The disgraced official I took care of was actually Zhu Houcong's childhood friend.

Chapter 410

After Yan Song was reinstated, he began to gradually implement the performance evaluation system, starting in Suzhou Prefecture and extending it to the entire Jiangnan Province.

If the performance evaluation system was merely a trial run in Southern Zhili, then its implementation in Jiangnan Province truly revealed the true intentions of the gentry and officials of Jiangnan.

In reality, the division between Southern Zhili and Jiangnan Province was not so clear. After all, before Wang Yangming took office as the governor of Southern Zhili, many affairs in Southern Zhili were handled by the former governor of Jiangnan Province, Cui Wenkui.

However, the officials of the Jiangnan faction were somewhat powerless over Southern Zhili. In addition, when the performance evaluation system was first implemented in Southern Zhili, it was during the time when Zhou Chu was wreaking havoc in Jiangnan Province. The officials and gentry were all eager to hide and no one dared to cause trouble. Therefore, the performance evaluation system was generally implemented smoothly in Southern Zhili.

Compared to Yan Song, Zhang Cong was undoubtedly more fortunate. After all, the successful implementation of the performance evaluation system was a great achievement for Zhang Cong. Although the workload of all officials in Southern Zhili had increased many times over, their salaries had also increased significantly.

Originally, the salaries of Ming Dynasty officials were very low. During the Hongwu era, when Zhu Yuanzhang set the salaries for officials, he calculated that they were enough for the officials to live on.

However, there are many problems with this. In addition to supporting their families, any official has many other expenses. For example, there are strict regulations regarding the type of sedan chair a seventh-rank county magistrate should ride in.

The cost of the sedan chair and the monthly wages of the sedan chair bearers all had to be paid out of the county magistrate's own pocket. In addition to these, a county magistrate had many other expenses, so his salary alone was far from enough.

Thus, a strange phenomenon emerged in the Ming Dynasty: even though Zhu Yuanzhang killed countless corrupt officials and former Yuan officials during the Hongwu era, corrupt officials were still like weeds, growing back after being cut down, and could not be eradicated no matter how many times they were killed.

Throughout history, there have been few emperors who viewed history from the perspective of the people, and Emperor Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang, is definitely one of the best among them.

He established many systems to encourage people to sue officials, and even encouraged ordinary people to use violence to fight against corrupt officials.

But that's how many things are; good intentions often lead to unintended consequences due to the corrective power of history.

Officials' salaries are a typical example. With such low salaries, if they didn't embezzle at all, most officials wouldn't even be able to support their own families. As a result, the number of corrupt officials can only increase.

Giving officials relatively high salaries may not guarantee that most officials will not be corrupt, but at the very least it will allow those officials who originally wanted to serve the Ming Dynasty and its people to stay true to their original intentions.

Even those officials who were hesitant about whether to embezzle, now that they have such high salaries, should consider the costs of embezzlement and whether they will lose their positions. It's worth it.

Once the bottom line is raised, it becomes less likely to be breached.

Therefore, most officials in the entire Southern Zhili region were grateful to Zhang Cong, especially the few officials who were still sticking to their principles, as well as those in positions with little financial reward. These people were extremely grateful to Zhang Cong.

Another group consists of officials who are wavering, or those who have only occasionally embezzled a little and live in constant fear. Many of these people have made up their minds to never be corrupt again, but of course, it is hard to say how many of them can stick to it.

After Yan Song announced the details of the performance evaluation system to his subordinates, the officials throughout Jiangnan Province were in an uproar.

Although the officials in Jiangnan Province today are not almost all from the Jiangnan faction as before, a large portion of them are still from the Jiangnan faction. Last year, Zhou Chu investigated and punished many officials, and many died at the hands of the Japanese pirates. However, it is inevitable that many of the officials who were replaced later will still be from the Jiangnan faction.