Standalone Northern and Southern Dynasties

Chapter 501 Land
This time, Su Ze met the meritorious officials in the last Youzhou Rebellion, Hulu Guihan and Jia Zhi.

In fact, with their merits, they should have been promoted last time, but Guanzhong is no longer a makeshift team now. When promoting officials like them, Su Ze no longer directly intervenes, so the promotion of the two still went through a process.

First, the governor of Youzhou, Murong Shaozong, submitted a document commending their merits to the Ministry of Personnel. Because the two were promoted as special advancers, their information was quickly delivered to the Government Affairs Hall.

Su Ze has established a strict system for the promotion of officials. First, the two people's archival materials, that is, official documents, were found and sent to the Government Affairs Hall.

Official documents are the personnel file materials of later generations, which record the two people's origins, native places, work experience, and evaluation and promotion comments.

Major achievements and mistakes made will also be recorded in official archives.

However, there were no problems with the files of these two people. Their backgrounds and work experience were very impressive. They were from Chongwen Pavilion, and with their contributions this time, they were naturally approved by all members of the Government Affairs Hall, and both of them were promoted above their posts.

The so-called extraordinary promotion is a special promotion that skips one level based on meritorious service.

According to the rules set by Su Ze, officials are normally promoted step by step.

This system is actually protecting honest people and preventing local officials from making trouble for political achievements. It allows outstanding local officials to settle down at the grassroots level for a while and then be selected to the central level.

However, after all, it is still a time of war, and civil servants can also make military achievements, so Su Ze can also be promoted as an exception, which is also a reward for meritorious officials.

Hulu Guihan and Jia Zhi naturally met this condition, but when it came to arranging their positions, the officials in the Government Affairs Hall were in a dilemma.

According to the latest administrative reform plan, Su Ze abolished the normal three-level structure of states, counties and counties, set up counties directly under the states, and abolished the county-level structure.

However, this reform has also complicated the promotion and placement of mid-level officials.

Jia Zhi was a county magistrate of the seventh rank, and after his promotion he became the sixth rank. Originally, the sixth rank was the position of the governor of a lower county, but after there was no governor, there was no vacant position of the sixth rank in Youzhou.

As a last resort, Su Cho finally made the decision to arrange him to Dingzhou to serve as the recorder and military officer of Dingzhou.

The position of registrar and military officer was originally a military position, but was set up at the state level by Su Ze. The position was rated as the fifth rank for upper states and the sixth rank for lower states. Dingzhou happened to be a lower state, so this position was just right.

The duty of the Dingzhou Registrar and Military Officer was to supervise the six ministries, which was equivalent to the duty of the current Jianxiaolang, so Jia Zhi also added a separate official of Jianxiaolang Lixing (intern). From then on, like Jianxiaolang, he could directly submit a secret report to Su Ze, or he could also write an impeachment memorial to the Government Affairs Hall directly through Jianxiaolang and exercise supervisory power independently.

Another duty of the registrar-in-chief was to cooperate with the provincial governor and assist in the county's reporting of statistics and annual assessments.

This is also a very important job, which is equivalent to holding the power of patrolling a state and having an independent status.

After getting this position, Jia Zhi was not happy at all.

Supervisory officials have to offend their colleagues to achieve results. Although promotion is relatively fast, Jia Zhi is a child of an aristocratic family after all. In his heart, he is unwilling to do this offensive job, but he cannot refuse for the sake of his family, so he has to accept the appointment.

Hulu Guihan was originally a county magistrate of the seventh rank, so he was promoted to the sixth rank judge of Dingzhou.

The judge was an official in charge of wrongful convictions in a state.

The Administrative Office had been improving the judicial system of the Northern Wei Dynasty, simplifying and merging various crimes and standardizing legal provisions, but the level of judicial justice at the grassroots level was still worrying.

This is also normal. Whether it is the original official selection system or the selection of officials through the Chongwen Pavilion, these officials have essentially not undergone systematic legal studies, and they are lucky enough to be able to judge the case.

The judicial logic of agricultural society is essentially different from that of commercial society.

The legal system of a commercial society is, in fact, designed to serve business, so it places more emphasis on debate and interpretation of legal provisions. This kind of judicial offense and defense is essentially bargaining.

However, the main task of the legal system of agricultural civilization is to maintain stability, and it even has to assume a certain function of punishing evil and promoting good.

To put it bluntly, the law is just a product made by humans and is essentially not sacred, so Su Ze has very low requirements for the judicial level of grassroots officials.

However, there may be complex cases at the grassroots level that the county magistrate cannot resolve. In order to deal with this situation, Su Ze set up a judge at the state level to specifically handle difficult cases in various places.

This is somewhat similar to the circuit court in later generations, which is also an extremely hard job that requires traveling back and forth between counties.

However, Hulu Guihan was not afraid of the hard work. Instead, he was very interested in this kind of life.

In addition to mobile case handling, the judges are also responsible for correcting unfair local judgments and conducting random checks and reviews on corporal punishment cases.

Before taking office, the two rushed to Su Ze and waited for Su Ze to meet them. Hulu Guihan was a little excited. Su Jungong was a figure admired by his brother Hulu Jin. He went to Chongwen Pavilion to study under his brother's recommendation. Now that he could see his idol of many years, Hulu Guihan changed his previous calmness and paced back and forth restlessly.

In comparison, Jia Zhi seemed much calmer. He had met Su Ze from afar with his father and was sitting in a chair drinking tea.

But from the shaking teacup in his hand, it can be seen that his calmness is just an act.

This is the effect of prestige. One of these two men is the county head who dared to suppress a rebellion with his local soldiers, and the other is the county magistrate who was not afraid of being imprisoned by Liu Lingzhu, but was nervous because of Su Ze's meeting.

At least in the hearts of the younger generation in Guanzhong, Su Ze's prestige is unmatched, and he is the master of destiny in everyone's hearts.

Chen Chong stepped in and said to the two of them, "The Duke of the County wants to summon you."

The two men immediately straightened their clothes and followed Chen Chong to where Su Ze was staying.

Having reached his current position, Su Ze no longer needs to be courteous to others.

When meeting with grassroots officials, maintaining the majesty of the ruler is actually the best way to intimidate these officials.

Su Ze was guarded by Su Bei and Chen Chong. A row of soldiers in red helmets were guarding in front of and outside the door. There were also several civil servants following Su Ze.

The only person sitting in the room was a middle-aged man dressed in the uniform of a low-level civil servant. He was writing furiously, completely ignoring the people around him.

After all, Jia Zhi was a child of a noble family. He knew that this middle-aged man was Su Ze's personal historian. What he was recording now was probably something similar to Su Ze's "Daily Notes".

Of course, Su Ze is not the emperor yet and is not qualified to make a daily record, but the meaning is almost the same, which is to record Su Ze's daily affairs.

This made Jia Zhi even more nervous. The presence of the historian meant that this conversation might be recorded in the daily notes, and might also be recorded when future generations compiled history books. In other words, he was now only one step away from leaving his name in history.

No matter whether they are children from poor families or noble families, they cannot resist the temptation to leave their names in history.

At this time, Su Ze was reviewing official documents sent from Yongle City.

Although Su Ze left the power of discretion to the Government Affairs Hall and the Shogunate, the cautious Su Cho would still organize the work of the Government Affairs Hall and hand it over to Su Ze, and summarize and report on the work of the Government Affairs Hall during this period.

No matter what the relationship between the ruler and his subjects was in the past, at this time they must understand the hierarchy.

Even Hou Jing, who was once the most heartless, had to write a very corny memorial of greeting from Shu every now and then. Many times he talked about trivial matters, but it was also to maintain his relationship with Su Ze.

Brothers Su Chao and Su Liang are both smart people. As they hold high positions, they naturally know how to avoid suspicion. Although they will not do anything to defile themselves, explaining clearly what they have done is also a way to avoid slander from villains.

After Su Ze finished processing the last document, he looked up at the two of them.

Jia Zhi performed the etiquette of a scholar with great respect. After all, Hulu had only studied in Chongwenguan before returning to Han, so it was not difficult for him to master the complicated etiquette of scholars, but he also performed the full etiquette to Su Ze.

After the ceremony, Su Ze looked at the two of them. He first asked Jia Zhi:
"Do you remember the question I gave you when you first took office?"

What Su Ze was talking about was a math problem of land annexation, which was also a simple calculation problem of population and land. At that time, the two had just taken office and did not have a deep understanding of land issues at the grassroots level. Now that both of them have experienced work at the grassroots level, Su Ze also wanted to hear their ideas.

Land is the root of everything.

Whether they are agricultural people or nomadic people, what they are fighting for in the final analysis is land resources, because in this era, land is the sum of all productive forces.

Occupying land means having production resources, so how to allocate land resources is the core priority for the rise and fall of any dynasty.

Every dynasty has given its own answer to this question. How long the last dynasty can rise or fall depends on the quality of this answer.

Although Su Ze is a time traveler, a policy is implemented by countless grassroots officials, so he also needs to listen to the opinions of the grassroots.

Jia Zhi thought about it and understood the importance of land. He said:
"My Lord, I think that the equal-field policy is a good policy, but the amount of land is fixed, and there will always be a day when it will be reclaimed. If it continues to be implemented, then each person will get less and less land, or some people will get land while others will not."

"So I think the best way is to keep expanding, to the Western Regions, to Liaodong, to Goguryeo, to the South. As long as there is more land, we can continue to implement the land grant!"

(End of this chapter)