Chapter 423 How to Destroy a Reform

In fact, it was not until the people arranged by Richard arrived in various places that his decree was truly implemented.

It was for this reason that Richard's decree to sell cattle to the people at a low price was promoted, otherwise the 20,000-plus cattle would only fall into the hands of those aristocratic families, powerful people, and officials.

He spent a year training more than a thousand disciples. After passing the screening, these disciples had already used the "wisdom potion". Otherwise, they would not be able to learn this knowledge in a year.

In addition, when Richard communicated with Lv Dongbin, he obtained a lot of skills from him. Richard and Lv Dongbin have been communicating about the laws. Although the two have different ways of practicing, the way of all laws is the same. After reaching their level, they are all about the understanding of the laws, and there is not much difference.

The communication between Richard and Lv Dongbin is more about the communication between the two of them to understand the laws. In addition to the communication of laws, Richard also obtained a lot of skills from Lv Dongbin in this world.

This world has its own practice system, called Qi training and visualization. Qi training is to inhale and exhale the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Visualization is similar to meditation. Visualization requires visualizing a specific visualization diagram.

In this world, there is a cause and effect in spreading the law, and it cannot be spread casually. Therefore, the Pure Yang Zhenren Lu Dongbin is very cautious about spreading the law. This can be seen from the number of disciples he accepted.

However, ordinary guiding techniques do not have this requirement. The function of guiding techniques is to strengthen the body. With the special breathing method, the effect is very good, similar to the knight breathing method in Richard's hand.

Those fierce generals on the battlefield have basically learned this guiding technique. It's just that if you want to really be like the fierce generals who suppressed an era like the Western Chu Overlord Xiang Yu, Lu Bu, and Li Cunxiao, in addition to guiding techniques, their own physical conditions are also very special.

The biggest advantage of Richard's revised guiding technique is that the learning conditions are lowered, and of course the effect of cultivation is not as good as before.

Richard taught this set of guiding techniques to the disciples he accepted. After all, his disciples will definitely offend the local noble families, powerful people, and officials and gentry when they go to various places to serve as officials.

If you don't have enough strength, you may be killed by these people secretly. This kind of thing is not impossible. You know, even in the Ming Dynasty, the officials sent by the emperor to collect taxes would be beaten to death.

In addition, the world is not settled, and there are bandits everywhere. Once those powerful people collude with bandits, even local officials may be killed.

Richard spent a lot of effort to train these people, but he didn't want them to be killed by those people. Therefore, he spent a lot of materials to make pills to help them practice guiding techniques.

A thousand disciples were assigned to local counties as officials in groups of three or four. They were assigned to 300 counties. Although there were only a few people in each county, they were able to help the court control these counties.

More than 300 counties occupied 80% of the land of Zhou. At this time, Zhou almost unified the north. If others dared to do this, the emperor would probably not be able to sleep at night.

Fortunately, Guo Rong knew Richard's true identity and had no dissatisfaction with it. After all, as a god, Richard must leave in the end, and after Richard left, all the disciples he left behind were Guo Rong's people.

But others didn't know about this, so many officials in the court impeached Richard. Impeached him for forming a clique for personal gain, nepotism, ill intentions, and suspected of treason.

These officials were ecstatic when they saw what Richard did, thinking that they finally caught him. Richard had offended too many people during the reform during this period, and these people wanted to cut him into pieces.

At the same time, they sneered at Richard's behavior. Richard was overestimating his own abilities. You don't even have a soldier in your hands, and you dare to covet the power of the court? Even if you have appointed hundreds of officials, what's wrong? If you want to kill you, can you still rely on these officials for breakfast?

But what surprised these officials was that after these memorials were sent up, they didn't play any role, and the emperor didn't even reprimand Richard.

Seeing this situation, some people have realized that the matter is not simple, and they didn't submit memorials again, but more people think that the emperor is waiting for this matter to continue to ferment, so a large number of officials still submitted memorials.

The next day, at the court meeting, just as the meeting began, an official directly submitted a memorial to impeach Richard for favoritism and intention to rebel.

And with his impeachment memorial, it was like blowing the horn of attack. Immediately, more than a dozen officials followed up with memorials to impeach Richard for nepotism, framing his cronies, etc. In a short period of time, he was charged with more than a dozen crimes.

If it were someone else, it would be enough to kill nine clans, but Richard did not say anything about it, and did not even look at those people.

"What you, Li Xiang, did was ordered by me, and those officials were ordered by me to go there. You don't have to worry." Guo Rong said directly.

"These officials were specially prepared by me for the reform. Are you dissatisfied with the reform?"

Hearing Guo Rong's voice, these officials were stunned for a moment, and an idea popped up in their minds: We are about to fight to the death! Why did your majesty surrender first?

These officials did not believe Guo Rong's statement. After all, Guo Rong did not have time to train so many officials. You have to know that these officials are all well-versed in local governance, and they are well aware of the methods used by local tyrants. In just one or two months, these people, who are only officials of the eighth or ninth rank, cooperated with each other to make those local tyrants extremely uncomfortable.

At the same time, a fear rose in the hearts of these people. Many people think that the high officials in the court hold the real power of the country, but the real situation is that after the various decrees of the court are issued, they are implemented by the officials at the bottom in the local area.

These small officials seem to have no influence, but if all these officials are added together, they can completely control the foundation of the empire.

This power directly allows the emperor to accurately grasp the real situation in the local area.

In the feudal dynasty, due to the problem of science and technology, it is difficult for the central government of the court to know the real situation in the local area. Many times, the orders issued by the court are different when they are implemented in the local area.

Well, not only in the feudal dynasty, in fact, even after entering the 20th century and the 21st century, with a large number of advanced communication technologies, this situation still exists.

From ancient times to the present, there are too many ways for local governments to execute the orders of the central government and want to make some changes to the decree. The simplest way is to "double it".

In simple terms, when executing the court's order, it is directly doubled. As for whether to double or multiply it several times, it depends on the officials' ideas. The court said that each household would be taxed ten coins, but the local government would collect ten coins of regular tax, then ten coins of miscellaneous tax, and then ten coins of fire consumption.

In short, the court finally received ten coins, and the people paid at least thirty coins. Unless the matter gets out of hand, the court has no idea how much money the local government has collected.

Those people have too many ways to collect more money and grain. Fire consumption is just the most basic, and there is also rat and bird loss tax. What does rat and bird loss tax mean? In simple terms, when collecting taxes, because most of the time, the grains are collected in kind, and after these grains are put into the government warehouse, they are eaten by insects, rats, and birds.

According to the officials, these losses are inevitable, so in order to meet the court's requirements, they will collect more for loss. As for how much loss there is, that is a secret.

Later generations no longer use this method because it is easy to be exposed, but they use another more covert method.

When the central government issued a decree, it was usually flexible within a certain range, and those people would strictly or loosely implement it according to their interests. Some people even deliberately went too far.

This has happened countless times in history.

The simplest Qingmiao Law in Wang Anshi's reform was like this. When Wang Anshi was an official in the local area, he found that many people were short of money when they were farming, so they could only go to the local big households and powerful people to borrow money, and then pay it back when the grain was harvested.

The powerful people were naturally not charity halls, and the interest on loans was not low. Many people worked hard for a year, but they only got enough to pay back the loans. Wang Anshi then implemented the Qingmiao Law.

The government lends money to ordinary people and gives lower interest. In this way, the people will pay it back to the government after the harvest. Through this financial operation, the government can obtain higher fiscal revenue without raising taxes, and the people can also reduce their burden.

At that time, the Song Dynasty was in financial difficulties, and the court wanted to improve the finances by raising taxes or reforming the law. Wang Anshi wrote a memorial to Emperor Shenzong on the grounds that "the people are not taxed more and the country is sufficient."

Emperor Shenzong saw Wang Anshi's method and thought it was very good, so he supported Wang Anshi's reform.

After Wang Anshi became the prime minister, he began to promote these reforms. Reforms have always been a redistribution of interests. According to Wang Anshi's reforms, the court gained money and the burden on the people was reduced. Wouldn't anyone's interests be harmed?

This is naturally impossible! The ones whose interests were harmed were the local tyrants, officials, and wealthy families. Only these people have money to lend to ordinary people. They are very powerful and are local tyrants.

Wang Anshi's reforms were to cut flesh from them. How could these people surrender?

Reforms need to be implemented by grassroots officials, and the grassroots officials have a deep relationship with these local tyrants. Wang Anshi asked them to promote the Qingmiao Law, and these people naturally dared not not promote it.

But how to promote it and what standards to promote it are completely up to them.

The imperial government implemented the Qingmiao Law and gave a lot of money to local governments. Some of the timid ones lent the money to local wealthy families, and then the local wealthy families used the money to lend to ordinary people.

The interest on the Qingmiao loans received by the people remained unchanged, and all the Qingmiao loans issued by the government were also issued and washed, and the interest was received. Officials have achieved political achievements, local tyrants have also received interest, and the court has also received a sum of money owed. The people have not changed much, and it seems that everyone is happy.

Does this operation look familiar? In those days, Dongda asked banks to open up loans to the people, encouraged the people to operate, and set lending tasks for each bank, but how many of these loans fell on the people?

The vast majority of loans were taken by those who could not be said, and then lent to those in need in the form of private lending. Then some people got rich first easily. There is nothing new in this world. What is done now has already been done by people in ancient times, but it is just a change of name.

Of course, these are still good, it is nothing more than the country's goal of reducing the burden on the people has not been achieved, but it is different when you encounter those who are black-hearted. When Wang Anshi carried out the reform, he also set requirements. Some officials, in order to achieve political achievements, forced the money to be lent to the people who did not need it, and then forced these people into bankruptcy.

Some local tyrants deliberately let some vagrants and scoundrels borrow money, and then after borrowing money, these vagrants and scoundrels turned around and disappeared. Not only could the government not collect the interest, but even the principal was defrauded.

The result was that Wang Anshi's good policy, which was originally used to reduce the burden on the people, became a bad policy that harmed the people after it reached the local area. The Qingmiao Law not only did not bring financial income to the court, but it made the local area a mess.

The Qingmiao Law became like this, and its reform was also a mess.

A speck of dust in the times is a mountain when it falls on ordinary people. A Qingmiao loan can force countless people to break up their families. Richard would not give these people a chance if he wanted to reform.

Richard was very clear about these means, so when promoting the reform, he first controlled the administration of officials. Only when those officials who implemented the order can seriously implement the government orders, the reform can be considered truly successful, otherwise the so-called reform and reform are all castles in the air and will fall down at the push.

Later, Zhang Juzheng learned the lesson of Wang Anshi's reform. When he reformed the system, he first implemented the performance evaluation system, rectified the administration of officials, and replaced those officials who were willing to promote the reform with him.

Unfortunately, his reform also failed.

Richard is now at the beginning of the founding of the country. Guo Rong is in his prime, his prestige suppresses the court, and the central imperial guards are in hand. No one dares to oppose. Richard also has many ways, and he has cultivated thousands of disciples to follow. With such power, he began to promote the reform.

In the court, Guo Rong has the help of thousands of local officials, and his control over the Great Zhou has almost reached the peak of the feudal dynasty.

At the same time, with these local officials, the collusion between local tyrants and officials has been reduced to the lowest, and even taxation has become normal. In the past, local officials did not dare to collect taxes from those tyrants, and taxes could only be imposed on ordinary people. Now, Richard will naturally not let these people go.

How much money do ordinary people have? If too much is levied, their families will be ruined. Only the powerful, officials, gentry and wealthy families are the rich.