Autumn of the 17th year of Chongzhen

Chapter 430
The Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, Dinghai New Year is over in a blink of an eye, Wang Yan took advantage of the New Year’s holiday, and finally took the time to welcome Xu Yanyan to the door, and then spent a rare and relaxing time with his family, but as the fifteenth year passed, , the affairs piled up in the court increased again.

After the second year of Longwu and the third year of Longwu, the challenges faced by the Nanming court are still not optimistic.

In the early morning, Xu Yanyan dressed Wang Yan in court clothes, and Wang Yan rushed to the palace to participate in the first court in the year of Ding Hai. After the court meeting, he came to Wenyuan Pavilion again.

In the Ming Dynasty, there were four halls and two pavilions. The four halls were Zhongji, Jianji, Wenhua, and Wuying. The two pavilions were Wenyuan Pavilion and Dong Pavilion. Cabinet scholars generally worked in Wenyuan Pavilion.

After the tax system reform implemented by the imperial court at the end of the second year of Longwu, the imperial court's finances gradually improved, and some important offices were moved out of the crowded large yamen.

Matters are divided into urgency and severity, and the office of the bachelor must be arranged first. However, the Wenyuan Pavilion in Guangzhou City, although it is still called Wenyuan Pavilion, is far from being comparable to the palaces in Beijing and Nanjing.

The current Wenyuan Pavilion is actually a small hall rebuilt from a small restaurant, and this is the first time for Wang Yan to come here.

This small hall has three floors. The lower floor is divided into more than ten rooms by screens. It is the office of Zhongshushe people and practitioners. In the middle is the meeting hall with large tables that can accommodate more than 30 People discuss military and political affairs here.

The second floor is the office of the Grand Scholars. Because there are many Cabinet Scholars in the Longwu court, it is divided into more than ten compartments. In addition, there is also a meeting hall on the second floor, but it is smaller, mainly used for the Grand Scholars. Discuss important matters.

On the third floor, there are a large number of files piled up, and there are several rooms for rest, which are basically unattended.

When Wang Yan entered Wenyuan Pavilion, Yuanwailang and others on the first floor immediately stopped their work and saluted Wang Yan. All were promoted and directly awarded with great responsibilities.

Wang Yan waved his hand slightly, indicating that they don't need to be polite, and after a few words of encouragement, he went directly upstairs to his office.

The official who led the way took him into the room, and saw that the layout was very simple. There was a row of bookshelves against the wall, filled with various books, drawings, and Qing Dynasty flowers from the Jingtai period. There was only a large desk in the middle. There are pens, ink, paper and inkstones on it.

At this time, Wang Yan was sitting down in front of the desk, and picked up the files piled up on the desk to look through them. He was a scholar with the title of Minister of the Ministry of War, and most of the files he sent were related to military affairs.

These memorials and dossiers were sorted by categories by the doctors on the first floor of the office, and marked differently according to the priority. The general content was also simplified and clipped with paper strips so that Wang Yan could process it quickly, which relieved him a lot of burden. .

At this time, the official who led the way lit a burner of sandalwood in the room, filling the whole room with a faint fragrance, and then retreated, while Wang Yan began to read the playbook seriously.

Since Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty, the emperor began to re-use eunuchs, using the ceremonial supervisor to contain the power of the cabinet, and the eunuchs controlled the power of approving awards and using seals.

The current system of the imperial court has not changed, but now the cabinet ministers are strong, coupled with Long Wu's hard work, so the ceremonial supervisor has been suppressed. Although he still has the right to approve reds and use seals, he basically directly drafts votes for the cabinet. approve.

At this time, Wang Yan read more than [-] memorials in one go, wrote his review suggestions on paper, and pasted them on the back of each memorial for the emperor's review.

At this time, Zuo Maodi and Su Guansheng came to his house together. Seeing this, Wang Yan quickly put down the notebook, got up and greeted him, and said with a smile: "There are too many things, I didn't stop when I came, I should have gone to two It’s really rude to ask the two of you to come to see me first.”

Zuo Maodi saw that Wang Yan's table was full of memorials, and said apologetically, "At present, the court is most anxious about military matters, financial matters, Shi Heng and Yu Lin's affairs.

, one is also in charge of the military department, and the other is also in charge of the household department, so I, the chief assistant, should be freer, I'm really sorry! "

"What is Ge Lao talking about? Could it be that the affairs of the Ministry of Officials are not busy enough, and they want to share some for Yan."

Everyone laughed, and then went to the small meeting hall to sit down. An official immediately prepared tea and pastries for them. After the imperial court began to recruit scholars, although more than [-] Jinshi were recruited, officials below the sixth rank received some supplements, but among the six departments, the servants and doctors, and the censor of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, these high-ranking officials above the fifth rank did not I can’t make it up, so I want to ask Shi Heng for his thoughts.”

Wang Yan frowned and pondered for a moment, then asked, "What do you two elders mean?"

Su Guansheng interjected: "Elder He Ge recommended some talents to the imperial court, but what Elder Zuo Ge and I mean is to promote a group of hard-working and experienced officials from the local area."

"Oh?" Wang Yan was slightly puzzled, Zuo Maodi immediately took out a booklet from his sleeve and handed it to Wang Yan, the two drank tea while waiting for Wang Yan to read it.

The memorial was written by He Wuzhen, a scholar of the university, and it generally meant to recommend a few talents to serve as officials in the six departments. Wang Yan glanced at the list. Southerners.

When Zuo Maodi saw Wang Yan finished reading the excerpts, he was silent, and then he said: "Last year Enke recruited more than [-] Jinshi, Guangnan accounted for half, Huguang and Jiangxi accounted for [-]%, and Jiangnan and Beidi only had one." If it doesn’t work out, most of the people from Guangnan occupy high positions in the imperial court, if they are allowed to develop, it may be detrimental to the imperial court’s recovery of Jiangbiao’s land.”

Wang Yan already understood the meaning of Zuo Maodi. Now there are seven imperial scholars in Guangzhou. He Wumen and Chen Zizhuang are both from Guangnan.

Except for He Tengjiao, Jiang Yueguang, and Wanji, the local governors with university titles, the official structure of the Longwu court in Guangzhou has begun to become abnormal.

As the orthodoxy of the Central Plains, the Longwu court was a regime that represented the entire Han nationality even though it retreated to Guangnan. If most of the officials became members of a province, how could they represent the entire Han nationality? It could only be reduced to a local separatist regime.

Even Su Guansheng, a native of Guangnan, came out to deny He Wuzu's opinion. As one of the leaders of the Longwu court, Wang Yan naturally needed to consider the local balance, so he agreed with their opinions.

Wang Yan pondered for a while and said: "The next step of the imperial court's national policy is to seek to recover the southern capital and rule the river. If there are no Jiangnan people in the imperial court, it will be outrageous, and it will not help the imperial court to win the hearts of the people in the south of the Yangtze River. I agree with the two opinions. Select a group of officials, and try to attract as many officials from Jiangnan and the North as possible."

Zuo Maodi nodded and added: "In addition, during the imperial examination, the scholars in the land occupied by the Qing court should also be taken care of."

Although the imperial examination is said to be a fair selection of scholars, in fact many things are difficult to be equal. The number of places in each province is different, and the number of places in each province is different. Human-centered, imperial examinations will naturally be affected.

The three of them looked at each other and nodded in approval. Su Guansheng asked again: "The Duke is more familiar with the situation in Huguang and Jiangxi than we are. Zuoge and I are going to suggest to Your Majesty that we should send capable officials from Chu and Jiangxi to the court." , so that the imperial court can strengthen its control over Chu and Jiangxi, what suggestions does the Duke have?"

Wang Yan has been in the officialdom for less than four years. Although he has become an important minister of the court, most of the civil servants under him are inexperienced and lack prestige. Although Wang Yan intends to cultivate, rash promotion will definitely cause great controversy.

For thousands of years, a tacit understanding has been formed in the officialdom. They are all officials. In terms of talent, they are all obtained from the imperial examinations. No one is much worse than anyone else. People see ability.

How to judge an official's ability naturally depends on his qualifications, what he has done, and where he has governed. This is seniority, which is the generally accepted rule in the officialdom.

Of course, there are also examples of exception promotions, but this is only a special case. You can’t promote all the officials under the exception, it will break the rules and make people feel chilling.

What Wang Yan’s faction lacked was qualifications and time. This was also the reason why most of the civil servants under him were below the fourth rank, and only a handful of them could be ranked third rank.

This situation actually made Wang Yan lack of support in the court, and he could only cooperate with Zuo Maodi and Su Guansheng in many matters. He also intends to change this situation.

After pondering for a while, Wang Yan said: "Shanyin Yan Qiheng, Wujiang Wu Jinxi, both of them were Jinshi in Chongzhen, and they served as governors and officials in Chudi. This is the merit. These two people are Jiangbiao people, and they have prestige in Chu, so they can be recruited into the court and appointed as ministers, and they will kill two birds with one stone."

(Thanks to the descendant of Ziye Saburo, the little baby of the sea, book friend 5288 for the monthly ticket, and thanks to Yuedong Woxin for the reward.)
(End of this chapter)