Goose Three Kingdoms

Chapter 607 Thunder is brewing
Two days later, Zhang Song arrived near Ganquan Mountain and saw from afar a spherical flying lantern made of colorful vertical stripes hanging on the top of Ganquan Mountain.

As he drove closer, the flying lantern was dragged by a rope and landed on a flat area on the top of the mountain.

Soon, two shogunate officials who were waiting in line jumped in in a very cool manner, grabbing the railing.

The copper furnace, which was over a meter in size, placed in the rattan basket was still burning, filling the flying lantern with hot air.

The two new replacements quickly cleaned the combustion chamber, dumped the ashes at the bottom of the furnace, and added some fuel.

The colleagues around no longer suppressed it, and the flying lantern slowly rose up. The four braided cowhide ropes were also optimized and changed into two strands, which were coiled on the spools respectively.

The spools are loaded onto trucks for transportation, and the soldiers pull the winch on the vehicle to release and retract the ropes.

About a hundred steps away is the three-story wooden building needed for the banquet on the top of the mountain. This wooden building is called Chongyang Pavilion.

With less than two months to go before the Double Ninth Festival banquet, wine making has already begun in the newly excavated cellars in various parts of Ganquan Mountain.

Some of the wine is purified and packed into jars and moved to this building.

The whole wooden building was filled with the rich, sweet aroma of rice wine, and the black bear felt a little uncomfortable.

He had no interest in test flights or riding hot air balloons, not because he was afraid of an accidental crash, but because he was worried that when he was on a test flight of the hot air balloon, Fa Zheng would lead everyone to force him to get on board and make it a fait accompli for him to wear the yellow robe.

Now that these people are busy with research and hot air balloon riding, the black bear finally has some time to rest.

He looked through the travel records during this period and referred to the archived reports.

The hot air balloon, the steam engine, and Zhang Lu's ascension in broad daylight all require time to develop. They are long-term events with multiple threads and mutual influence.

With the successful launch of a manned hot air balloon, it can be said that it has left a mark on thought, and scholars will continue to study it.

The tradition of Confucian scholars being the only ones in power was also disintegrated and severely damaged, freeing the scholars from ideological restrictions. The scholars would gradually disperse and settle into various industries.

Make intellectuals laborers and promote the intellectualization of laborers.

By promoting more people from among them, we can effectively curb the disorderly and barbaric growth of bureaucracy.

The development of an empire cannot be separated from bureaucracy, but how to supplement and replace them must be in our hands.

If you let it develop, it will only become your biggest obstacle.

Before taking action, dividing and disintegrating the scholars is also a form of screening and storing reserve officials.

It must be dealt with, and dealt with repeatedly, until no one dares to persuade or speculate.

There will be no hidden dangers if you claim to be a king at that time. Otherwise, everyone will claim to be the backbone of the founding of the country, and even dare to erode and corrupt the achievements of rebuilding the country.

After deciding on his next course of action, he looked through the personnel files.

The Title and Salary System is like a dangling carrot. Everyone wants to eat it, but it cannot be implemented.

Only by keeping officials in various places under control can this group of people continue to endure.

During this period of time, one's own team of officials can grow and take shape.

At present, only one-third of the centurions in various places have the rank of captain, more than half have the rank of lieutenant, and a small number are second lieutenants who are temporarily granted the rank of centurion.

The quality of the officers in the communes below was even more uneven. He could only ensure that the officers during conscription and combat could reach the rank of second lieutenant, and the officers in the elite troops could reach the rank of first lieutenant.

The accumulation of merits is insufficient, the qualifications are not enough, and the administrative merits are not enough.

It will be until next year when large-scale performance appraisals are conducted that the military ranks within the Hundred Households system will be upgraded on a large scale, with general promotions of one level. The outstanding ones will then be added to the county system.

Today, counties and prefectures are still established in the same way as in the past, with county and prefecture officials recruiting talents on their own to form county and prefecture governments.

These people are waiting for the implementation of the title and salary law so that they can obtain titles based on their positions.

This is different from his long-term plan. In the future, people with military ranks will be demoted to counties and prefectures, limiting the scope of recruitment by county and prefecture officials.

Only those with military ranks could be recruited as officials, and different levels of official posts would be granted according to their military ranks. Then these new officials could accumulate experience, merits, and improve their original titles, and then be granted new official posts according to the changes in their titles.

This was just an old law from the Qin and Han dynasties, but the previous system of titles was broken, so that everyone had a title, which led to the widespread practice of conscription and recommendation.

There must be surplus people with titles in the counties, as there are only so many posts in the counties. The people with titles left over by the county officials would form the Three Elders of the Township, the Three Elders of the County, and the Three Elders of the County to assist in supervision and evaluation.

The counties have a fixed establishment, and there are a limited number of positions and establishments for people who can be promoted to higher ranks by accumulating seniority and merit. The county officials select people to hold the positions, and those who fail to be selected will definitely be in an opposing position.

Bureaucrats who are unwilling to fight among themselves are not good bureaucrats, and bureaucrats who collude on a large scale and engage in factional struggles are definitely very bad bureaucrats.

The county and prefecture levels check and balance each other, and there are also the three elders of the township and county who oppose the county government... Administrative efficiency is really not that important, these guys just need to do their work according to the regulations.

To maintain the stability of the county, it is enough to provide stable taxes and manpower every year. For long-term planning, we will make adjustments after this step is implemented.

A strong empire does not need any outbreaks at the grassroots level; it must be stable.

Therefore, next year's performance evaluation will be carried out in a drastic manner, and a number of incompetent new and old officials will be laid off. These people will be assigned to the Hancheng Mine to change and optimize the management methods of the miners and improve efficiency.

After the layoffs are completed, a group of older military officers will be eliminated from the Baihu system and placed in various counties in Guanzhong to enrich the county and prefecture levels.

If these people stay in the centurion system, they will not be able to keep up with the pace of the war. Leaving their positions to young people is good for everyone.

For example, the position of centurion should not be filled by people over the age of 35.

It’s not that they lack physical strength or experience, but people of this age are very likely to compromise, give in, and pursue personal gain.

Thirty-five-year-old prime military officers are the average age of the backbone of the army.

Only by keeping the Baihu system young can we maintain the Baihu system's blood replenishment and promotion channels.

With a bright future, the centurions will naturally concentrate on their work.

Just as Black Bear was silently formulating his internal cleansing plan, Fa Zheng came quickly and said, "Your Majesty, the wind is blowing."

Black Bear put down the book in his hand and looked at him curiously: "What happened?"

"It was the secretary Zhao Qian who was injured."

Fa Zheng's face was not looking good either: "He let go too late when taking off. Suddenly a strong wind blew and the lantern quickly rose into the air. He didn't dare to let go. He was hanging on the edge of the lantern and it lost its balance. When it shook, he lost his strength and fell down."

"Did you fall hard?"

Black Bear sorted out the books in front of him and asked in detail, why was it that with so many people in various departments of the shogunate, it was not the turn of a clerk with the rank of second lieutenant to ride in a hot air balloon.

The most likely person is a tool to help hold up the warehouse. He may be greedy and bold, or there may be an unexpected strong wind.

If this is the case, the fall must have been very serious.

Seeing the look in Black Bear's eyes, Fa Zheng said carefully, "We don't know the extent of his injury yet, but Zhao Qian fell into the storage room and broke through the roof."

"If the wine vessels are damaged, they should be replaced. It's not like Zhao Qian damaged them intentionally. Go check the injuries quickly. If they are minor, fine him three months' allowance. If they are serious, comfort him. If he cannot be cured, posthumously confer the rank of captain and provide him with a pension. One of our young men will enter the Qinghua Camp."

As Black Bear spoke, he picked up the book and read again. Not to mention a small clerk, even if the chief clerks or deputies in various departments fell to their death, he would have dealt with it in the same way.

The utensil warehouse that Fa Zheng was worried about stored various bowls, plates and utensils needed for the Double Ninth Festival banquet, most of which were pottery.

Seeing that Black Bear had given a solution, Fa Zheng immediately went to deal with the matter.

He had no idea what the black bear was thinking about when it was alone, he just felt frightened and inexplicably terrified.

After Fa Zheng left, Hei Xiong continued to look through the official statistical tables and registers, and made occasional adjustments with his right hand on the abacus to check the data.

The data cannot be wrong, of course. At most, there are slight discrepancies between the data and the actual situation when it is counted and entered.

By doing the calculations himself, he can understand the data more clearly.

This was how I calculated the ration supply for the fleet. It was more meaningful to go through it myself than to look at other people's data.

To the old officials, it seemed a bit immoral, like destroying the bridge after crossing it.

But which of the old officials is clean?
There is also a Hundred-Household System, which is very important. We must maintain a constant supply of fresh water to the Hundred-Household System at all times.

And the biggest source of this living water can only be the Qinghua Guards.

Except for the first three batches of guards who were relatively pure, there were many speculators among the later ones.

Even the fifth batch of personal soldiers he recruited this year, these carefully selected people were selected from the military, and there was no shortage of children of former officials.

Generally speaking, the qualities of these children of former officials are indeed excellent and meet the selection criteria.

If this group of people really grow up, the mechanism for selecting personal soldiers will be controlled in the future.

But we can’t move now, everything has to wait until the performance evaluation at the beginning of next year.

Thinking about it, Black Bear stood up, took a pen, wrote a warrant, casually stamped it with lacquer, and then walked out of the compartment and handed it to the guard standing nearby: "Send it to Hongnong in person."

Hongnong is a place name, and also refers to Gan Ning in general.

(End of this chapter)