Inside the Left Prime Minister's Office, Fang Yun looked at the draft in front of him with a frown on his face.
Just as a semi-saint cannot solve the rise and fall of dynasties and economic crises, once Jing State promotes exchanges with all walks of life and all ethnic groups, various problems will inevitably arise.
If this kind of communication is left solely to the government, it will be dead if it is caught, and chaotic if it is let go, because conservatism, passivity and slow response are the nature of bureaucrats. Even if Fang Yun personally urges it, the result will inevitably be one of two opposing results.
Either communication among ethnic groups becomes a slogan or Jingguo becomes closed again.
Either the officials of the State of Jing, in order to achieve political achievements, to avoid making mistakes, or to avoid being blamed by their superiors and losing their jobs, catered to the foreigners endlessly, and instead of feeling ashamed of it, they took pride in it, which ultimately led to the foreigners being able to bully the people of Jing.
But if we let the aristocratic businessmen push it completely, the result is already doomed. In order to maximize their own interests, they may even sell out the entire country.
When Fang Yun was fighting against local tyrants and evil gentry a few days ago, he once mocked those families and said, "If the merchants and major families are really trying to help Jingguo become stronger, it is also to sell it for a good price."
Once the profits are high enough, the profit-seeking businessmen will plunge Jingguo into disaster.
Therefore, Fang Yun could only choose to be led by the government and supported by the private sector.
In the course of history, there seem to be coincidences everywhere, but there is inevitability everywhere.
No matter where Chinese civilization is in the universe, its culture, etiquette, political system, bureaucracy and so on have indelible commonalities.
Therefore, Fang Yun did not foolishly carry out a subversive and comprehensive reform according to the foreign system, but chose a path that was most compatible with it.
Some things are good, but they can never be applicable to every ethnic group.
Fang Yun looked at the draft and knew very well where his resistance came from.
Not the Li Hall, not the Miscellaneous School, and not even the Holy Academy. Fang Yun has never regarded these forces as opponents because he has too many ways to deal with these forces.
The long-standing bureaucratic system, the diverse masses of people, and the strong inertia of the ethnic groups are the biggest obstacles to reform.
After sorting out his thoughts, Fang Yun's eyes showed a strong confidence.
Only if I can decide the direction of Jingguo, the bureaucrats of Jingguo will not deviate from the correct path; as long as I truly care about the people, foreigners will not be able to bully the people of Jingguo; as long as I do not want the vanity of having the barbarians come to pay tribute, I can avoid the situation where the upper beam is not straight and the lower beam is crooked; as long as I am not arrogant enough to think I can solve everything, I can prevent foreigners from causing chaos in Jingguo.
Fang Yun lowered his head and read through the draft, and suddenly smiled faintly because he understood a truth.
As a left-hand prime minister, as long as you really want to do it, even if you can't do it well, things will never get worse. Problems will only arise in the country when you don't want to do it or don't know how to do it.
Fang Yun took out a new piece of paper, thought for a long time, and then lowered his head to write.
About the abolition of any form of human trafficking, slavery and unequal employment relations.
Under the leadership of Fang Yun and Zuo Xiangge, the form of official documents in Panoramic Country has quietly changed, with simplified characters and vernacular Chinese becoming popular. Except for some official documents such as formal laws, which have both classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese, the vast majority of official documents are written in vernacular Chinese.
This allows Jingguo bureaucrats to transmit information more quickly and accurately.
For this purpose, Fang Yun even specially compiled a set of "Grammar of Human Vernacular", which has been published in Jing State. Except for Wu State which copied it immediately, other countries are waiting and watching.
Fang Yun wrote furiously, and soon the new draft was completed. Then Fang Yun checked it word by word, making deletions, additions and modifications.
Many innovations are linked together, and no link can be missing.
While improving agricultural production efficiency and allowing farmers to move to the city as workers, it is necessary to ensure that the court has a firm grasp on punishment and law. Because once private punishment is rampant and clan power is too strong, the royal power will not reach the countryside. No matter how hard Fang Yunyun's court tries, it will get half the result with twice the effort, or even fail at all.
Only after having enough workers and weakening clan power, and on the basis of completing these two reforms, did Fang Yun resolve the employment relationship.
In Shengyuan Continent, human trafficking is legal as long as it is voluntary and certified by the government.
Countries and dynasties have never cracked down on human trafficking, but only on illegal human trafficking.
When Fang Yun was in Ning'an City, he only cracked down on illegal human trafficking and was completely unable to solve the legal human trafficking.
In today's Shengyuan Continent, many people with a little financial resources own slaves, either maids or servants, and those famous and wealthy families often own thousands of slaves, and the number of domestic slaves in various families can easily reach tens of thousands.
Various countries even had "Slave Laws" specifically designed to restrain slaveholders and slaves. The status of slaves was extremely low, and the law even stipulated that in some cases, slaveholders could be completely innocent if they beat slaves to death. Even if they were guilty, they could be pardoned by paying some silver.
This seemingly ordinary thing actually hinders the development of the human race.
The reason is simple: any technological advancement by mankind will incur a high cost in the short term.
In the eyes of slave owners, slaves were a business transaction. Once purchased, they had to be used all the time. If they were not used, it would be a waste. As for spending more money to buy better farm tools, machinery, or cattle and horses, that was a considerable expense. Buying them would just be a bargain for the serfs, so it was better not to buy them.
Once all rich people do this, related technological innovation will slow down or even stagnate.
In fact, the human race had many advanced mechanisms early on, such as water-drawing mechanisms, but the major families did not pay much attention to them at the beginning and still let the slaves draw water manually. It was not until a long time later that water-drawing mechanisms gradually became popular. This was not because the major families had a change of heart, but because they found that with water-drawing mechanisms, the serfs could free up their hands to do more things and at the same time they could use them to show off their financial strength.
Slavery weakened the impetus for technological innovation, only on the one hand. On the other hand, slaves had no autonomy in many areas and had extremely meager disposable income. They had needs but no money to pay for them.
This will lead to a decrease in national consumption, which will not stimulate domestic demand and will naturally affect development. Moreover, once slaves become free people, they will play a more important role.
Therefore, once slavery and unreasonable employment relationships are abolished, it will indeed seriously damage the interests of landlords or families, but it will bring huge benefits to the country and the entire human race.
The power of the human race is actually very strong, but it has not been fully released.
The selfish desires of some people hinder the progress of humanity.
This is what Cao Gui meant when he said during the war that those who eat meat are vulgar and cannot plan for the long term. It does not mean that those who are in high positions and have great power are really stupid.
Fang Yun put down the draft in his hand and sighed softly.
For the sake of the human race, we can only whip them to move forward.