No war in the Northern Song Dynasty

Chapter 66 Team
Zhang Fangping stared at Su Ze, and finally waved his hand, ending the meeting.

Su Ze came out of the Mingtang of Taifu Temple, and then, under the guidance of an official, went to a small yamen in charge of store and house affairs.

The entire Taifu Temple is a super large organization, so of course it is impossible for everyone to work in one department.

The offices and fields under the Taifu Temple are distributed throughout the Nan Ya area.

Su Ze happened to recognize the official office of the Southern Court.

The so-called Southern Yamen refers to the government offices south of the imperial palace.

The most central part of the entire Bianjing is the palace city, which is the inner court where the officials live.

South of the palace city is the imperial city, where the Secretariat, the Ministry of Personnel, the Academy of Scholars, the Three-Class Yamen, as well as the Tianzhang Pavilion, the Longtu Pavilion and other pavilions are located.

The names of the official offices in the imperial city are either the offices of the prime ministers or the offices of the two systems' poets. These are the power centers closest to the emperor.

Further south of the imperial city, there are various temples and monasteries, which is the so-called Southern Ya area.

The government offices in the Nan Ya area are also divided into different levels.

The most empty place was a building, which the officials had to take Su Ze around. After asking around, they found out that this was the famous Taijian of the Song Dynasty.

Taijian is actually the collective name for the Censorate and the Jianyuan. Originally, the Jianyuan belonged to the inner court and was responsible for admonishing the emperor. However, Song Renzong strengthened the power of Taijian and granted the Jianyuan the function of supervising all officials. It was then moved to the Censorate for joint office.

As the most feared supervisory agency, officials naturally do not want to act in front of the Censorate. If they are caught by these censors and reported to the emperor, they will suffer the consequences.

Although the censorate was valuable, the area of ​​the Censorate was not large, and Su Ze soon saw another huge building complex.

The official pointed at the building and said:

"Director Su, this is the Third Division."

Oh, it turns out to be the Sansi Yamen.

The Three Departments are the Salt and Iron Department, the Ministry of Revenue, and the Ministry of Finance. Originally, these were three government offices. Later, in order to coordinate financial management, the Three Department Envoys were appointed to serve as the Prime Minister.

The Sansi Yamen was a huge department, responsible for all aspects of the Song Dynasty's finances. The officials coming and going here were all in a hurry, and the clerks behind them were holding thick documents.

Then the clerk pointed to a busy government office with people coming in and out and said:
"This is the Kaifeng government office."

Kaifeng Prefecture is a super department responsible for a series of work including public security, economy, and people's livelihood in Bianjing City and the surrounding areas. Su Ze had come here when he transferred the property.

I only entered through the side door at that time, and I didn't expect the entire complex to be so huge.

Next are the government offices at the level of temple supervisors similar to Taifu Temple.

Like the Taifu Temple, these departments do not have an entire building complex as their official offices. Each department under them has to find a place to work separately, so they are scattered throughout the Nan Ya.

After being reminded by the clerk, Su Ze recognized two special places in the Southern Court.

One is the Daxiangguo Temple. This royal temple is right next to the Imperial Street and covers an area almost as large as Kaifeng Prefecture.

The clerk said:

"Mr. Su, this is Daxiangguo Temple. There is no public kitchen in the store. If you want to dine, you can either go to the public kitchen in the Taifu Temple or order food at Daxiangguo Temple."

Su Zeqi said:

"Can I still order food at Daxiangguo Temple?"

The clerk said:

"Of course. Daxiangguo Temple has everything. You can buy anything here." When Su Ze got closer, he realized that this was not a temple at all, but a big supermarket.

Surrounding the majestic Buddhist temple are a large number of shops, markets and stalls, which are no less impressive than the commercial complexes of later generations.

Su Ze then remembered that the temple economy was very prosperous during the Tang and Song dynasties. These monks were not only good at business, but the temple also ran many workshops and sold various temple properties.

These temples even undertook certain banking businesses. Some merchants would use the temples to exchange silver and money, and the temples would also provide guaranteed lending services.

Leaving the bustling Daxiangguo Temple, the clerk pointed to a section guarded by fully armed soldiers and said:

"That's the Privy Council. There's been some trouble lately. Director Su, if you're okay, you'd better stay away."

The Privy Council was not large in scale, but it was heavily armed. As a military agency, it was not convenient to set it up in the imperial city because it had to frequently issue and receive military intelligence and orders. Therefore, the Privy Council's office was located in the Southern Yamen.

However, the Privy Councilor and the Deputy Privy Councilor, as members of the prime minister's team, basically worked in the Council of State.

The current Privy Councilor Yan Shu also holds the position of Prime Minister, so naturally he works in the Council of State.

Su Ze thought of the Feitou Man incident. Now the war situation in the Liao Kingdom in the north was tense. The Privy Council itself had a lot of affairs to deal with, and now there was this evil incident, so naturally the situation became even more tense.

Su Ze bypassed the Privy Council and finally came to a remote courtyard under the guidance of a minor official.

"Manager Su, this is the store management."

Looking at this shabby little courtyard with only three entrances, this will be my future office.

It’s really shabby.

The store owner didn't even maintain his own courtyard wall, and the small courtyard exuded an atmosphere of depression.

Su Ze took out a string of money from his sleeve, handed it to the clerk, and then stepped into the courtyard.

Feng Shiyuan, who had changed into his clerk's uniform again, hurried to greet him.

Following closely behind Feng Shiyuan was a group of officials.

The government established a new department, the Market Exchange, under the Department of Stores and Houses. The most important thing for any department is its personnel, and the Government Affairs Hall also allocated some staff to the Market Exchange.

Specifically, there are two Kongmu, three Yasi, and fifty hall guards.

A Kongmu was a high-ranking official, and in Kaifeng Prefecture he was the head of the officials in charge of the affairs of a department. Su Ze promoted Feng Shiyuan to the position of Kongmu to assist him in handling the affairs of the Shiyi Division.

As for another official, Su Ze followed the recommendations of Zhang Yaozuo and Zhang Daocheng and chose a capable manager under Zhang Daocheng, who was also a distant relative of the Zhang family, named Zhang Shucheng.

To choose the three bailiffs, Su Ze went to look for his friends again. Finally, Yang Zong recommended one of his brother's former officials, Han Jiang also recommended one of his own former officials, and Zeng Gong recommended one of his fellow villagers.

There is no other way. There are no recruitment websites in this era, so if you want to recruit a team, you can only rely on recommendations from acquaintances.

This kind of recommendation itself is also an exchange of interests. Being able to work in a new department is both an opportunity and a risk, and only ambitious people come here.

The last fifty clerks in the hall were not really clerks, they were actually laborers.

In the Song Dynasty, common people had to serve in the government, and these labors were used to perform many miscellaneous tasks in the government.

In local prefectures and counties, because the servants had to be familiar with the operation of government offices and some positions required them to be able to write and calculate, these servants had to be taken turns by the local first-class households to perform the labor duties.

The situation in Bianjing City was slightly different. Because the government affairs in Bianjing City were more specialized, the servants in the hall were required to serve for a long time, so they were basically recruited. To put it bluntly, these were temporary workers for the government.

Su Ze, a clerk from the Municipal Exchange Office, had actually met them before. Su Ze returned the greeting, and then three accountants, two thin and one fat, squeezed in.

(End of this chapter)