Chapter 341: The True Strangeness
Zhao Jiu's memories poured out like water from a floodgate, and numerous thoughts followed... But it is worth mentioning that what flowed out after the floodgates were opened could not be considered a flood, it was just a stream at most.
There is nothing we can do about this.
This year is the seventh year of Jianyan, in other words, Zhao Jiu has lived a total of twenty-seven years up to this year. And among the twenty-seven years, the experiences of the last seven years made him feel as if they occupied a larger part of his life.
As for the first twenty years… not to mention that he was relatively carefree at that time, he didn’t have any deep thinking ability before he entered high school? Even after that, he didn’t have much time to effectively acquire knowledge, let alone mature cognition and practice.
In addition to this, it was also because he was slapped in the face and it hurt.
After Zhao Jiu fell into the well, he was influenced by some low-end games and high-end online novels. He tried some so-called cheat codes, but ideas were often frustrated by the ruthless reality and harsh conditions. In the end, these things stopped at the idea stage:
First of all, there was the impact of war. Every day, every time I opened my eyes and closed my eyes, I was thinking about life and death. Until I reached Yaoshan, how could I really have the energy to deal with these things?
Secondly, personal knowledge is not systematic at all, and piecemeal efforts cannot bring about a breakthrough in promoting a systematic industry.
Finally, as a country with a population of more than 100 million, the Song Dynasty had a relatively deep urbanization process and had already achieved a certain extreme beyond productivity during its heyday in the Middle Ages.
Zhao Jiu talked about many things, and found that others already had better examples. However, they were forced to reduce their scale or suspend them only because of lack of money or war... The most representative of these is the medical system.
In a sense, this also includes the financial issues this time.
Back to a few days ago, at the beginning of this month, after the Minister of Revenue Lin Jingmo submitted the heavy proposal, he actually quickly followed it with a note. In the note, Lin Jingmo had already put in front of Emperor Zhao the issuance of specific Northern Expedition bonds, appropriate anti-corruption, and even the Zi tax (stock property tax, if the family's property exceeds a certain amount, it must pay tax) that directly robs the rich to help the poor.
Given Lin Jingmo's identity, since he sent this note, it means that the so-called Zhang Deyuan's faction of the Wood Party behind him has reached an internal consensus and is ready to charge into battle for Emperor Zhao.
However, it is not known whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. Compared with these trusted ministers who were brought up and influenced by him and who dared to do anything, Emperor Zhao himself actually shrank back.
Of course, there are reasons to shrink:
The large-scale issuance of Northern Expedition bonds requires that the whole country has full confidence in the Northern Expedition. However, if the confidence of the whole country is not as strong as the court expects and too many bonds are issued, the bonds will be unsalable, causing officials, soldiers and people to lose confidence in the Northern Expedition through the bonds.
That's not all. The worst thing is that according to Zhao Jiu's experience, once something goes wrong, the government will probably deceive its superiors and subordinates and force the payment. Not only will the people be frustrated, but even the conventional treasury bond market, which has been issued at the end of the year and has been growing steadily and has a huge regulatory significance for the fiscal system, will be affected.
It might even lead to greater political turmoil.
As for anti-corruption.
This is a commonplace question... but it is a bit far-fetched, because at that time, the bulk of the national fiscal revenue was spent on military expenditures, and the imperial army still had a military system in which large generals led large troop groups. In this case, from the generals on down, officers at all levels were almost openly misappropriating military funds.
To put it bluntly, if Emperor Zhao does not eradicate corruption in the military, how can he eradicate corruption in other places?
As for eradicating corruption in the army, it is not impossible, but in that case, we must be prepared for the fact that the balance of the army will be disrupted, some capable and brave generals will be dealt with, and even some people will collude to resist, forcing the court to carry out a vicious routine of a major purge...and this will most likely lead to a large-scale rebound of the previous situation where civil officials are noble and military officials are despised, causing Emperor Zhao to completely lose faith in the army and causing the army's combat effectiveness to collapse.
In short, in the long run, anti-corruption efforts are certainly beneficial to maintaining the army's combat effectiveness, but in the short term, the result is a rapid decline in the army's combat effectiveness.
But isn’t what Zhao Jiu is pursuing to maintain combat effectiveness in the short term to ensure that he can march north at any time?
This is also the reason why Zhao Jiu could only carry out appropriate cleansing of part of the troops in the imperial camp under his nose, and most of the time he had to give instructions again and again and influence a dozen generals and dozens of commanders to control the corruption within the army.
Of course, to be honest, Emperor Zhao and the imperial court are not innocent.
After the victory at Yanling, the imperial court immediately balanced the strength of the various armies, and then took the opportunity to send a large number of Jinshi to accompany the army after the Great Enke of that year. After the victory at Yaoshan, Lu Yihao immediately wrote a letter to request the rectification of the previous chaotic situation of "envoys", and then Emperor Zhao took the opportunity to dismiss all the generals, governors, and pacification envoys from Han Shizhong to Yue Fei to Li Yanxian.
This in itself is an anti-corruption act that goes beyond anything else.
As for the tax increase that robs the rich to help the poor, it goes without saying that if you really have two cows at home, there will be any kind of backlash and resistance.
Moreover, this specific behavior against the wealthy class, coupled with the brutal ruling style of the feudal government, is likely to become an unrestrained, even expanded, or even misplaced evil policy.
You said your family's property is not within the taxable limit, but I think it is! If you don't believe me, why don't you let us search?
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