A judicial officer who solves cases like a god]

Name: Su Renjie;

Grade: Orange;
effect:

Judicial proficiency: Familiarity with various legal rules.

He is an expert at solving cases and is good at collecting clues and solving important cases.

Comment: "Yuan Fang, what do you think?"

Price: 800 wen tai and 100 baht coins, and a maintenance fee of wen tai and baht coins is required every month.

The Censorate was also a judicial institution, and when encountering major cases, it would send censors to investigate.

Su Renjie is also the sharp weapon used by Su Ze to solve cases. He has also participated in the trial of many cases under Feng Shu these days, and has made some reputation. It is not surprising to promote him to the position of Jianxiulang.

Looking at the fifteen young faces, Su Ze first encouraged them a few words, then said:

"Although the position of Jianxiaolang is a civilian one, it is a confidential position that communicates with the upper and lower levels. If you feel that you are not qualified for the position, you can raise the issue now."

Everyone present looked at him, and Wei Xiaokuan, who was originally preparing to decline, immediately felt tremendous pressure.

In fact, Wei Xiaokuan has always wanted to pursue a military career.

But firstly, he was still young, and secondly, he was on the rise in the civil service system and had the hopes of his family on his shoulders, so he didn't say anything in the end.

But Dugu Xin stepped forward and said:
"General, Xin wants to join the army."

Su Ze looked at Dugu Xin. He was the most elegant among all the young scholars, but he was the only one who wanted to join the army, which created a sense of contrast.

Several generals present grinned.

Su Ze smiled and asked:

"Why did Dugu Lang join the army?"

Dugu Xin said naturally:
"It is my wish that the people of the Six Garrisons will immediately gain fame and be crowned a marquis!"

The warriors present cheered, "What a great ambition!"

Hou Jing even said loudly:
"This is my Six Towns man!"

Su Ze looked at Dugu Xin, nodded and said:

"In that case, you should report to the army of General Hou Jing after the new year." Dugu Xin accepted the order without hesitation, and Hou Jing rubbed his hands with joy.

Hou Jing had a secret talk with Su Ze yesterday and knew that Su Ze was planning to transfer him back to his side. Now he was adding more generals to his army, which meant that a war was going to take place soon.

Needless to say, we must unify Guanzhong as soon as possible.

Everyone present was a smart person. They saw the future direction from Su Ze's appointment and thought about how to benefit from the strategic change.

Throughout the second year of Xiaochang, Su Ze spent most of his time rectifying internal affairs, reclaiming wasteland and granting farmland, and receiving refugees.

After farming for a year, it was finally time to go to war.

Wei Xiaokuan thought of another level. Holding the examination at the end of this year was to make preparations for the rear in preparation for next year's war and to eliminate unqualified officials.

He secretly made up his mind that he would never be lenient towards unqualified officials and must strike hard to take down these stupid and corrupt officials.

This is the advantage of being close to the core of power. These few words that are accidentally revealed will cause a huge information gap to those below. And this inspector can do things in front of the Government Affairs Hall and Su Ze. Even if he is just a private retainer of the shogunate without rank, he has a huge influence.

Wei Xiaokuan finally decided to accept the position. After all, according to the duties of a procurator-general, patrolling the border and supervising the army were also within his authority, so there was a possibility of transferring to a military position.

Now that the organizational structure has been established, it is time to adjust the transition.

The original Sansi Cao was transferred to the Zhengwu Hall and became an administrative executive agency reporting to the Zhengwu Hall. The clerks of the Zhengwu Hall compiled the information submitted by the six states and two counties and began the year-end examination work.

Examinations are similar to audits in later generations. It is completely unrealistic to conduct on-site inspections in every place, even with the level of technology in modern society, not to mention in ancient times when transportation was not well developed.

The examinations in all dynasties were actually just collecting paper materials submitted by local areas, and then comparing them on paper with the archived materials kept by the central government. At most, it was just checking information.

The Sansi Cao compiled and summarized the information, and the clerks of the State Council first reviewed the format of the official documents.

Don’t underestimate these official document format reviews. Being able to use official documents proficiently is a basic requirement for being an official.

Regardless of whether your information is forged or not, if even the format of the forgery is incorrect, it means that you are not qualified to be an official!

Moreover, local officials have no reason to refute when given a bad review based on this reason.

By the time the results were sent to the Government Affairs Hall, the councilors there were beginning to feel a little impatient.

Among the six states and two counties, more than half of the counties did not even submit examination materials in the correct basic format. Some counties even submitted examination materials that were completely incomprehensible and could not even maintain basic text coherence.

The Government Affairs Hall was unable to handle the matter and could only report the result to Su Ze.

Su Ze was neither surprised nor surprised by this result.

That was the way it was back then. It had only been more than 20 years since Emperor Xiaowen's Sinicization reform, and the quality of officials was already mixed. Even when Su Ze was in Hezhou, he met a county magistrate who couldn't even read.

But the result was so shocking that Su Ze was still a little shocked.

With such poor grassroots administrative capabilities, it is no wonder that many policies cannot be implemented.

I thought it was the powerful families who were obstructing the local areas and the difficulties there. I didn't expect that it was because I was too incompetent. Some policies could not be passed down to the county level. Even if they were passed down to the county level, the officials there could not understand them and could not implement them at all!
But dismissing more than half of the county magistrates at once was too scary. Su Ze picked up his pen and wrote his reply:
For those officials who fail to write official documents properly, they will be handed over to the Inspector General for investigation. If there are no problems with taxes and criminal law, they will not be held accountable this year and can be given a "medium to low" evaluation result.

If there are problems with taxes and criminal law, then there will be no forgiveness and a poor evaluation result will be given first.

Those who failed the assessment twice would be dismissed. Su Ze also ordered that officials who failed the assessment this time should take turns to study at Chongwen Pavilion in Xiazhou according to their distance, and they would be released only after they had studied like Yan Chen.

After the format of the official document is reviewed, it will be submitted.

The so-called "reporting the statistics" is a system that has existed since the Qin and Han dynasties. At the end of each year, counties would report the number of households, money, grain, and thieves within the Great Wall to the higher authorities. When conducting examinations, the information reported in previous years would be compared with the examination data to find contradictions and omissions.

Wei Xiaokuan and Wang Sizheng, along with twelve other inspectors, began to busy themselves with paperwork.

Cooking the books is a science.

Although the above plan is just a document review, a lot of problems can be found in it.

According to the requirements of the Government Affairs Hall, each county's report must be reviewed and signed by two inspectors, who also wrote down their opinions on the examination.

"Brother Xiaokuan, have you finished reading the Ningshuo County case? There are some issues with the land."

Wang Sizheng put down his pen and spoke to Wei Xiaokuan sitting opposite him.

Wei Xiaokuan took the volume, and Wang Sizheng said:

"Since last year, the land rent in Ningshuo County has doubled, but the amount of registered land does not match."

The land tax in the Northern Wei Dynasty was composed of rent and tax. Rent was the land tax collected on the land under one’s name, and tax was the head tax collected based on the number of people.

The problem Wang Sizheng mentioned is a common problem in the statistics, that is, the growth of registered land area and the growth of land rent do not match each other.

Wei Xiaokuan took the volume and said:
"Ningshuo is a county in Xiazhou, right? I once set up a Zhechongfu in this county. There is no extra land to be reclaimed in this county? It seems that the county magistrate falsely reported the number of acres of land for political achievements."

(End of this chapter)