Chapter 2 2. The imperial court supports the local area, and the local area respects the imperial court

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Beijing officials were usually relatively poor, but they influenced the promotion of local officials. As the saying goes, "There are people in the court who are good at being officials." Therefore, a benefit exchange model of "Beijing officials supporting local officials, and local officials respecting Beijing officials" was established. But this model was not popular in the Song Dynasty.Beijing officials in the Song Dynasty refer to officials who do not often go to court and have lower positions. Those who go to court are called "promoted officials".The Beijing officials we are talking about are officials working in the central system.

The Song Dynasty divided the whole country into several "road" economic zones.At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, an imperial edict was issued, and all properties other than the normal expenditures of the states were turned over to the central government.At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, the country was divided into six financial and economic zones, that is, six "roads".The official office of each road is called "Transfer Envoy", also known as "Cao Si", and the chief is the Transit Envoy.When it developed to Renzong, there were 18 road-level administrative districts in the country, with 320 prefectures, prefectures, military and prisons and 1262 counties under its jurisdiction.In addition to the transshipment envoys, each road also has economic and strategic appeasement envoys in charge of military affairs, prison envoys in charge of judiciary, and eunuchs in charge of social relief. They are all served by central officials and belong to the local departments directly under the central government.The central government strictly controls the local financial and military powers, resulting in insufficient local financial space, and the God of Wealth throws his sleeves—nothing.

When Zhao Kuangyin conquered the world, he established a "pile treasury" to store the confiscated gold and silver from various places. At the same time, it was stipulated that if there was any surplus in the national treasury every year, it would be sealed and stored in the treasury.The money in the pile treasury has two functions. The first is to provide emergency relief when the country is in trouble, and the second is to redeem the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun (actually fourteen prefectures).Zhao Kuangyin once said, Shi Jingtang cut off the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun and bribed the Khitan people, I feel very sorry for him.Today I saved three to five million taels of silver to redeem the land from the Khitans. If the Khitans agree, I will give them the money.If not, spend the money on the army, recruit warriors, and prepare for war.Song Taizong changed the name of "pile library" to "neizang library". Song Shenzong wrote a poem with 92 characters in total. Dinghuan District", the "nine" in it is the small library of the nine characters.The money was not used much until the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, and then it was snatched away by the Jin people, and the Jin army carried it for three days and three nights without stopping.

All the money in the world was gathered in the capital, and it was impossible to calculate how much money was in the pile treasury.This kind of political will with strong stems and weak branches has led to the lack of local finances and uneven distribution of finances across the country, forming a division of interests dominated by the capital.Once there is a disease or a disaster in a local area, the financial loopholes will be exposed very clearly.A typical example is the Chanyuan Alliance in the first year of Song Zhenzong Jingde (1004).Why was the Liao army able to quickly advance to Chanzhou (now Puyang City, Henan Province), which is 120 kilometers away from the capital Kaifeng in a straight line?For a distance of two hundred miles, the Liao army's cavalry marched in a hurry, and within a day the soldiers approached the city.The Liao army was able to advance rapidly, on the one hand, because Hebei Road was located in the hinterland of the North China Plain, and there was no natural barrier; on the other hand, it was because the local finances were exhausted, and there was no economic strength to organize resistance. This is not so obvious in the age of weapons.To put it bluntly, there is no money in the local area, and all the wealth is accumulated in the central government. In case of disaster, funds should be allocated from the central government to the local government, which will inevitably lead to a decline in the local government's ability to govern.

The phrase "the sky is round and the place is round, the Tao is in the center" also expresses the relationship between the center and the locality.If you only know the words but not the meaning, you will inevitably lose political and economic benefits if you misunderstand the concept of the central government.For the first 30 years of Wang Anshi's visit to the prime minister, he had been drifting in the local area. He did not have deep contacts with the central scholar-bureaucrats, and his personal connections were not solid enough. The "Xining Reform" aroused fierce opposition from the scholar-bureaucrats. "The biased understanding of this concept is one of the reasons for the dismissal.

The imperial court is like the heart, it is unique and in a unique position.It is impossible for a country, a government unit, or an enterprise to have two administrative centers. It can be seen that there is only one imperial court and several localities.Like throwing a stone into a lake, the ripples will inevitably spread from the center to the surrounding.By clarifying this concept, it is not difficult to find that the imperial court is the core of officialdom, like the core of the earth, the closer to the center, the higher the temperature, where officials can absorb enough heat to accumulate nutrients for promotion.