The household registration system was one the people of New Oriental bitterly despised. It originated over two thousand years ago in the Qin Dynasty's Book of Lord Shang: Within the Borders: "Throughout the lands within the four borders, every husband, wife, and child shall be registered above; the living recorded, the dead erased."
This represented a great fact: the crude methods of governmental administration humanity had carried over from more ancient times had been completely abandoned in the old East, replaced by a more meticulous model of finely managing the populace.
The schools, hospitals, and other supporting resources that later emerged alongside the household registration system—things Easterners came to hate bitterly, which intensified pointless competition and spawned endless exam-crammers—were problems that only arose in the postmodern era.
Leo had already considered these issues before. Most problems faced by modern governments were unprecedented. When new problems arose, the question was how to patch the holes using the existing system.
But compared to those problems, the advantages brought by the household registration system could not possibly be described in a mere two thousand words.
Simply put, it brought the state into the countryside. For the first time, political power truly reached the villages and came to understand their people.
Although, before the Qin Dynasty unified the world, that short-lived dynasty had failed to fully sort out the ruling classes of the other five states, and thus implemented this political system only in Qin territory. The Han Dynasty, for reasons of political correctness, had not dared to directly adopt and carry forward the Qin system either.
Yet it had indeed left a bold mark upon human history. This great innovation showed that governing a vast empire required one not to fear inconvenience. The Western world did not establish a relatively sound and complete