Chapter 1090
Chapter 1090
Chapter 1090
It was precisely because of the support of lower- and middle-ranking members of the imperial family, such as Zhu Laosi, that the imperial family's reform policies were able to proceed despite the resistance they faced.
With the pilot program proving successful, the imperial court began to formally implement reforms across all members of the imperial clan.
Once the reforms were implemented, local expenditures were greatly reduced, and even the national treasury's related expenditures decreased, allowing the funds to be used for other purposes.
As a result, a large amount of labor and land were released in the region, and the emperor ordered that these lands be used to resettle the displaced people.
A lot of land~~
With people's hearts in turmoil, evil spirits and monsters have emerged, which is why the Censorate and the Court of Judicial Review have been extremely busy over the past year.
Xue Shao was stationed in the Censorate and rarely returned to the capital until this time when he was ordered to return to the capital for Pan Yun's birthday.
Even so, he was still extremely busy, and he and Pan Yun only exchanged a brief glance at each other during the state banquet.
Xue Shao was planning his time, thinking of requesting an audience before leaving the capital again, when the two unexpectedly bumped into each other on the street.
Xi Jin was overjoyed. Upon seeing Pan Jun and the other three, he immediately rushed over: "Master Guo... are you out having fun too?"
Pan Yun said, "No, I'm here to see someone off."
Pan Yun looked at Xue Shao behind him and asked with a smile, "I heard that the Censorate is so busy that His Majesty wants to add more people. How come you have time to come out today?"
"First, today is a day off; second, look at my dark circles, do I look like I'm slacking off?"
Pan Yun couldn't help but smile.
Xue Shao looked at the group of people with large and small bags beside her: "What's going on here?"
"Oh, Miaohe and Yanbai are going to the grasslands, so we came out to get some supplies."
The towns on the grasslands are far apart and resources are scarce, so they bring extra supplies not only for their own use but also to sell.
Wang Cong peeked out from the shop next door and saw the two groups of people standing on the street chatting across the street. He was speechless and said, "Why aren't you coming in? Can't you find a place to sit down and talk?"
Upon returning from his voyage, Wang Cong, who had made a fortune, was very generous. He waved his hand and invited them to dine at the best restaurant in the capital, where they could chat while eating.
Pan Yun declined: "I'm going to the Sinong Temple this afternoon, so I'd like to finish shopping early and leave sooner."
Xue Shao also said regretfully, "I have to go to the Dali Temple prison this afternoon, so I can't spare the time. I went to the street today to buy some books and writing materials to give as gifts."
Upon hearing this, Pan Yun immediately said, "We're also going to buy books later, let's go together, maybe we can even negotiate the price with the shopkeeper."
Coincidentally, they not only bought a lot of books, but they also bought the same kinds of books, which were mostly primers. Xue Shao even picked out a few more sets of commentaries on the Four Books.
These few sets of books were the most expensive, costing the same as the large stack of primers they bought.
The price of one hundred sets of primers is equivalent to the cost of three sets of commentaries on the Four Books.
Xue Shao sighed and said, "The books on annotation are too expensive and not widely circulated, so candidates in remote areas are not as knowledgeable as those in the capital and Jiangnan. Although the imperial examination is divided into northern and southern lists, judging from the trend in recent years, the number of successful candidates has begun to favor the Jiangnan area again."
Pan Yun: "You can just say you're biased towards Zhejiang, Fujian, and Jiangxi."
Xue Shao remained silent.
Pan Yun snorted and said, "I think they've forgotten the pain once the wound has healed. They've all forgotten how Emperor Taizu Gao killed people back then."
Xue Shao: "Your suggestion to open more community schools is very good, but in the north, especially in remote areas, there are not enough teachers. Even if the local government builds community schools, buys books, and finds students, there are not enough teachers to teach, let alone teachers with rich knowledge."
Pan Yun's eyes flickered slightly as he asked, "How many scholars and graduates in the world have given up on taking the imperial examination, or are they accumulating strength in the process of taking the imperial examination?"
"You mean to put these people to use?" Xue Shao asked thoughtfully. "But why should these people leave their homes to teach and educate people in remote places?"
Pan Yun said, "Give them extra points."
"what?"
“Going to the north and remote areas to support education will earn you one point for a full year, three points for two years, five points for three years, and so on. When they take the autumn and spring imperial examinations, these points will be added to their final scores and included in their overall examination results.”
“This,” Xue Shao’s pupils contracted slightly, but he began to think seriously, “I have never seen this method before.”
"Every new law in the world has a groundbreaking first time. During the Song Dynasty, the imperial examinations were conducted with all names concealed. However, the method of concealing names was created during the reign of Empress Wu Zetian in the Tang Dynasty and used for the Ministry of Personnel examinations. This shows that the method was good."
Pan Yun paused for a moment and then said, "If this method had been fully applied to the imperial examinations during the reign of Empress Wu Zetian, perhaps the Huang Chao Rebellion would not have occurred later."
“By the time of our Great Ming Dynasty, the method of anonymizing examination papers could no longer completely eliminate cheating in the imperial examinations. Therefore, the original papers for the provincial and metropolitan examinations had to be copied into red scrolls, and the examiners would mark them on the red scrolls to prevent candidates from cheating by handwriting and other means.” Pan Yun raised an eyebrow at him: “It can be seen that everything has a beginning. How can we know that this method will not work if we don’t try it?”
Xue Shao: "Shall I propose this method?"
After thinking for a moment, Pan Yun said, "Forget it, you're already hated enough, so don't make yourself even more hated. I'll go see Hu Ying tomorrow."
As the Minister of Rites, this was his duty. She gave him a solution for free; shouldn't he be grateful to her?
Xue Shao couldn't help but laugh, cupped his hands and said, "On behalf of the students from remote areas, I would like to thank the Imperial Preceptor in advance."
"No need to be so polite," Pan Yun waved his hand, then curiously leaned closer and asked, "I heard that you were assassinated five times this time when you returned to the capital, but the assassins failed once. Instead, your master's family was implicated and their property was confiscated. The Dali Temple even requisitioned several courtyards to house those criminals?"
Xue Shao rubbed his forehead and said, "I went to the Dali Temple precisely to deal with this matter." After returning to the capital last time, Xue Shao was promoted again and became an inspector on behalf of the emperor, allowing him to travel all over the country.
Xue Shao looked around, and even the kind-hearted man couldn't help but complain in a low voice: "I suspect that His Majesty uses me because I can generate revenue for the national treasury."
Xue Shao's revenue-generating ability is truly remarkable.
When the late emperor was alive, he helped him remove several corrupt officials from office, generating considerable revenue for the national treasury.
I don't know if it's because the money didn't all reach the late emperor's hands and was intercepted too much, which is why the late emperor didn't pay much attention to Xue Shao. It's just that Xue Shao's actions didn't go his way, so the two of them didn't get along.
There is a severe shortage of money these days.
Moreover, with Yu Qian, Cao Nai, Chen Xun, and others constantly giving him instructions, he was always on edge.
Upon discovering that Xue Shao could not only rectify official corruption, but also bring a large amount of wealth to the national treasury after his rectification efforts, he was keen to send Xue Shao out on inspection tours.
Moreover, the current emperor and the late emperor have different points of shame, which leads to different principles of conduct.
The late emperor was a very sentimental and righteous person. He had never lacked anything since childhood, including power, love, money, and most importantly, self-confidence. Therefore, he would occasionally be moved when dealing with these officials.
Out of loyalty and righteousness, he always made an exception for them, so he felt a certain amount of disgust and resentment towards Xue Xuan and his nephew, and Pan Hong and his daughter, who never gave him face.
Now, he has been weak-willed since childhood, lacks power and recognition. Especially after ascending the throne, many ministers said in private that he was not as quick-witted and intelligent as the previous emperor, and had not received the orthodox education of an emperor. Therefore, he listened to Yu Qian and Pan Yun in everything, and the old ministers and members of the imperial family were quite dissatisfied with him.
This dissatisfaction caused him to be extremely insecure, and the more insecure he was, the more indecisive he became. Fortunately, Pan Yun praised and affirmed him from time to time, which prevented him from causing a major disaster.
Now his lack of confidence has largely subsided, and what remains has turned into humility.
His ambition to become a wise and benevolent ruler throughout history led him to always listen to the opinions of the people and consider things from the perspective of the common folk. Therefore, after discovering that Xue Shao's inspections were beneficial to the people and the country, he would send people out from time to time.
Knowing that Xue Shao was also skilled at generating revenue, he was appointed concurrently as the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue.
Such hiring standards naturally drew the attention of many people to Xue Shao.
Especially when he doesn't leave the capital, he always manages to uncover one or two corrupt officials, and sometimes he even pulls out a whole string of them.
Especially after this reform, local governments have released a large amount of land, which is all lucrative, and countless people are eyeing it.
Therefore, Xue Shao's inspection tour under the guise of the Ministry of Revenue's land survey not only deterred those who were eager to act, but also caught many who defied the rules.
Xue Shao basically chopped off all of these hands, uprooting them completely.
How could these gentry and powerful families, their relatives and friends, not resent him?
Therefore, there were many assassination attempts against Xue Shao along the way.
Firstly, Xue Shao was not only highly skilled in martial arts, but also had Imperial Guards and bodyguards by his side; secondly, he had abundant merit and extremely good luck; and thirdly, he carried all the peace and good luck charms that Pan Yun had given him...
With multiple buffs stacked up, any assassin who tries to kill him is practically walking into a trap.
Of course, he was also lucky. These five assassination attempts were carried out by five different factions, and they did not come together. Instead, they were carried out one after another, and he even had time to rest in between.
With such favorable conditions, it would be a disservice to God not to seize the opportunity.
So all of these people were arrested, several died, and the survivors were taken to the Dali Temple by the Embroidered Uniform Guard and confessed without even going to the imperial prison.
The Dali Temple has sent a letter to the local authorities and dispatched people to arrest the masterminds behind the five factions and to confiscate their property.
Assassinating an angel is a heinous crime punishable by the extermination of one's entire family and clan.
Xue Shao liked to confiscate property, but he didn't like to exterminate entire clans.
In particular, he carried an imperial edict on this trip, authorizing him to "inspect on behalf of the emperor." The person who assassinated him was guilty of a grave crime, and his entire family was to be imprisoned.
Xue Shao went to the Dali Temple to plead for leniency.
“The three clans… some people are completely unaware of what happened, and some were even oppressed themselves. They were bullied while alive and implicated when they died. Isn’t that a tragedy?”
The longer Xue Shao wandered among the common people and the more he saw, the more he realized that these powerful families, who were like leeches eyeing the people, the country's land, and assets, had little sense of morality and even little emotion.
These powerful clans are greedy and heartless; since they are heartless, they will seize the interests of those around them.
The interests of powerful clans are so great that conflict is inevitable.
Truly benevolent gentry possess a strong sense of righteousness and will at least not resort to illegal or immoral means to plunder the assets of the people and the state.
These people were usually from farming and scholarly families, and could not become powerful clans.
These are all the results of Xue Shao's statistics compiled during his several years as an imperial censor.
He hoped that more sons from farming and scholarly families could pass the imperial examinations, enter officialdom, and govern the country with their virtue and talent.
This book is nearing its end, and I'm going to wrap it up slowly, aiming to finish it before New Year's Eve.
(End of this chapter)