China since ancient times advocated learning and excellence, being an official in ancient times is not only a matter of honoring the ancestors, but also the only way for low-level students to change social classes, ancient reading is not to obtain knowledge, simply put, it is to become an official, this eternal practical political purpose has become the biggest driving force for the cold window of mathematicians to read hard.
But have you ever thought of a question? In ancient times, there was neither a network nor a bank, and how were the salaries of local officials, what we call today, received?
How are local officials paid?
In ancient times, local officials were divided into Beijing officials and local officials, and it was easier for officials in Beijing to receive salaries, after all, the work was at the foot of Tianzi, the national treasury was in the capital, and it was not very difficult to pay some salaries to the consuls.
However, it is more troublesome for local officials to receive salaries, China's land is vast, most of the ancient central and western regions have always been barbarian lands, traffic is blocked, and it is indeed not very convenient for officials to pay salaries.
However, the tianzi and high-level officials of the imperial court were not fools, they had also thought about this problem for a long time, and formed a very complete system in terms of paying wages, so that China's thousands of years of scholarly clan system could be better inherited and developed.
Due to the relatively simple and backward transportation in ancient times, and the roads are not developed, there are still some difficulties in receiving salaries for local officials, and in some remote areas, officials cannot run to the capital in order to receive wages, so it may have been several months since the return.
Therefore, the system of local treasury has emerged!
A local treasury was established specifically to solve the problem of paying salaries to local officials
In order to solve the problem of local officials paying salaries, ancient China invented a relatively simple and straightforward method: the establishment of local treasuries.
A central treasury was set up in the capital city where the central government was located, and a local treasury was set up in the seat of the local government's prefectures and counties, of course, most of the treasury was taken away by the central treasury, but some money and grain were also retained to the local treasury according to needs.
For a long time, the local treasury was not set up to meet the needs of local development and the common people, it was set up to solve the problem of local officials paying salaries, but the national treasury was only set up in the states and counties, and local officials only needed to go to the prefectures and counties to collect it.
However, the salary of local officials in the capital of the prefecture and county still does not completely eradicate the relative difficulty of local officials getting paid, because China's territory is too vast, and the actual jurisdiction of some states and counties far exceeds the area of today's prefecture-level cities.
There are still many county-level units under the prefectures and counties, these county-level units are basically similar to today's counties, but many times together with the township business is also solved, some county-level units are far away from the prefectures and counties, and there was no car transportation in ancient times, so the local treasury did not completely solve the problem of local officials receiving salaries.
What should I do?
(1) Change the frequency of salary payment
In order to solve the problem of the salaries of the most grass-roots county-level officials, the imperial court changed the payment of salaries from once a month to once a quarter, and even once every six months and once a year, so that even if county officials go to the capital of the prefecture and county to receive money, it is a long time to go once, and the burden is much lighter than once a month.
(2) Sending people to collect on behalf of others
In addition to running to collect their salaries, county-level officials could also send others to receive their salaries with special documents issued by county-level officials, and the imperial court also set up special institutions to provide necessary convenience for officials of county-level administrative units in remote areas to receive salaries, such as feeding passing horses and providing free food and accommodation.
Through these two methods, the imperial court basically solved the problem of receiving salaries for officials in administrative units in remote areas.
All in all, in ancient Chinese society, which was not supported by the bank payment system, the imperial court paid salaries to local officials at all levels by issuing money, grain and other rewards, and at the same time formulated reasonable measures according to the actual situation, guaranteed the welfare treatment of local officials, promoted the implementation of national local governance and central policies, and was the cornerstone of the long-term stability of feudal society on the mainland.