I want to be emperor

Chapter 1181 Expensive Photography

If one sets his sights too high in the officialdom of the State of Chu, then the sixth rank is nothing.

After all, in the Great Chu Empire, the rank of local chief officials has undergone many adjustments and is now relatively high.

For example, the chief officer of a town was of the seventh rank in the early years. However, with the development of the times, some towns have become very large, with some even having a population of over 100,000. For a town with such a large population, it would be too low for its chief officer to be of the seventh rank. Therefore, the chief officer of the town level is now changed to the sixth rank.

As for the county magistrate, his rank was upgraded from the sixth rank to the fifth rank. After the counties in some megacities were changed into districts, their rank was even higher, reaching the fourth rank.

Xu Shenxue believed that if a county had fewer people to manage, say tens of thousands, or more, than a county that had more than a hundred thousand or even more people, a sixth rank official would not be enough, and at least a fifth rank official would have to be assigned.

Big cities are more special. They have a large population and a developed economy. The districts in these cities cannot be viewed at the conventional county level. Therefore, the administrative level of each district in big cities is also high, generally from the fourth rank, and a few districts that have been awarded additional titles can even reach the fourth rank.

Under this system, in the county government, the magistrate was of the fifth rank, the county magistrate and the chief clerk were of the fifth rank, and the county clerk who assisted the magistrate in managing various affairs was of the sixth rank.

The heads of various departments in the county government, the chief of the patrol bureau and other county-level agency officials, as well as the magistrates of various towns, are all of the sixth rank.

Deputy positions such as deputy section chief are of the seventh rank, and the seventh rank is the rank of team leader in each department at a lower level.

The eighth and ninth grades are still the ranks of clerks.

In the Great Chu Empire, one can take up a management position only after reaching the seventh rank. Of course, reaching this level only means that you are qualified for a management position, it does not mean that you can become a team leader.

In fact, many senior clerks who have worked for decades are also at the seventh grade, but just enjoying the corresponding salary benefits does not mean that they can get the lowest level management position such as team leader.

In fact, let alone the seventh rank, there are clerks who receive the treatment of the seventh rank or the sixth rank.

At the same time, the empire’s corresponding civil service system also stipulates that promotion and appointment to management positions requires experience in low-level management positions... In other words, you have to start from the lowest-level management position as a team leader, and then you can become a town magistrate or a county magistrate.

It is impossible that you can work as a clerk for your whole life and get the treatment of a sixth-rank official, and then one day you can suddenly become a clerk. This is impossible.

Rank is rank, position is position... Although the two are strongly related, it is only the latter that has requirements on the former. It does not mean that one can definitely hold a certain management position if the rank is in place.

The reason why the strict restrictions on the ranks of clerks were relaxed and their ranks were allowed to be upgraded to the sixth rank was actually more to solve the salary and retirement benefits problems of old clerks. In addition to making it easier to give these old clerks a salary increase and solve the retirement benefits problem, it was also to give them some dignity.

A sixth-rank clerk sounds better than an eighth-rank clerk, right?

The various civil service systems of the Great Chu Empire were constantly adjusted with the changes of the times and were not static.

But no matter how it changes, it's not easy to get promoted...

There are actually quite a few low-level officials who actively apply to work in overseas administrative territories in order to get promoted, especially those who want to cross the threshold from the eighth rank to the seventh rank and be able to take up management positions.

It is too difficult to survive in East Asia. It is better to go abroad for a few years while you are still young and then come back.

The Ministry of Personnel also strongly encourages such things and has corresponding policies. For example, if a young official of the eighth rank who meets the requirements goes overseas for two or three years, he can be promoted to the seventh rank and enter a management position after being transferred back to China.

Of course, the prerequisite is that you meet the requirements... This requirement is actually very simple, that is, you have made achievements, and the civil service department has listed you as a candidate for team leader, but the follow-up will still depend on your work performance, and you also need to adapt to the position.

  There is one job for each official, and it is not possible for you to get promoted in a short period of time just because you are a candidate!

If you meet the requirements, you can actually stay in your local area for five to eight years, and when there is a suitable opportunity, you can be promoted to a team leader of the seventh rank.

Working overseas only speeds up the process, and it will be completed in about two to three years.

Shi Tiancheng's classmates chose to go overseas, and to work in harsh places like Africa, in order to shorten the time for promotion so that they can climb higher in the future.

Otherwise, it would take five or six years for one to be stuck from the seventh rank to the sixth rank, and then it would be difficult to be promoted higher when one is too old... When the Ministry of Personnel trains senior officials, it also has to consider the age of the trainees.

It is impossible that you become a sixth-rank official at the age of 40, and then be trained according to the standards of a second-rank official... because even if everything goes well, by the time you are promoted to the fourth rank, those who are about to retire... are still a long way from the second rank.

Officials who were able to become high-ranking officials of the second rank had often crossed the key point of the fifth rank when they were very young, and then reached the fourth rank or even the third rank in their thirties or forties. When they were around fifty, they became the second rank and began to govern a region as a provincial governor or even a governor-general.

Therefore, if you want to climb to a higher position, you must try to climb to a slightly higher position when you are young, and then you cannot take a wrong step or get stuck at any step. Only in this way can you hope to become a second-rank official.

Of course, at this point he was only at the level of governor or vice minister.

If you want to go further up, it will be even more difficult. You need to get the emperor's recognition and attention, and then you may become a second-rank minister of various ministries or even enter the Senate.

If Shi Tiancheng's classmates want to climb higher, then they should try to move up a few steps at the age of around 30. There is hope that they can become a fifth-rank official and govern a county in the future.

And there is only one such classmate in their social circle.

Therefore, when talking about this classmate, both Shi Tiancheng and his classmates showed envy... Such strength and luck are beyond envy.

For ordinary people like them, let alone climbing up, they can’t even pass the provincial examination.

Every year so many people apply for the provincial examinations, and it seems that there are a lot of people who pass the exams every year, and the admission rate in the provincial examinations is also high... But you have to know that those who can take part in the provincial examinations are either college students, or high school or technical secondary school students who have passed the academy examinations. Such people are already high-end talents in the contemporary empire, and the total number of people who take part in the provincial examinations in each province every year is not large, so the admission rate seems to be okay.

  If you expand the scope of the imperial examination to include the academy examination... then you will find that the admission rate is extremely small!

Many high school and technical secondary school students have tried to take the college entrance examination, but not many can pass and qualify for the provincial examination.

As for your saying that it is easier to take the provincial examination after entering university... That is true. If I could have been admitted to university back then, I would have taken it long ago. It is not easy to pass the university entrance examination!

When Shi Tiancheng was chatting with his classmates, he also lamented the scene when he took the college entrance examination... The questions were too difficult, and they couldn't even get a basic passing score... Not only them, most of the candidates actually failed the exam.

The chat was almost over, and Shi Tiancheng had a simple meal at his classmate's house. Then, under the guidance of his classmate, he went to a store that sold cameras.

This store is not big, but it has a very high style. It is located on the first floor of a department store... Just looking at the location of the store, you can tell that this thing is not cheap.

Sure enough, when I asked after I got there, I found out that the cheapest camera cost dozens of yuan, while a 16mm clockwork-powered camera with mature technology that could be used for commercial shooting cost more than two hundred Chu Yuan... You could even buy a low-end car for this price.

If we simply talk about the production cost of this camera, it is actually not that expensive. The reason why it has become so expensive is that there is only one company in the Great Chu Empire that produces and develops cameras, namely "Anzhou Optical Equipment Co., Ltd."

This company is actually an old camera R&D and production enterprise. After accumulating considerable technical experience in the field of optics, it developed cameras as technology advanced and registered a patent. There are still eight years before the patent expires.

In other words, this thing is currently an exclusive product. Even if other companies have the technology to produce a camera, they cannot use it for commercial purposes.

During the limited patent protection period, Anzhou Optical Equipment Co., Ltd. naturally wants to recoup its R&D costs and make a fortune at the same time.

Moreover, the scale of the contemporary camera market is actually very small, because there is no commercial film market and there are few commercial applications.

Currently, the main buyers of cameras are government agencies, or more precisely, religious institutions. They buy these cameras mainly to shoot documentaries and record history.

As for the common people, very few people buy it. Generally, those who are interested in this thing and have enough money buy it to play with themselves... They just treat it as a big toy. If you ask what its use is, it actually has no use. It is just for fun.

And this is a big toy equivalent to a low-end car, it is not cheap...

So when the sales staff in the camera store saw Shi Tiancheng and his companion, they initially thought that they were officials from Chao Bao who came to purchase cameras.

But after a brief chat, I found out that Shi Tiancheng was just an individual user... and most importantly, Shi Tiancheng was not a rich man in the traditional sense. He just bought the camera for fun.

This can be seen from Shi Tiancheng's surprised reaction when he heard the price of more than 200 yuan.

At the same time, Shi Tiancheng also asked very detailed questions about how to use this thing, what kind of film is better, how much the film costs, how much film is needed to shoot half an hour of content, etc.

  Then the salesperson became curious and asked what this guy wanted to do with this thing.

This looks like someone bought it for personal use, but it doesn't look like something that belongs to a rich person.

Shi Tiancheng did not hide it and said that he also wanted to make a documentary and then planned to show it for a fee.

  A commercial documentary?

I haven't heard of that. Nowadays, almost all documentaries are shot by official newspapers. Although a few wealthy supporters also shoot them, they mostly shoot short films. They are basically shot for fun. They don't think of shooting a half-hour or even longer film and then broadcasting it to make money.

You know, the money spent on the film to shoot a half-hour video is more than the camera itself...

  Cameras are expensive, but film is even more expensive!

This is based on the fact that there are no patent restrictions on films and many manufacturers are producing them.

After all, the film used in cameras is also derived from cameras, and there are many technical similarities. Cameras are not something new, and there is a photo studio in almost every city.

Therefore, there are many manufacturers producing films, and because of the competition, the price of films is relatively affordable.

But... even so, if you want to shoot a film of more than half an hour, the amount of film needed is very large. As the amount of film increases, the cost of film will naturally increase.

The salesperson was curious, but he still had to sell the product, so he promoted it very aggressively. He even said that if Shi Tiancheng bought a certain amount of film in their store, he could get a 20% discount on the camera.

After looking around, Shi Tiancheng repeatedly looked at the resources and the machines. He also asked the salesperson to try the operation and filmed a few seconds of footage on the spot... Of course, film is not cheap, so for this few seconds of demonstration, Shi Tiancheng also needs to pay extra to buy film.

After watching the demonstration, Shi Tiancheng no longer hesitated and happily bought a mid-range 16mm camera in their store. According to the salesperson, most of the documentaries shot in local newspapers also use 16mm cameras.

There are also 8mm cameras, but they are not recommended because the images taken with them are fine for your own fun, but if you want to put them on the big screen for commercial broadcasts, then they are not enough.

In addition to the camera, the salesperson also recommended a projector of the same specifications.

Both the camera and the projector are powered by springs and do not require hand cranking.

Of course, there is also a hand-cranked version, which is even cheaper...but it is quite difficult to operate by hand-cranking the camera while shooting, and the quality of the film is difficult to guarantee.

Hand-cranked cameras are usually used by individual users for fun.

He bought a camera and a projector, and then a lot of film, which ultimately cost Shi Tiancheng nearly 800 Chu Yuan.

This price is not cheap. Even in Songjiang City, you can buy a nice two-bedroom apartment in the city.

Shi Tiancheng felt very sad when he paid the bill, but he gritted his teeth and paid it in the end.

After all, he personally has some confidence in commercial films.

After buying these things, Shi Tiancheng found a hotel in Songjiang City to rest for a night. The next morning he took a train to Hangzhou.

Because there were a lot of things, and they were big and heavy, he had to check in his valuables when he arrived at the train station. So on the way back by train, Shi Tiancheng was worried from time to time that his camera and projector would be damaged.