The World Online
chapter-687

Translator: ryangohsf

Editor: Nora

Liu Mo's popular science lecture lasted a full hour.

Ouyang Shuo sat on his seat, quietly paying attention to the reactions of the ministers standing below him. Some were interested, some listened with focus on his words, and some acted like they were listening but were not actually.

The road to industrialization for the territory would not be a smooth sailing path.

During this round of promotions for the industrialization, Ouyang Shuo did not add new organizations as usual; instead, he allowed the Industry and Development Planning Department to take charge of it.

The only change would be that he moved one of the old professionals from the No.7 Research Institute to the position of deputy director of the department to be in charge of coordinating work between the Nanjiang Governor-General House and the No.7 Research Institute.

Ouyang Shuo did not choose Liu Mo as his god brother was basically a technological nerd; he was not cut out for this kind of thing.

Liu Mo took his leave and the court assembly continued.

The popular science lecture was just a start, used to show the will and ideals of the Monarch. The people within the hall were all sharp and intelligent; naturally, they understood the deep meaning within.

“Following this, the No.7 Research Institute will introduce this to the entire territory. Only when everyone has a clear understanding can the territory undergo industrialization.”

……

"Shanhai City has just upgraded to Grade 3 Prefecture. We have a population shortfall of one million. I want to fill this gap in half a year, do any of you have any suggestions?" Ouyang Shuo tossed out a difficult question.

The moment they heard his words, the officials all exchanged glances with one another.

"If I may ask, Monarch, what's the rush?" Xiao He stepped out and asked.

Shanhai City took a year to upgrade from Grade 2 Prefecture to Grade 3 Prefecture. From their perspective, they could proceed slowly and there was no need to rush the process.

"The time that Shanhai City upgrades to capital city is also the time for us to establish our country." Ouyang Shuo did not hide his ambitions and revealed it to them for the first time.

The ministers were excited, and some of the old ones even had signs of shedding tears.

Establishing a country had great meaning in Ancient China; it was one of the signs of unifying the country. If a country was not established, the ministers would always feel that something was lacking, that they could form a country ideal.

To the territory, establishing a country was an enormous matter.

Ouyang Shuo announcing this matter to them caused a huge tremor. To these ministers, this was the best description of this court assembly and the best reward anyone could receive.

Any doubts from before had been swept aside.

The ministers were now even more passionate than Ouyang Shuo, coming together to solve this population shortfall problem.

"Monarch, I think we could move some people from the other prefectures over to Shanhai City," suggested Household Registration Secretary Du Quan.

The Household Registration Division controlled the population; naturally, they had the most right to speak. At such an important court assembly, as a young official, Du Quan wanted to impress.

"Definitely not!" Xiao He immediately spoke against it, "Such an act is like drying the lake to fish. The population of the various prefectures have all along been slow, and it was not easy for them to settle down, how can we causally move them?"

In the wilderness, apart from people spawning, the naturally population increase was 0. In the 10 years of the game, even if the natives naturally grew, it was at most enough time for a child to grow into an adult.

Xiao He's words made sense.

In the territory, only Shanhai City, Yashan City, and Zhenhai City used the village creation token and could have new people.

The only special case was Beihai City, this subsidiary city.

Other than that, it was the territories that used the merger token, including Tianfeng City, Yishui City, Broken Blade City, and the overseas cities of Lion City, Friendship City, and Jidian City.

Compared to the hundreds of cities in the seven prefectures, this was just too little.

Du Quan's suggestion was truly not feasible.

"This...."

Du Quan's face flushed red, and he did not know how to react.

When Wei Yang saw this, he could not help but frown. Du Quan's performance had totally lost the face of this Internal Affairs Director.

Even so, Wei Yang still needed to get Du Quan out of the situation, "Director Xiao He's suggestion makes sense but it's not absolute. I suggest we move a batch of suitable people from Beihai City, Tianfeng City, Yishun City, and Broken Blade City. Apart from that, we can also move some over from Zhenhai City."

As the Internal Affairs Director, Wei Yang had a good grasp of the population layout of the territory. He did not mention Yashan City as its population would need to radiate to the entire Qiongzhou Prefecture; it was not easily moved.

"That could work." Ouyang Shuo nodded; he did not put the silent competition between Wei Yang and Xiao He to heart, "This matter, I'll let the Internal Affairs Bureau lead; the Lianzhou Prefecture and Zhenhai City will work with them."

"Yes, Monarch!"

Lianzhou Prefecture Governor Wei Ran and Zhenhai City City Magistrate Song Wen both stepped out to accept the orders.

Compared to the calm Song Wen, Wei Ran's face was a little tensed up. Taking out a large amount of population would cause Lianzhou Prefecture to be much worse than Shanhai City in terms of stature.

To be an official under the feet of the son of god, this was why it was a bad thing.

"Moving population is like destroying the east wall to fix the west wall; it cannot solve the root of the problem. Do any of you have other suggestions?" The one million population shortfall was not something that just moving the population could solve.

To move 200 thousand people from the five cities was already the maximum.

"I suggest we recruit population from the imperial city." Wei Yang took over from Du Quan and answered.

"How so?"

Shanhai City had already gone so many times to the imperial cities to recruit talents. The people they recruited were all technical talents or civil servants and generals; hence, the numbers were not high.

They had not gone to the imperial city to recruit any basic population.

"Use the industrial revolution as the key." Wei Yang said; he was one of the few that saw through the sewing machine and the steam engine, understanding it thoroughly.

In such a short while, Wei Yang was able to put what he learned to use.

The revolution the sewing machine would cause to the garment industry was groundbreaking. With it, sewing cotton and cloth did not need professionals. Normal people could be hired as long as they were diligent and willing to learn.

With that, it reduced the requirements to work.

This was a massive attraction to the normal people in the imperial cities.

“We can try that." Ouyang Shuo did not reject the proposal, "Let the Household Registration Division take charge of this. Apart from migration, they are also in charge of settling them."

"Why not take this chance to promote the Household Registration Division?" Wei Yang suggested.

"How so?" Ouyang Shuo was expressionless.

This was the first time that a minister had taken the initiative to suggest changes to the territory structure.

What huge meaning!

Ouyang Shuo could not tell whether Wei Yang came prepared or was it something he thought of on the spot.

"The role of the current Household Registration Division is too narrow; they only take charge of the welfare with regards to the population, population registration, dealing with prisoners, life of the people, and the like, things that are out of the system." Wei Yang was exceedingly thorough in his analysis.

"Hence, I suggest we upgrade it to the Civil Affairs Department to be in charge of household registration, civilians, customs, conflicts in towns, running the wilderness, treatment of the old, respecting the old, dealing with widows, and lonely folks, giving people titles, burial procedures and many matters."

Civil affairs existed in olden times and was comparable to the modern times. Although their jobs were a little different, the basics were not changed in thousands of years.

Wei Yang's suggestion hit the sweet spot, and it caused Ouyang Shuo's eyes to light up.

"What does Minister Xiao think?"

Ouyang Shuo did not make the decision himself. In terms of reorganization of the territory structure, Xiao He had power as the Administration Director.

In the court assembly, if Ouyang Shuo skipped him and made decisions, it would be an inappropriate act.

His long time of training had made Ouyang Shuo have a clear and deep understanding of the culture and rules of the court.

"Director Wei's words make sense, I agree!"

Xiao He directly nodded and agreed; he did not add his own thoughts. Although with this the power of the Internal Affairs Bureau would increase, when it was time for him to lower his head, Xiao He did not hesitate.

"Good, this matter is settled! As for the specifics, you two ministers discuss and settle it. Today, we will only discuss who will be the director. Do any of you have any suggestions?"

Du Quan's performance was not good enough. For him to keep his role as secretary of the Household Registration Division under the Civil Affairs Department would already be good enough.

Hence, no one felt that he should be promoted.

The Monarch's words once again proved this point.

Ouyang Shuo had left the territory for half a year, but the territory was not a dead swamp. During this half a year, there were a few historical talents who came over. Some had been given jobs, while some were given temporary roles for Ouyang Shuo to decide when he returned.

Those that were not given permanent jobs were naturally the prominent talents.

Although Ouyang Shuo asked all of them, the ones who truly had the rights to speak were only Xiao He and Wei Yang. One was in charge of the evaluation of officials, while the other was in charge of the Internal Affairs Bureau.

Even Financial Bureau Director Fan Li had no say in this.

This time, Wei Yang was truly prepared, not avoiding the question and giving his recommendation, "Monarch, I recommend one person, he's the Brother of Pei Ju, Pei Yun."

"Pei Yun?" Ouyang Shuo tried hard to recall any historical information regarding Pei Yun.

Like the governor of Xingzhou Prefecture Pei Ju, Pei yun was born in the Pei Family and was an official in the Chen Dynasty. He was the direct court general and the Xinning Magistrate.

After the Chen Dynasty was destroyed by Sui, Shiwen Emperor insisted on breaking tradition and making use of him. He became the Yang, Zhi, Di state governors.

After the Suiyang Emperor took the throne, Pei Yun became the assistant minister of the Civil Department.

In the 14th year of Daye, Pei Yun and the emperor were killed in a coup by Sima Dekan in Jiangdou.

Compared to his brother, Pei Ju, Pei Yun's achievements were a little duller.

The only achievement he could take out would probably be revolutionizing the household registration system.

While he was the assistant minister, there were a lot of missing registrations of people, affecting the financial income of the court, becoming a huge societal problem.

As Pei Yun had been a provincial governor before, he understood the problems, so he suggested a plan, which was the Maoyue Profiling Method. After this method was pushed out, it had significant effects, recording 1,641,500 new people.

Although this was the case, Pei Yun could not be considered a good official.

He worked for the Suiyang Emperor and did many things that harmed the common people.

For him, Pei Yun had expanded the entertainment manor, expanding it to over 30 thousand men for the emperor to enjoy it alone.

After becoming the royal doctor, he used the secrets he held to break laws, using his power to convict people, murdering people and robbing them on his own will, promoting and deepening the Suiyang Emperor's dictatorship-like rule.

With that, Ouyang Shuo naturally needed to be extremely careful about giving Pei Yun power.