Eagle-eyed and wolf-watching

Chapter 1725 ZZ Transaction!

On November 1st, there was a two-story pavilion on the east side of Zhengde Gate in the Imperial Palace of Yijing. This was the Grand Secretariat of the Great Qian Dynasty.

This pavilion is not large in size and does not look luxurious on the outside, but it is the core of the Great Qian Q Power!

At this moment, Gu Sansi, the Minister of Personnel of the Great Qian Dynasty, came up to the second floor of the Cabinet after finishing his day's work at the Ministry of Personnel.

The first floor of the Cabinet Office was where the cabinet members held meetings and discussed matters, while the second floor was divided into several rooms to serve as the residences for the cabinet members on night duty.

According to the rules set by Ye Mingsheng, in order to better deal with the occurrence of emergencies, these Grand Secretaries of the Daqian Cabinet take turns on duty in the Cabinet every night.

In reality, being on duty was just a change of sleeping location. After all, the Yijing Prefecture and the Six Ministries also had people on duty every night, so they could handle most emergencies without alarming the Cabinet. The matters that truly required the Cabinet's attention were usually major issues, but in the stable Daqian era, such major issues were relatively rare. Therefore, the Grand Secretaries on duty simply slept on the second floor of the Cabinet. If something happened, someone would wake them up; otherwise, they would sleep until dawn.

Although the cabinet's exterior appears unpretentious, each Grand Secretary has their own private lounge on the second floor. These lounges are decorated and furnished according to their individual preferences, designed to make them feel at home, ensuring a better night's rest and allowing them to have ample energy for the day's work.
In theory, all the Grand Secretaries of the Daqian Cabinet should participate in their duties, and each person should take turns sleeping on the second floor of the Cabinet every day.

However, there are always exceptions. Cui Shao had previously participated in the duty shifts, but now he is getting older and had recently fallen ill, so his health is not as good as before. Therefore, before His Majesty left Yijing for inspection, Cui Shao took the initiative to submit a memorial, saying that he was not in good health and lacked energy, so he earnestly requested Ye Mingsheng to allow him to stop participating in the duty shifts in the future.

Ye Mingsheng had always treated Cui Shao, a meritorious founding minister of the Great Qian Dynasty, with great favor. In addition, the cabinet was now well-staffed, so Ye Mingsheng granted Cui Shao's request to no longer participate in duty, but only to come in to participate in discussions and make decisions when major events occurred, and to let Gu Sansi arrange the duty.

The other cabinet elders had no objection to Cui Shao no longer participating in his duties. After all, Cui Shao was the oldest among the cabinet elders, already over sixty years old, which was definitely considered old in this era.

The other cabinet ministers, such as Gu Sansi, Minister of Personnel; Su Junjie, Minister of Works; Su Yi, Minister of Rites; Xuan Yifeng, Left Censor-in-Chief; Liu Ning, Minister of Justice; and Zhao Han, Chief of the General Staff, were all around forty years old, in their prime. Therefore, it was perfectly feasible for several of them to take turns covering Cui Shao's night shift.

Besides, there's usually nothing much to do on nights when you're on duty. Although being on duty in the cabinet isn't as comfortable as being at home, you can eat, read a book, take a shower, and then go to sleep. The night passes quickly, and the next day is another new day…

Gu Sansi, who had not yet had dinner, was also quite hungry. He immediately started ordering. In order to ensure that these important officials of the Great Qian Dynasty could eat and rest well, Ye Mingsheng specially allowed the Imperial Kitchen to provide the cabinet with all kinds of food, including morning tea, dinner, and desserts. They could order whatever they wanted.

Because he didn't want anything too greasy for dinner, Gu Sansi only ordered a steamed yellow croaker, a matsutake chicken soup, and a stir-fried mutton. After ordering, Gu Sansi read the newspaper while waiting for the delicious food to arrive.

There were only two kinds of newspapers: the Yijing Morning Post, which ranked first or second in sales in Yijing, and the Yijing Daily. Gu Sansi first looked at the Yijing Morning Post, but after glancing at it a few times, he put the newspaper down.

Yijing Morning Post is a periodical under the Yijing government, which is an important reason why it ranks first in sales in Yijing. It is an important mouthpiece of the Yijing government, and its daily news mainly reports on news from Yijing. The news content is mainly positive and righteous, such as visionary leadership and positive guidance. In addition, there are also content such as restaurant reviews, serialized novels, and food evaluations.

However, as the Minister of Personnel, Gu Sansi's heavy workload left him with virtually no leisure time. Therefore, he didn't care about things like restaurant reviews, serialized novels, or food evaluations. He preferred to learn about the political situation in Yijing and even Youyan through newspapers.

It would be somewhat ridiculous if word got out that the Minister of Personnel, who was in charge of personnel matters, was using newspapers to learn about the political situation in various places!

But Gu Sansi was serious. Even though the Great Qian Dynasty had its own official gazette as internal material for the high-ranking officials to understand the situation…
He discovered early on that the official gazettes of the court contained a great deal of embellishment and modification, and that the content of the gazettes differed greatly from the actual situation. Therefore, if you made a judgment based on the gazettes, you were likely to make a big mistake.

Therefore, in order to make more accurate judgments, Gu Sansi was actively reforming the official gazette system on the one hand, and on the other hand, he wanted to diversify his channels for obtaining information. In this way, he could corroborate each other's findings and greatly improve the accuracy of the information he obtained.

In Gu Sansi's view, newspapers were an important part of his efforts to diversify his information sources. However, the news in newspapers was a mix of truth and falsehood, and not all of it was accurate. For example, this Yijing Morning Post contained a lot of praise and hindsight, with very little valuable information. Therefore, Gu Sansi would basically just skim through them, and he would not read them carefully unless he came across a topic that particularly interested him.

Compared to the Yijing Morning Post, Gu Sansi preferred the Yijing Daily. The Yijing Daily's content was more incisive about current affairs and its reporting was more precise. Gu Sansi often found interesting and inspiring content in it. For example, both newspapers reported on His Majesty's recent inspection tour, but the Yijing Morning Post was very subtle, glossing over many points, especially those concerning Communist Party members. The Yijing Daily, on the other hand, was much more incisive, not only revealing many details but also providing in-depth analysis…
Gu Sansi, as the Minister of Personnel, was deeply moved by these analyses, which made him realize that there were still many shortcomings in his work.

The reason why Yijing Morning Post and Yijing Daily have such a big difference in style is not due to the editors of the two newspapers. In fact, as a later-established newspaper, Yijing Daily has many editors who came from Yijing Morning Post. The two can be said to be from the same school and from the same mother.

The difference in style is mainly due to the different ownership of the two newspapers. Yijing Morning Post is a newspaper under the Yijing government, while Yijing Daily was previously a newspaper under the Da Dongsheng Trading Company. After the Da Dongsheng Trading Company was split up, Yijing Daily was also owned by another trading company with a very complicated shareholding structure. However, Gu Sansi, as the Minister of Personnel, knew very well that the actual owner of Yijing Daily was the Empress!

Otherwise, given the style of the Yijing Daily, it would probably have been raided a hundred times over. In fact, the Yijing Daily has long been a thorn in the side for many, but it has its own powerful backers, so no one dares to touch it. Gu Sansi even thinks that the Yijing Daily is actually a tool used by the Empress to discipline certain people, but that's not important to him. His main purpose is to use these newspapers to understand the true situation…
The more Gu Sansi served as the Minister of Personnel, the more he felt that many people below him were trying to deceive him in order to get promoted. At first, he was quite confident, thinking that he would never be fooled since he came from the bottom. But as it turns out, sometimes it is really impossible to guard against.

Looking at the newspaper, Gu Sansi was also deeply moved. His Majesty had not even left Youyan yet, and a county magistrate had already been dismissed, a prefect had been demoted, and even Zhang Zhiwen, the provincial governor, had been held accountable. So when these news spread, the places that were about to be inspected were in a state of panic, and the county magistrates and prefects were trembling with fear.

Although investigating cases is mainly the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice, these officials cannot be left vacant after they are removed from their posts. Therefore, it is necessary to promote new officials to fill these vacant positions. Since ancient times, the Central Plains dynasties have never lacked officials. An official position is equivalent to a special privilege, especially positions such as county magistrate and prefect. This is like a group of hungry people seeing a sumptuous meal, which they are truly eager for.

According to regulations, positions like county magistrate can be decided by the provincial administration commissioner, while positions like prefect need to be reported to the Ministry of Personnel. However, the provincial administration commissioner also has a certain say and can recommend a candidate. Under normal circumstances, the Ministry of Personnel will respect the opinions of the provincial administration commissioner, include the candidate recommended by the provincial administration commissioner in the reserve candidates, and then submit them to His Majesty for decision.

In his past work, Zhang Zhiwen had always liked to place his own people in key positions. In the few years that he served as the Provincial Governor of Youyan, he placed his people in the positions of magistrates of several important counties, and he also placed his people in the positions of prefects of Changshan and Handan through various connections.

In the past, Zhang Zhiwen would never have let this opportunity slip by. However, this time he acted unusually, not only failing to recommend anyone for the position of Prefect of Rao'an, but also for the position of Magistrate of Zhuoxian. He left the decision to the Ministry of Personnel, promising to support their opinion…

Gu Sansi felt that Zhang Zhiwen did this partly because he had just been reprimanded by His Majesty for the Zhuo County incident, so he wanted to keep a low profile and act virtuously in order to get through this difficult time as safely as possible.

On the other hand, Gu Sansi also felt that Zhang Zhiwen was trying to curry favor with him.

For Gu Sansi himself, although he did not have the idea of ​​fighting against others, his political goal was to become the Grand Secretary. This meant that if Gu Sansi wanted to achieve this goal, he could not do it alone. As the saying goes, "a hero needs three helpers." If Gu Sansi wanted to go further and leave some achievements after becoming the Grand Secretary, he needed the help of some reliable and capable people.

Not to mention that His Majesty intends to promote himself as the leader of the reformists to compete with the conservatives. Therefore, regardless of whether Gu Sansi has an obligation to cultivate some reformist talents, according to the logic of the Great Qian Dynasty in cultivating talents, a government official should preferably have grassroots work experience, especially local government positions such as county magistrate or prefect.

Having served as a county magistrate or prefect for several years and achieved some success will be very helpful for your future career development.

Gu Sansi had also taken notice of several young men in the Ministry of Personnel, finding them talented and worthy of cultivation. Therefore, he wanted to send them to local areas for training. Since his senior brother, Ma Runshan, was the Provincial Governor of Shandong, Gu Sansi had previously assigned people to Shandong, allowing Ma Runshan to provide support and ensure the smooth development of these talented individuals…

However, the problem lies in the fact that as the birthplace of Confucianism, the idea of ​​"doing big things" is deeply ingrained in Qilu, so the competition in the Qilu political arena is extremely fierce. Many people are scrambling to get even a minor official position, let alone real government officials such as county magistrates and prefects. Those positions are very limited, and even Gu Sansi, the Minister of Personnel, found it difficult to place many people in them.

Now that Zhang Zhiwen has offered this position to the Ministry of Personnel for Gu Sansi to decide, it is undoubtedly a gesture of goodwill, asking Gu Sansi to place his people in Zhuo County and Rao'an!

Of course, Zhang Zhiwen did this not without expecting anything in return.

Zhang Zhiwen is currently in a state of utter chaos due to his inspection tour, and even his position as provincial governor is somewhat threatened.

Although His Majesty has not yet punished him, this does not mean that Zhang Zhiwen has gotten away with it. Zhang Zhiwen is currently cleaning up the mess in Zhuo County and dealing with the issue of how to compensate the local people. His Majesty will likely decide how to punish Zhang Zhiwen after he has finished dealing with this issue.

Therefore, in order to retain his position as Provincial Governor, Zhang Zhiwen undoubtedly wanted to do his best in Zhuo County to deliver a satisfactory report to His Majesty, while also trying to find someone to speak well of him to the Emperor, hoping to minimize the matter. And the person with the most authority on this issue was himself, the Minister of Personnel in charge of personnel matters…