Zhu Chao accompanied me to watch short videos

"The first measure is the performance appraisal system. This measure is an important innovation in Zhang Juzheng's career. It is also very simple to explain, and is very similar to the KPI assessment of modern workers."

"Officials write their own rules and plans in an account book, and then make two copies of the books. One copy is sent to each department of the six ministries for filing. When a plan goal is achieved, one copy is cancelled."

"Another copy was sent to the cabinet for verification by Zhang Juzheng. The plan was written down in black and white. If it was completed, the official position would be promoted and the salary would be increased. If it was not completed, there would be corresponding punishment."

"Because of this system, the enthusiasm of officials has been greatly improved. Those who used to lie low now have to make progress, and those who wanted to make progress but had no way to do so now have a chance to stand out."

"As a man of action, Zhang Juzheng used the performance evaluation system to examine the six subjects, and then used the six subjects to control the six ministries, thus perfectly controlling the political machine of the Ming Empire."

tomorrow.

Zhu Yuanzhang looked at the sky thoughtfully.

This performance evaluation system does sound like a good system.

During the Hongwu period, under his high-pressure policy of using people's skins as scarecrows at any time, there were indeed fewer corrupt officials, but at the same time, those truly capable officials also became timid.

In order to save their own heads, these officials basically just drink tea and slack off at work every day, and then punch out and go home when it's time to get off work.

They would rather do nothing than do something wrong.

So Zhu Biao has been nagging him these days, asking whether he should increase the salaries of officials to stimulate their enthusiasm.

But he refused without hesitation. He knew those so-called officials too well. A salary increase could only stimulate them temporarily, but before long, they would return to their original state of lying down.

What should we do then? Should we continue to increase the salary?

If it is promoted again, what about next time?

As time goes by, officials will become lazy. They will think that if they don't work hard, the emperor will increase their salary to appease them. With this idea, even those who were willing to work hard will no longer try their best for the sake of that little extra salary.

On the contrary, this so-called "performance evaluation method" is very suitable for their current situation. If you work hard, you will be rewarded, and if you work little, you will be punished. No one should think of just eating and waiting to die.

Thinking of this, Zhu Yuanzhang looked at Zhu Biao and said, "Biao'er, you and the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Personnel should study this performance evaluation method carefully and come up with a plan."

"Yes, Father."

Such discussions took place in all times and spaces, and any emperor with foresight could see the power of this system.

……

On the other side of the sky, Luo Li continued speaking.

"The second measure of Zhang Juzheng's reform was to control the collection and use of funds, which in layman's terms meant reducing expenditures."

"He cut down all useless expenses in the palace, including the expenses for the imperial meals in the Guanglu Temple, the expenses for the lanterns during the Lantern Festival, and stopped the repair of the Ciqing Palace and the Wuying Palace, etc."

"Not only that, in order to reduce expenses, he also reformed the school system. In addition to the Imperial Academy, the Ming Dynasty also had many prefecture schools, state schools, and county schools. These three levels of schools had many 'stipend students'. Each of these students could receive a stone of rice, a certain amount of fish, meat, sugar, and salt every month."

"And if one person goes to school, three people in his family can be exempted from military service. Later, this right was gradually extended to the entire scholar class. In ancient times, there were indeed not many scholars. There might be only a few in a village."

"But if we expand it to the entire world, this number is definitely not small, so this financial burden is not light for the Ming Dynasty, which is about to enter its twilight years."

"So Zhang Juzheng directly cut the number of scholars admitted, from 100 candidates to only one out of 100 candidates. This reform can be said to have directly shaken the foundation of scholars all over the world."

"It is no exaggeration to say that many of the students who took the exam wanted to eat his flesh and drink his blood."

"It has only been three years since the reforms began, but Zhang Juzheng has already offended officials and most of the scholars in the country, but this is far from over."

"Zhang Juzheng's third measure was to survey the land, which was a major policy and the basis for his fourth measure, the 'One Whip Law'."

"The Ming Dynasty had been in existence for more than a hundred years by the time of his time. Although there were many internal and external troubles, there was not much reason for the loss of land."

"But in fact, the registered land during the Wanli period was nearly 200 million mu less than that during the Hongwu period."

"Why is there so much less? I believe everyone watching the live broadcast can understand that it is because of land annexation. More and more land is constantly being seized, plundered, bought and merged from the hands of the middle and lower classes into the hands of the big landlords and tyrants."

"After accumulating land, the landlords would conceal the amount of land through various means in order to evade taxes. This is the so-called 'burning the fish scale book'."

"As a result, the tax fields on the Ming Dynasty's books will be greatly reduced, which will lead to a lack of tax revenue and tight finances. In order to pay military salaries, salaries or the emperor's enjoyment, the court can only levy more taxes on the common people."

"If the people can't pay the taxes, they can only sell their land and people. Eventually, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Finally, when they have nowhere else to go, they can only rise up in rebellion. This is why there are peasant uprisings at the end of every dynasty."

In the Qianqing Palace, Zhu Yuanzhang roared: "Asshole!"

Although he understood that land annexation was inevitable, he still couldn't help but get furious when he heard that more than 200 million acres of arable land were lost.

Two hundred million acres! How many people would have to sell their land and become slaves, and how much wealth would have flowed into the hands of those rats!

Thinking of the countless people who were displaced while those rats were eating their fill and getting fat and bloated, his rage grew.

Zhu Biao looked at Zhu Yuanzhang, whose hair stood on end with rage and eyes filled with blood, and quickly advised him, "Father, calm down. You can't kill all of them. Besides, it's been more than a hundred years since the Wanli reign. Even if you kill them all now, they will spring up again like bamboo shoots after rain."

Zhu Yuanzhang panted heavily, his tone cold: "I know, but I just can't swallow this breath!"

"Let's first see what future generations do. If that doesn't work, we can ask Miss Luo. There must be a solution in the future." Zhu Biao continued to persuade.

"This is the only way for now." Zhu Yuanzhang looked up at the sky again.

He also understood that if he wanted to curb land annexation, killing was the worst way and the system was the best solution.

……

Luo Li took a sip of water to moisten her throat, and continued, "Zhang Juzheng's land survey was to survey and reveal those hidden lands, so as to increase the country's fiscal revenue. This will achieve the effect of not taxing the people but filling the treasury."

"But this move was undoubtedly equivalent to going against all the landlords and tyrants in the world, the most powerful group in feudal society. So, not surprisingly, this decree was extremely difficult to implement, and the land of the Ming Dynasty was not completely surveyed until Zhang Juzheng's death."

"But fortunately, even if the investigation was not completed, there were still some results, so it laid the foundation for his fourth measure, the 'One Whip Law'."

"The One Whip Method can actually be summed up in one sentence."

"It means that corvée labor will be converted into silver and collected together with the land tax. In the future, all taxes will be collected in silver only. No more taxes in kind will be paid. Moreover, the government will collect the taxes at the doorstep, and the people just need to prepare the silver at home."

"This prevented officials from exploiting the people on the grounds of poor quality or insufficient quantity. It also reduced losses on the road, simplified the tax collection process, and improved efficiency. From then on, China officially changed from in-kind taxation to monetary taxation."

Tang Dynasty.

Hearing this, Li Shimin's eyes lit up. This seemed to be a system worth learning from.

His Tang Dynasty also collected taxes in kind. It was not that collecting taxes in kind was bad, but there were too many inconveniences.

It would be fine if local officials took the opportunity of collecting taxes to extort money from the people, but the key was that the things collected were too diverse, including local specialties, salted fish, medicinal herbs, cotton, and everything else, and the transportation costs were extremely high.

For example, a large amount of grain was collected in the Jiangnan region. Normally, this grain would be collected by the central government and then allocated by the court. However, there was not so much space to store it in the capital, and half a stone of grain would be lost along the way. If it was transported further away, only three or four dou would be left.

So in order to avoid being taken advantage of, he could only order the grain to be stored in local granaries. But normally speaking, as long as there was no major disaster, there would be enough food in Jiangnan.

Then all the food in the granary will eventually be given to the mice and "rats". When the disaster relief food is really needed one day, they will find that the granary has inexplicably caught fire, and not even a stone of food will be left.

Li Shimin had long thought about changing this situation, but he had never come up with any good solution.

Now, when he heard about the "One Whip Law", it suddenly became clear to him that collecting physical goods would be very time-consuming, so he could just collect money directly!

"Your Majesty, don't think about it. We can't use this method." After thinking for a while, Changsun Wuji looked up and said.

"What?"

Not only Li Shimin, but others also looked at Changsun Wuji curiously.

"Because we don't have enough silver, we can't implement monetary tax at all." Changsun Wuji said with a wry smile.

"Then why can future generations implement it..."

Before Li Shimin finished asking, Changsun Wuji expressed his guess: "Either a large silver mine was discovered, or foreign silver flowed in."

"Then can't we use copper?" Wei Zheng asked after thinking for a while.

"Same, we also lack copper. Collecting taxes directly in cash is not only something that later generations have thought of, but our ancestors must have thought of it as well. But there must be a reason why they did not implement it." Changsun Wuji said with a sigh.

"Forget it, let's discuss this later. Let's continue listening to Miss Luo." After saying that, Li Shimin was the first to look at the sky.

……

"Mr. Zhang Juzheng, the reform you initiated achieved certain results at the time. The country's financial situation improved, military strength was strengthened, and politics became relatively clear. That period was even called the 'Wanli Restoration'."

"We descendants often say that your reforms extended the life of the Ming Dynasty for another fifty years."

Hearing this, the expression on Zhang Juzheng's face did not change at all. He could tell that Miss Luo had not finished her words.

As expected, Luo Li continued, "However, your reform, um...how should I put it, is not completely successful? Is it completely successful?"

"That's what I mean, you should understand me."

"First, after your death, the political system you had worked so hard to build over the past ten years was basically overturned by Emperor Wanli."

All overturned?

Hearing this, Zhang Juzheng's face darkened and a gleam of light flashed in his eyes.

But then he began to have some doubts. Wanli was not a stupid kid. Although he had more power, he was still nice to Wanli. It didn't make sense for him to "whip up" his corpse after his death, like an enemy.

Just when Zhang Juzheng wanted to ask why Wanli turned against him, Luo Li had already spoken sensibly.

"In fact, I mentioned it just now. Wanli is very smart, and smart people often don't want to be bound by constraints. But the three of you in the 'Inverted Arch Alliance' have imposed more and more constraints on him."

"I've seen his class schedule. It's even harder than what we had as high school seniors. It's simply unbearable. Under such high pressure, it's normal for his personality to be a little distorted."