bantayden Chapter 1128 - 1110: New Edicts
Chapter 1128 - 1110: New Edicts
After Zhao Hanzhang took power, she did not hold court every day. Usually it was once every three days, and at special times she would additionally summon ministers into the palace for deliberations; on such occasions, the emperor also had to be present.
At other times, the Little Emperor only needed to follow Zhao Hanzhang, sit in the hall listening to government affairs and reviewing documents.
But no matter which it was, he had to arrive before 7 a.m.
Before the weather turned cold, the Little Emperor had to recite his texts before going to the main hall to "work," so as to cope with the Grand Tutor’s inspection in the afternoon, and only then go to listen to government affairs; after the weather turned cold, his schoolwork lessened a bit, but... it was really hard to get up, especially now that dawn came later.
The Little Emperor, dressed in heavy clothes and wearing a weighty crown, braved the cold wind to reach the main hall. After he arrived, a member of the Imperial Guard came in to report, "Your Majesty, the Great General has arrived."
The Little Emperor pricked up his ears and indeed heard the sound outside of people saluting Zhao Hanzhang, so he rose to his feet and stood properly. The eunuch glanced at the time and gave a clear ding-dong to the small bell at the side of the hall.
The officials outside immediately quieted down. Someone announced that the emperor had arrived; outside fell silent at once, and only then did the Little Emperor straighten his back and walk out.
Except for Zhao Hanzhang, all the officials knelt to give their salutes.
The Little Emperor allowed the officials to rise, then bowed his head slightly to Zhao Hanzhang in salute, and only then did he sit on the dragon throne and begin his mascot performance for the day.
He had barely sat down when Zhao Hanzhang announced several decrees. "Modify the female-household system. Beginning in the First Year of Jianxing, women also have inheritance rights and may be heads of household."
The officials had already been mentally prepared, so no one objected at this time.
Zhao Hanzhang went on, "Encourage marriage and childbirth, and proclaim throughout the realm: any woman aged fifteen and above and any man aged seventeen and above may marry. Any woman who has not married by twenty-eight and any man who has not married by thirty will be fined double the poll tax."
She continued, "The county governments everywhere bear the duty of nurturing the people. Therefore, proclaim to all commanderies and counties and order them to act as go-betweens for unmarried men and women, to encourage childbirth. For every child born, regardless of gender, one dou of grain and a reward of one thousand bricks; for a second child, two dou of grain and three thousand bricks; and for those who have three children, exemption from the women’s levy, plus five dou of grain and five thousand bricks; for those who have five or more children, a reward of eighty thousand bricks and exemption from corvée labor for three years."
Aside from Ji Yuan and the others who had participated in the discussions, the ministers all jolted, then replied excitedly, "The Great General is wise!"
With this proclamation issued, let’s see who still won’t get married and have children!
In addition, Zhao Hanzhang ordered county governments everywhere to establish government physicians. Any woman giving birth could invite midwives and doctors from the government medical service, and childbirth would be free of charge.
"It is now the first month, and the spring winds are about to arrive. Order all commanderies and counties to prepare, and promptly distribute seeds, farm tools, and livestock into the hands of the people. County Magistrates are to fulfill their duty of exhorting and guiding in agriculture and sericulture, and the Ministry of Agriculture is to send personnel to the countryside to assist the people," Zhao Hanzhang said. "Any refugees who are willing to register as households shall all be allotted land and exempted from that year’s poll tax and contributions."
The officials answered respectfully.
It could be said that the policies of these two years were: encourage agriculture, encourage marriage, encourage childbirth.
For this, Zhao Hanzhang had dispatched all the Imperial Censors of the Imperial Censorate, in order to patrol the realm and ensure that what the court provided could smoothly reach the hands of the common people.
The Ministry of War and the various garrisons everywhere were all to detach part of their troops to suppress bandits, to ferret out all the bandits and refugees hiding in the mountains—those who should be farming were to farm, those who should be serving sentences were to serve sentences.
Oh, right, Zhao Hanzhang was particularly fond of labor reform for criminals now. Aside from those sentenced to death who were imprisoned awaiting review, all the rest were dragged off to build city walls, build roads, dig canals, build houses for the people, and so on...
Some were even sent to dig in the mines; in any case, it was fairly exhausting work.
Anyway, she was short of manpower, so she absolutely would not waste a single person.
It was said that after this rule came out, robberies and thefts and such all became fewer.
The decrees were transmitted to all the commanderies and counties at great speed. Along with them came several case examples, such as: Secretary of the Imperial Secretariat Ming Yu and Minister of the Imperial Secretariat Ji Yuan, having passed the age of thirty and still unmarried, were ordered by the Great General to marry but both failed to find suitable women, and thus were fined double the poll tax; and, because as Prime Ministers they failed to set an example, they were fined double again.
The posted judgment notices were pasted beside the text of the decree, with yamen runners stationed before the notice wall to read them aloud to the people. Students from the academies also received assignments to recite them daily in every corner of the county seat, and sometimes to go down to the villages as well. Together with the village chiefs spreading the word downwards, soon everyone in the realm knew of this case.
Thus the slogan for urging marriage among the common people became: "Do you think you’re the Prime Minister? Can you afford double the poll tax?"
Because of this amusing case, popular interest in the county government’s notice walls reached its peak. Just then, a new announcement was posted.
By order of Zhao Hanzhang: Four households make a neighbor-group, five neighbor-groups make a village-group, and five village-groups make a ward, each with a head. In the towns they are wards, in the countryside they are villages; villages, wards, neighbor-groups and ward-groups shall supervise one another in succession.
This changed the policy since Wei Jin of relying on local great clans and Wu Castles to govern the localities. Because without the three levels of local heads, most places were self-governed, and commoners usually sought protection under the great clans and powerful families.
Take the Xiping Zhao Family’s Wu Castle, for example. Before Zhao Hanzhang, Zhao’s Castle was essentially an independent city. The XiPing County Magistrate could hardly exert his authority inside Zhao’s Castle, and even the common folk of Xiping mostly attached themselves to the Zhao Family and were not under the control of the Xiping County Government.
After Zhao Hanzhang came to power, Xiping County and Zhao’s Castle had interests that coincided to a certain extent, and so they were able to merge into one.
Now she designated all settlements outside the cities as villages, and ordered the village chief within each village to choose, together with the people, an elder of the village to govern with him. Among them, four households formed a neighbor-group, five neighbor-groups a village-group; the village chief was responsible to the village elder, the village elder to the village chief, and the village chief in turn to the County Magistrate.
When major affairs arose, the County Magistrate could summon the village elders and village chiefs for consultation, and the neighbor-groups would supervise one another, while the heads of the village-groups would also bear responsibility. This directly severed the relationship of dependence between the commoners and the local great clans.
With this announcement, she directly removed the local great clans from the equation and had the local county governments take their place as the patron and protector to whom the common people attached themselves.
From then on, her decrees would be passed on to the countryside by the county governments, instead of having to go through the local great clans before reaching the villages.
Of course, that was the ideal situation.
But the great chaos under heaven had only just been settled; many villages were newly rebuilt, the people were new, and even the powerful families had been replaced again and again, weakened again and again. At that moment, the new regulations, when quickly filled in, were also the easiest to implement.
Of course, there were very few people in the realm who could grasp all this; everyone only felt that things had become much more convenient.
The County Magistrates discovered that they had found people through whom they could implement decrees downwards, and the common folks discovered that they had found people to whom they could voice their problems; they now knew who to look for when something went wrong—there was a target.
Once the decrees were issued, each of the newly built villages began to select their village chiefs and village elders. As for the village chief, that was out of their hands; those were mostly people of prestige selected locally and appointed by the yamen, and had little to do with them.
In a small village in Xuzhou, everyone crowded into the courtyard of one household. When the little yard could not contain them, people climbed up to sit on the courtyard wall. An old man said, "Da Shan, you’ve seen the most of the world in our village, and you’re an upright man. I think this village elder position should be yours."