The carriage drove forward steadily on the wide avenue. Although the weather was hot, there was a cool breeze inside the closed carriage. A large basin of ice was emitting white air, making the inside and outside the car completely different worlds.

Opposite Li Ze, Zhang Xun, who had been in charge of the government for two years, sat on Zhang Xun, who had been in charge of the government for a full two years. Compared with Li Ze, Zhang Xun now has a neat little beard, which looks a little more majestic than before.

When he was a confidential secretary by Li Ze in the past, although his position was extremely important and everyone gave him some face, all those around Li Ze were high-ranking officials and nobles, so Zhang Xun was naturally cautious. However, after taking charge of the country, as the top leader of the governor of Shandong, the elegance of holding a high position was fully revealed. Perhaps he did not feel it himself in every move, but Li Ze felt his changes.

This is the relationship between location.

To cultivate and move your body and live and move your energy, Zhang Xun and the scholar beside Li Ze are completely different.

"The road is well built. In two years, the main road from Qingzhou to Jiaozhou Bay has been built, which is very good." Feeling the stability of the carriage, Li Ze nodded and expressed his approval.

Zhang Xun smiled and said, "The administrative chiefs in Shandong are basically from Wuwei Academy. Everyone is influenced by Li Xiang for a long time. Everyone keeps the six-character utterance of Li Xiang's desire to be rich and building roads first. After taking office, the first thing is to do is to build roads first. Now the main roads in various places have been basically completed. The next step is to trunks. In another five years, I think I can connect the entire Shandong hook with one thoroughfare."

"When the road is ready, the movement of people will be easier, the circulation of goods will reduce costs, and the transaction of goods will flourish. As more people come and go, the knowledge of local people will naturally increase day by day. This is a matter that will motivate the whole body." Li Ze smiled. "Look at the northern parts, this is the case."

"There is another point. I think it is more important to be in the newly entrustment place." Zhang Xun said: "After the roads connecting all regions are repaired, the government's control power for local areas has been greatly strengthened. We only need a small amount of armed forces to control large areas. When the number of armed forces has been reduced, the control effect has been greatly strengthened. Now along these roads, we have built an inn every fifty miles, and the speed of information transmission has been greatly accelerated."

"It costs a lot to maintain these stations, right?" Li Ze said.

"There are basically no need to allocate money from the government." Zhang Xun smiled and said, "Stations in various places can basically be self-sufficient. Some large stations can even make a lot of money."

"Oh?" Li Ze was very interested, "How did you do it?"

"We have given the inns a lot of autonomy!" Zhang Xun smiled and said: "These inns can deliver letters and send items on behalf of the people, and use some houses as inns, teahouses, taverns, etc. Some small inns can basically make back the operating expenses, such as the cost of raising horses and the salary of those messengers. The large inns can already make money since this year."

Li Ze suddenly realized.

Suddenly I felt a little ashamed. Over the years, I have rarely thought about this. The main reason is that the court is gradually relaxing in finances. I no longer worry about money. But I have become a little less concerned about making money and I have left it all to the lower level. Xia He, who is responsible for finance, is naturally a master in finance, but in terms of these matters, she knows that it is not the reason.

"This is a good way." Li Ze nodded repeatedly: "It can be extended. You also know that our inns in the north rely on the imperial court to allocate funds every year, and the annual expenses are really a lot."

"When I first started, it was because I didn't have enough money." Zhang Xun said: "At that time, Zhang Guo, the county magistrate of Gaomi County, proposed this idea and started to implement it in Gaomi. The effect was significant. Then I promoted it throughout Shandong."

"This Zhang Guo is a talent!" Li Ze smiled and said, "Can you come up with this method!"

"Zhang Guo graduated from the Finance and Financial Academy of Wuwei Academy." Zhang Xun said: "At that time, he was in Gaomi and was short of money everywhere. If he was poor, he would like to change. Now Zhang Guo is an official who is responsible for this area in our entire Shandong Province."

"Since they can make money by themselves and run it themselves, how can they ensure the integrity of officials and their enthusiasm for making money?" Li Ze thought of a question and asked.

"Li Xiang really thought deeply and immediately pointed to the key point of the problem." Zhang Xun nodded repeatedly and said, "Zhang Guo is now suffering from this problem. This year, a case was found inside the station system. The person who had the accident was Zhang Guo's old subordinate and the first batch of officials who operated the station. Gaomi Station is an excellent station. Every quarter, it can pay a surplus of tens of thousands of silver dollars to Gaomi's finance. At the end of last quarter, the chief officer of this station was found by the Supervision Bureau when he left office for audit."

Li Ze nodded thoughtfully.

It's still an old problem.

"This person is Zhang Guo's old subordinate. He has the ability and has made a lot of contributions to the promotion of the post station. You can't say how much he has greedy. Every month, he has made more than 100 taels of silver for himself. In more than a year, he has greedy for more than 1,000 taels of ink." Zhang Xun shook his head and said.

"This is not a matter of how many, but a matter of principle." Li Ze interrupted Zhang Xun.

"Yes, that's true, so even though Zhang Guo was sorry, he didn't plead for love. This man has now gone to prison." Zhang Xun said: "The bright future is ruined. This time he left office, he was supposed to promote him. Through this incident, Zhang Guo was thinking about how to ensure that the stations can be managed well without such corruption. Once, Jingguo wanted to auction these stations and hand them over to the public to operate, but these stations also cared for a lot of letters from the government, the army and even the internal security system. It is unrealistic to hand them over to the public, and it is not possible to give them to the public. It is completely thought that it is not possible to make money."

"A certain reward mechanism can be formulated." Li Ze said.

“Reward mechanism?”

"Not bad." Li Ze said: "A more special institution like this can be different from ordinary officials. For example, if they can earn 1,000 taels of silver per month in this Gaomi Station, then they will take out one to twenty percent. As a reward for this team, the more they earn, the more rewards they will be. Of course, the premise is that on the basis of ensuring the normal operation of the channel, you cannot miss the business."

Zhang Xun was stunned for a moment: "Is this okay? The post station officials are all formal court officials of the ranks."

"They are a special group of people." Li Ze thought for a while: "You reminded me of this matter that such a system can be implemented in all the businesses run by our countries. In recent years, corruption has been high in our business system. The officials of this Gaomi Post Station have only greedy for a thousand taels of silver, but they really can't rank. But if we give these people a certain reward, I think that although corruption cannot be eliminated, it can always be greatly reduced. The money these people use every year is difficult to count, but what they can get is pitifully small fixed salary and some official benefits. And those who deal with them are all big businessmen who have taken advantage of, and they will inevitably feel unbalanced."

"Li Xiang, the salary and benefits of our Tang Dynasty officials are not low at all."

"The understanding between people is different. You can't use your moral standards to demand others." Li Ze shook his head. "Tell Zhang Guo, let him try this mechanism in Shandong. Forget it, you can call him here. When I have time, I will talk to him about this. If it works, then it can be promoted on a large scale."

"Okay." Zhang Xun nodded.

After letting go of this, Li Ze looked at Zhang Xun with a smile and said, "How does it feel to be in charge after two years of separation?"

"Like walking on thin ice, trembling!" Zhang Xun said honestly: "I didn't feel this way before when I was around Li Xiang. When I was by your side, although I was also concerned about news, they were generally all major policies and strategies at the macro level. Even if I sometimes did something wrong, there were Li Xiang and so many ministers of the ministers, and I could always point it out to me in a timely manner. But if you supervise the government, you must talk about news with big and small things, and I am the highest leader here.

Brain, I was wrong, but someone might not point it out to me, that would harm a large number of people. Sometimes, a sentence I accidentally passed down to the bottom, but it became the instructions that the officials at the bottom carefully implemented, which also made me very distressed. Now I have to turn around in my mind a few times before saying anything. Think about whether this sentence will cause some bad effects, it is far from being happy with Li Xiang! It is difficult, too difficult."

Li Ze laughed: "This is normal, it feels the same as mine. But you are doing very well in Shandong. Mr. Zhang is very proud of you!"

"I learned a lot after doing this with Li Xiang." Zhang Xundao.

Li Ze smiled and turned to look out the window. On both sides of the road, there were large areas of wheat fields. It was already the harvest season. In each piece of land, countless people were fighting with sickles. Some of them lit up Li Ze's eyes. Although those people were basically shirtless, they were wearing a red scarf around their necks. Even though the weather was so hot, they had not picked it off.

That was a member of Yixing.

Following Li Ze's gaze, Zhang Xun said: "In the past two years, Yixing Society has developed very quickly in Shandong. This is a mutual aid group organized by Yixing Society to help the people harvest. The good weather for harvest is only a few days. If it is missed, the harvest will be greatly affected when the rain comes."

“It seems like a bumper harvest this year?”
Chapter completed!