Because of Chongzhen's order, all the ministries began to get busy nervously. But it was not so easy to formulate this year's implementation plan, and after Huang Liji pleaded with Chongzhen, the national meeting was postponed for a few days.

On the first day of February, the National Council to discuss the annual plans of the ministries was finally held. Wang Zaijin, who was stationed in Shanhaiguan for almost a year last year, also appeared at the meeting, and Yuan Keli, who was recently in the midst of public opinion in the capital, looked much older than he was a year ago at the national meeting.

When Chongzhen sat on the throne of the Wenhua Palace, he signaled that Huang Liji could preside over the meeting. After Huang Liji saluted the emperor, he turned to face his colleagues, he glanced at the expressions of his colleagues, and then said: "Today's meeting is mainly to report on the annual work plans of various ministries.

Let's start with the Ministry of Trade and Postal Affairs, Tian Shangshu, you will first come forward and tell me what work plan the Ministry of International Trade and Postal Affairs intends to formulate this year. After that, according to the order of the ranking, they were listed one by one. ”

After being named by Huang Liji, Tian Yang stepped forward to salute Chongzhen before he spoke: "Last year, the headquarters was newly built, although some officials of the car driving department were transferred to the headquarters, but they only sorted out the 76 main post roads from the capital to the provinces.

According to the calculations of the ministers, it was believed that it would cost about 3 million taels of silver per year to maintain these post roads. This money is mainly spent by local counties, which is indeed a considerable burden for some small and despicable counties.

In terms of postal services, since the establishment of the General Post Office in Beijing in May last year, postal branches have been set up in Tianjin, Lushun, Shanhaiguan, Dengzhou, Jinan, Luoyang, Taiyuan, Xuanfu, Datong, Xi'an, six provinces in the south of the Yangtze River, Fuzhou, Guangzhou and other coastal ports.

The postal service is still in its infancy, the postal network is not yet perfect, and there are not too many people in various places who know about it, so there were only about 3,000 postal letters last year. Seven remittances were tried out, totaling 122 yuan, but they had to be suspended because of the cost of too much.

Based on some lessons learned last year, this year's minister is going to make some adjustments to the postal service. First of all, in terms of maintaining the post road, my Daming post station is divided into water horse post, express shop, and delivery station, in addition to the first type, the other two types are mainly used to transmit military information.

In addition to transmitting military information, the Water Horse Post also had the task of receiving officials to perform their duties, returning officials to their hometowns, and entertaining officials, gentry, businessmen, and envoys from various vassal states summoned by His Majesty to Beijing.

According to consultations with the General Staff, except for some courier shops and courier offices that are more important on the side walls of the link, other less important courier shops and courier depots will either be converted into post offices or merged into the local post offices to be established. For ordinary military information in these areas, free mailing will be adopted, and for urgent military information, it will be transmitted by the General Staff itself.

As for the water horse station, it is really the bulk of the expenditure in the post station system, accounting for more than 8% of the post station expenditure. As His Majesty said last year, in addition to the astonishing expenditure of entertaining past officials, the family members, relatives, friends and businessmen of officials who fraudulently used white cards and letter cards consumed at least 30% of the expenditure funds of the post station.

And the largest expenditure of these post stations, is the canal post road that connects the north-south passage, the number of post stations from Yizhen to Tongzhou is only 42, but the annual consumption of funds is not less than 300,000 taels, close to 1 percent of the national post station expenditure, the cost can be described as amazing.

According to the regulations, the water horse post located in Chongyao is either equipped with 80 horses or 20 boats, which are divided into upper, middle and lower classes, and you can receive horses and boats of the corresponding level with a license.

The road from Yizhen to Tongzhou is a canal, with many boats and few horses, and if it is according to the previous rules, it will only receive 20 or fewer travelers per day. Since there is no limit to the number of boats and horses that are paid on the basis of licenses, officials now often rush to the front and back to travel, carrying a large number of slaves on the road.

As a result, the resources originally given by the imperial court to officials to perform official duties are now wasted on irrelevant people, and the counties on the main transportation routes are also suffering because of the high cost of reception.

Last year, in the experimental restructuring of the post stations from Beijing to Tianjin, the accommodation and travel roads were separated, and the shuttle bus or shuttle boat system was implemented at the adjacent post stations. Changed to give horses and boats with licenses, and replaced them with post tickets to get on the bus and get on the boat. Although it has only been implemented for half a year, the road post station has been roughly balanced, which not only reduces the subsidies of the imperial court, but also exempts the local support from the suffering, which can be described as fruitful.

Therefore, the minister prepared to reform the six post roads leading the capital to Xi'an, Taiyuan, Xuanfu, Luoyang, Jinan and Tongzhou-Yizhen. The original water horse station was converted into two parts: a hostel and a transportation company.

The hostels were run by the local government, while the transport companies were operated by the imperial court. In addition to the military intelligence transmission, the above six post roads no longer accept any plates, numbers, accommodation, and transportation.

As for the official business trips, the minister asked His Majesty to change the allowance system, and set the amount of allowance according to the rank of each official and the place where he traveled, and the six post roads must be paid for and used regardless of the rank of the official. ”

Before Tian Yang's plan was finished, the officials in the hall were already talking about it, and their voices couldn't be suppressed. If it weren't for Chongzhen's presence, it is estimated that they would have directly refuted Tian Yang's absurd plan.

According to Tian Yang's plan to reform the post station, wouldn't it be possible to use the post station system set up by the state as long as you have money, and after adopting the form of a unified number of shuttle buses and boats, the relationship between officials and civil servants will be no longer necessary.

Zhu You listened to the remarks of several very pedantic officials, he cleared his throat and said: "The imperial court does not oblige officials to use these post stations, since the imperial court has given subsidies, then those who feel undignified to travel with merchants and people can travel by their own carriages and horses."

As long as you don't delay your business, the imperial court doesn't care about how you get to your destination, and I think Tian Shangshu's plan is very well-intentioned, and there is nothing to argue. But all plans that are conducive to the national economy and people's livelihood should be supported by the imperial court. Some of you shout every day that I don't want to compete with the people for profit, and now for the sake of a little dignity for your own family, you don't care whether the people are profitable or not. This inconsistent remark made me feel very chilled to hear.

Those who want to oppose Tian Shangshu's reform plan will stand up and come to me to say, don't mumble behind my back, put on a resentful appearance, is this also the dignity of my Ming officials? ”

Chongzhen's fierce rebuke suddenly suppressed the discussion in the hall. Chongzhen, who has been in power for a year, is no longer the young man who had no confidence when he first ascended the throne.

Wen Zhenmeng, Liu Hongxun and other officials who once regarded Chongzhen as a young man and wanted to control public opinion in the DPRK and China, spun up and down, although they were deeply respected in Shilin, but they were immediately driven back to the countryside by Chongzhen. Although there were many scholars who defended them, Chongzhen obviously had no regrets.

Compared with the previous emperors Wanli and Tianqi, Chongzhen was obviously more direct and tough in dealing with officials with different political views. He didn't even bother to use the eunuchs around him to restrain the foreign courts, and this way of head-on collision obviously made the officials of the Ming Dynasty a little helpless.

In the past, it was the officials who picked the emperor's thorns, from food, clothing, housing and transportation to sitting and living, there was nothing that was not within the scope of criticism of Ming officials. But in the final analysis, this is also Emperor Wanli's own doing.

After he abolished the evaluation system for officials formulated by Zhang Juzheng, the evaluation of officials shifted from professional performance to personal fame, that is, whether they were praised by public opinion in Shilin.

In other words, whether an official is competent or not depends not on how much actual work he has done, but on whether he has a reputation that is praised by Shilin. As long as his reputation is big enough and he is noticed by the world, he will naturally be promoted again and again, after all, an official who suppresses a good official must be a traitor. And a court that allows Qing officials to wander abroad must be a court controlled by treacherous evil. Isn't that what happened to Haigang Peak in the past?

Under the pressure of such public opinion, it is obvious that no one wants to be regarded as a traitor who suppresses good officials, and it is inevitable that Qingliu's power in the DPRK and China will rise sharply. Officials may not be able to do a practical thing, and may be held accountable for their mistakes. But scolding the emperor or some of the evils that everyone knows is not a matter of effort, and it may even win a great reputation and open up his own path to progress.

In this way, people who want to be the second in Haigang Peak naturally rise and fall. And politicians who want to reform the disadvantages of the times like Zhang Juzheng will not appear at all.

It's just that these officials want to be Haigangfeng, but they don't have the heart and insight of this famous Jiajing minister, let alone any uprightness. Beneath their rich robes were crawling with bugs and fleas.

When Chongzhen changed the style of the previous emperors who only wanted nothing to do in governing the country, and picked the thorns of officials in the court every day, these officials naturally no longer had the leisure and elegance of the past and only thought about gaining fame for themselves all day long.

If, in the past, these officials only thought about how to go further. Then they are racking their brains now, just to keep their status and power.

Those departments and officials who were noticed by Chongzhen never ended well. Although Tian Yang changed from the secretary of the Taifu Temple to the secretary of the Ministry of Trade and Postal Affairs, most of the officials under the Taifu Temple were removed from their official status. There is no chance of even transferring to other official positions, which is really frightening.

In the past year, the positions of the central and local officials of the imperial court have actually increased considerably, but this increase has not simply filled in the old officials, but has been carried out at the same time with a large number of personnel reduction. In this entry and exit, nearly one-third of the officials of the ministries alone have been replaced.

Today, the court of the Ming Dynasty has in fact been largely controlled by Chongzhen, and is no longer the so-called pattern of the eunuch party and the Donglin party in the past.

In particular, the establishment of the Central Government Academy, which was nominally a study and training for the promotion and transfer of officials to new departments, as well as the so-called continuing re-education. However, when the emperor arranged for all the officials who wanted to refute the cabinet's decision-making to study at the school, most officials suddenly realized that the central government school was obviously still a means for the emperor and the cabinet to suppress political opponents.

After all, the transfer of an official who refutes the emperor's or cabinet's orders for no reason will inevitably make the emperor and the cabinet the target of public opinion's criticism, and blocking the way of speech is a proper big hat. However, arranging to study at the Central Government Academy leaves people speechless. He is in office, but he is unable to exercise his power.

And during the period of study, the officer's position will soon be taken over by obedient people, and the policies he opposes can still be passed with peace of mind. As for whether this official can return to his post after he comes out, that is another matter. And he didn't become the focus of public opinion, so naturally he didn't get much attention from public opinion, and he couldn't even earn the fame he deserved.

After realizing this, the once powerful and powerful officials who controlled the government and government quickly declined. In addition, Chongzhen arranged fixed job responsibilities for them, so that these officials were completely stumped by some cumbersome practical affairs, and they no longer had the energy to compete with the emperor and the cabinet.

Seeing that the hall suddenly quieted down, Guo Yunhou, the head of the household department, came out and mentioned to Chongzhen: "Your Majesty, although Tian Shangshu's plan has changed some of the drawbacks of the existing post station, for the imperial court, this plan still has great problems.

The imperial court allocates only more than 30 yuan in post station facilities every year, which is more than 10% of the post station funds. Now, if all of them are changed to a subsidy system, the local government will save money, but the expenses of the imperial court will increase. What's more, the issuance of allowances will make some officials collude with each other to embezzle the allowances allocated by the imperial court? ”