At the end of September, in the Constitutional Court, Zhao Jun was looking at official documents on the desk.
The Statistics Department has been established.
There are many idle and scattered officials in the world now, so it is easy to transfer manpower.
The Constitutional Yuan issued a top-level written instruction that any department or unit must submit all data to the Statistics Bureau before the end of the year.
In addition, when the Statistics Department requires an investigation into data from various departments, no delay or obstruction is allowed for any reason. Once such a situation occurs, severe punishment will be imposed.
The newly appointed Director of the Statistics Department was Wu Yu. Although he was only 33 years old, he had passed the imperial examination in his teens. Historical records show that he was "brilliant and knowledgeable since he was young, and passed the imperial examination", and he also took the imperial examination.
The most prestigious imperial examination in the Song Dynasty was the Xianliang Fangzheng examination, comparable to the Jinshi examination. The highest level of success in the imperial examinations was passing the Jinshi examination first and then the Xianliang Fangzheng examination. The History of the Song Dynasty states: "Since the early Song Dynasty, only Wu Yu and Su Shi have achieved the third-class rank in the imperial examination."
Therefore, since he was a Jinshi and had passed the imperial examination, his value increased rapidly and he was promoted quickly.
He has served as a judge of the Dali Temple, a secretary of the Dali Temple, a local county magistrate, and the Tongpan of Huzhou. He is now a fifth-rank Taichang Liyuan. Historically, he was the deputy envoy of the Privy Council at the age of 40 and the vice-chancellor at the age of 41. It can be said that he has outstanding abilities.
Now he only holds an idle official position in the Taichang Liyuan. It was when he was the magistrate of Xiangcheng County in Henan that he was framed by the then censor Liu Yuanyu, which prevented him from getting promoted.
Otherwise, given his outstanding political achievements at the local level, he would definitely not have gone to a powerless department like the Taichang Temple, but to the Sansi Yamen.
Originally, Wu Yu was not qualified to attend court, but wasn’t the imperial examination held in August?
The results will be released in October, so the officials in charge of the imperial examinations from the Taichang Temple and the Ministry of Rites will have to report to the court recently.
Although Zhao Jun was opposed by Wu Yu in the court, he looked at the list of officials and their information, and was impressed by their political achievements and upright and serious character, so he transferred them to the Statistics Department.
Only people like this can compile statistics in the Statistics Department and help Zhao Jun understand the current situation of the Song Dynasty.
At this time, Zhao Jun was looking at the data sent by the Ministry of Revenue.
The Ministry of Revenue has two departments, the left and the right. The left department is responsible for household registration, taxation, farmland, legal inspection, and miscellaneous cases; the right department is responsible for grain and levy, exemption from military service, mine field, legal inspection, and miscellaneous cases.
The Left Cao was responsible for population, taxes, farmland, justice, and miscellaneous affairs, while the Right Cao was responsible for storage, disaster relief, corvee labor, markets, justice, and miscellaneous affairs.
This means that the population and land are currently under the management of the Ministry of Revenue where Yan Shu is located, so the information is submitted the fastest and most complete.
However, the data he was looking at was from the fifth year of Emperor Zhenzong's Tianxi reign, more than ten years ago.
The recorded population was 10,296,565 households, with 2,620,541 able-bodied males. The rest, including the elderly, children, women and children, had a total population of over 60 million.
Now, more than ten years have passed, and the population may have reached 70 million. No wonder the population of the Song Dynasty had reached 110 million during the reign of Emperor Huizong of Song, with a very fast growth rate.
However, seeing the land statistics is a headache. More than ten years ago, statistics showed that the number of landless refugees reached more than three million households, which means that nearly 30% of the population had no land.
Historically, this number reached over 35 during Wang Anshi's reform period, according to his statistics, which shows how serious land annexation was.
More than 10 million people either flowed into cities to engage in handicraft manufacturing or rebelled, and were eventually incorporated into the system of wing troops and imperial guards, causing serious redundant soldier problems in the Northern Song Dynasty.
It is no wonder that handicrafts and commerce were developed in the Song Dynasty. With so many people engaged in this industry, how could it not develop?
Looking at these data, Zhao Jun's face looked unhappy.
Lü Yijian, who was standing next to him, noticed that his expression was off and asked, "What's wrong?"
"Land annexation is more serious than I imagined. No wonder Wang Anshi wanted to reform. Over 10 million people, nearly 20 million, are landless. The gap between the rich and the poor is so huge. This is a time bomb."
Zhao Jun shook his head.
The others gathered around. Fan Zhongyan, who had been in charge of the Political System Council that morning, immediately chimed in, "Does that mean that the Qingli New Deal must be accompanied by Wang Anshi's reforms?"
Lu Yijian, Wang Zeng and others glared at him and said, "What a joke! The New Deals of the Qingli Period were already a big deal, and now there's another Wang Anshi Reform?"
You, Old Fan, want to bring chaos to the Song Dynasty, right?
"I'm thinking about a question."
Zhao Jun scratched his head, looking embarrassed.
"What's the problem?"
Wang Zeng asked.
Zhao Jun pondered and said, "The question now is whether the Northern Song Dynasty has the ability to germinate capital and thus give birth to the Industrial Revolution."
"The Industrial Revolution actually required land annexation to free up more labor and bring them into factories to increase productivity. The first Industrial Revolution was mainly focused on the mining and textile industries. I understand the principles of the flying shuttle, the spinning jenny, and the steam engine. They're all from high school history."
"Spinning yarn is made of wool or cotton. Our country has a long history of raising sheep, and cotton has been introduced since the Southern and Northern Dynasties. At the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, cotton was imported into the interior of China in large quantities. In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang used coercive methods to promote cotton nationwide. Therefore, the textile industry is not a problem."
"As for mineral resources, we'll build canals between coal mines and iron mines, establish industrial cities, and initially use steam engines as mining tools. Then, we'll gradually incorporate them into factories, building steam engines and lathes, and gradually progress to the steam engine age. I believe this can be achieved within fifty years."
"But the prerequisite for developing these things is to first defeat the Liao and Western Xia, lay the foundation, and then roll them out within fifty years. Then, use the remaining fifty years to radiate to the entire East Asian region, and achieve the dominant position in East Asia that I originally envisioned."
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