"Your Majesty, there will be a large number of vacancies in the local officials after this round of official management. How are we going to fill them?”Li Zhenguo asked.
"There's no hurry. I have my ways. "Before we talk about filling in the positions of local officials, I want to talk to you about the Great Qin's aristocratic families." Long Yunfeng raised his hand to stop Wang Huan, who was about to speak.
When the three of them heard about the Great Qin's aristocratic family, their expressions changed slightly, and their hands clenched into fists.
"The aristocratic families of the State of Qin? Does Your Majesty have anything to say?" Wang Huan asked.
The three of them had all experienced the reform of Emperor Qin Yan, but the reform failed in the end. The biggest reason was the obstruction of the aristocratic families.
"Aristocratic families, also known as gentry families, are the collective name of the family and the family. They refer to the prestigious families that have been officials for generations.
In politics, aristocratic families shared privileges according to their status and held important positions for generations (the nine-grade system was the political guarantee of the aristocratic family system).
In terms of economy, the gentry occupied a large amount of land and labor, establishing a self-sufficient and powerful manor economy.(The system of officials occupying land and guests provided economic security for the gentry system;）
In the social system, because of the nobility of their ancestors, they had occupied a place for hundreds to thousands of years.
In society, they did not marry commoners and even sat at different seats.
In terms of culture, aristocratic families advocated idle talk and occupied high-level civil officials.”
Long Yunfeng picked up the teacup on the table to moisten his throat before continuing," If I want to reform and become stronger, I have to get past the aristocratic families. Otherwise, all my efforts will go to waste. Don't you think I'm right?"
The three of them immediately fell silent. No matter how much they reformed, they would still end up affecting the interests of the aristocratic families. Once the aristocratic families joined forces, their power would be incomparably shocking.
"Your Majesty, are you going to attack those aristocratic families?”Zhu Yu asked.
" Your Majesty, we need to think about this further," Wang Huan advised.
"Your Majesty, please reconsider! Great Qin definitely couldn't withstand the Blood Wind Drizzle!”Li Zhenguo also tried to persuade him.
Fine, they thought that he was going to use force against these aristocratic families. It seemed that what he said just now had caused them to misunderstand.
" I have no intention of using force against these aristocratic families. You've misunderstood," Long Yunfeng said helplessly.
The three people let out a sigh of relief. Great Qin could not afford internal strife, and they did not have much money left in the treasury. If internal strife broke out and the Jin Kingdom or Ning Kingdom attacked Great Qin, the consequences would be unimaginable.
" The aristocratic families have the absolute advantage in politics, economy, culture, and education. Our biggest advantage is the military power in our hands. Therefore, to deal with the aristocratic families, we can only weaken their strength step by step and wait for the critical time to completely solve this hidden danger," Long Yunfeng continued.
"Your Majesty, I wonder how we can weaken the aristocratic families without harming the country.”Wang Huan was interested in weakening the aristocratic families. One had to know that Emperor Qin Yan had been racking his brains to weaken the aristocratic families.
Long Yunfeng looked at them. If he didn't come from the future, he wouldn't know how to deal with aristocratic families.
After all, the aristocratic families were the behemoths that suppressed everything except the emperor. Once they were in trouble, they would unite.
Long Yunfeng didn't say anything. He picked up a pen and wrote down the emperor, aristocratic families, and commoners on a piece of paper. He connected them together with a string, then picked it up and said to the three of them,""Now, I've divided Great Qin into three groups: the Emperor, the Great Families, and the Commoners. The Commoners include the Humble Class, the Merchants, the Farmers, and the Craftsmen. These three groups are all connected.
" Let's talk about the relationship between the aristocratic families and the emperor. It seems that someone said that the aristocratic families and the emperor rule the world together. Therefore, when the aristocratic families and the emperor unite, they will be on the opposite side of the people. Once they unite, it may cause turmoil in the situation. It is fine if the emperor is a bright and wise ruler, but if it is a bad ruler, then the emperor and the aristocratic families will not care about the lives of the people. They will desperately exploit the people. In the end, the people will rise up and overthrow the imperial court when they cannot survive.”Long Yunfeng said.
"If the emperor, the aristocratic families, and the people reach an agreement, then the country will be at its peak. However, once the three clash, it will eventually cause turmoil and change the dynasty."
" On the surface, the commoners are the weakest. Perhaps, you can compare them to lambs. They have no power at all, and it's easy to kill them. Even a group of farmers can be easily slaughtered without any resistance. The reason was that the group of commoners was too large and couldn't coordinate. However, under certain conditions, they would coordinate. When a voice spoke, it would explode with great power. When they really couldn't survive, they would start to erupt with a voice and beg for survival. If we don't handle it properly and don't cut off this formation condition, one day, it will form a force that can topple mountains and overturn seas and overturn everything."
" Therefore, only two of these three can win, or only one," Long Yunfeng said.
" In this war between the three, the emperor can unite the aristocratic families to destroy the people, or the emperor and the people can destroy the aristocratic families, or the aristocratic families and the people can destroy the emperor," Long Yunfeng said as he extended three fingers.
"Your Majesty, the people are the foundation of the country. It seems that we can only eliminate the aristocratic families.”Li Zhenguo was more open-minded. He knew that the threat of the aristocratic families to the royal family was too great. Moreover, there were too many commoners, so they could only target the aristocratic families.
"Destroying the aristocratic families is easier said than done!”Wang Huan sighed and said dejectedly.
"That's why we need to weaken the aristocratic families as much as possible.”Long Yunfeng said.
"Your Majesty, what should we do?" Zhu Yu asked.
"Li Situ, didn't you ask me how to make up for the missing officials just now? "According to tradition, once a local official is missing, what will the imperial court do?" Long Yunfeng asked.
"The local officials or the great clans will make recommendations.”Wang Huan knew this very well.
"That's right. Most of the local officials are children of aristocratic families, so we have to try our best to rope in the poor families in politics. It's best if the children of the poor families are selected as local officials.”Long Yunfeng was very clear about the drawbacks of this system.
Inspections were a system of selecting talents from the bottom up.
First, the Emperor issued an edict ordering the three dukes, nine ministers, local governors, and other high-ranking officials to recommend virtuous, talented, and knowledgeable civilians or lower-level officials to the court according to certain standards. The court would directly appoint them, or they would be selected after some form of assessment and interview (until the Emperor personally asked).
Because the power to select talents was concentrated in the hands of the emperor, the central and local high officials.
It caused the outstanding talents among the common Confucian scholars to be rejected.
Especially during the Qin Jing Emperor period, the results of the selection were controlled by the powerful.
It also resulted in the local and court officials not having many poor children.
"I wonder what exactly I should do?" Zhu Yu asked.
" The imperial examination is based on talent," Long Yunfeng said.
Long Yunfeng didn't wait for anyone to speak and directly explained what the imperial examination was.
The imperial examination system was actually just a systematic innovation of the talent selection system.
This innovation could only ensure that the selection process was fair. Everyone knew that the aristocratic families had existed in Great Qin for 500 to 600 years.
The great clans formed a complicated political network through in-laws, teacher-student relationships, and established a solid political and economic foundation in the local area.
To a certain extent, the great clans were the true masters of power at that time. Without the cooperation of the great clans, the decrees of the emperor's officials could not be carried out. What was the reason why these great clans controlled such huge political and economic resources? The fundamental reason was that they were cultured.
Bureaucrats mostly started from the classics. During the Qin Dynasty, the nine-grade system was implemented, allowing the gentry landlords to participate in the regime by virtue of their family background.
After Great Qin was established, in order to obtain the support of the great clans, we continued to indulge and win them over, forming a typical aristocratic family politics.
During this period, the gentry had high political positions and high salaries, monopolized political power, sealed off the mountains and swamps, occupied large areas of land and labor, and advocated idle talk in culture.
In order to maintain this system, during the reign of Emperor Wen of Qin Dynasty, the gentry attached great importance to compiling genealogy and paid attention to the origin of the gentry's lineage as evidence of their privileges. Therefore, genealogy flourished, and genealogy became a tool for the Ministry of Civil Affairs to select officials and maintain the privileged status of the gentry.
During this period, the Tu people had special political privileges, and the noble families monopolized the important positions. They had a large number of land and people, and they often competed with the government for labor. In terms of culture, the family school had a monopoly position, and the school of genealogy was also promoted. It advocated talking about metaphysics and was good at calligraphy, painting, and other arts. In society, they did not intermarry with commoners. The gentry held power, but they were unwilling to get involved in practical matters. They decayed and declined in luxury.
After that, although the great clans suffered a series of attacks and challenges, and their status gradually began to decline due to their own corruption, the situation of the great clans monopolizing the political and economic situation had not been fundamentally changed.
The aristocratic families had a monopoly on culture and economy, and the truly cultured people were mostly those born in the aristocratic families. Ordinary people could not afford to study at all, and the few poor children who could afford to study were weak. They either relied on the aristocratic families or lingered at the bottom.
Therefore, in order to break the monopoly of the aristocratic families, we must first develop an outstanding talent selection system."
Long Yunfeng then explained to the three how to conduct the imperial examinations.
" Your Majesty, once the Imperial Examination is held, all the talents in the world will be in the bag," Wang Huan said excitedly.
"That's right! Li Zhenguo also agreed with the implementation of the imperial examination system. After all, the imperial examination system did not have many drawbacks. More importantly, it was a system that was truly born to select talents.
This book is provided by FunNovel Novel Book | Fan Fiction Novel [Beautiful Free Novel Book]