Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 157

Li Jing looked at Zhou Hengchen, and suddenly smiled and said: "As a parent of a county, your daily expenses should not be too low. If it is based on the salary of the imperial court, it must not be enough. You can estimate it yourself. You can spend a month. I will give you as many taels of silver as you want. However, if you are still corrupt like this, then I will not be polite to you!"

"Don't dare, dare not!" Zhou Hengchen stopped in his tracks, cupped his hands hastily and said, "The lower official's family is small, so it doesn't cost much, but..."

Seeing Li Jing waving his hand at this point, he immediately stopped talking, turned around and followed Li Jing to the county government office.

When we arrived at the side hall behind the county government office, Li Jing signaled Zhou Hengchen to sit down, and then said: "Magistrate Zhou, your salary only needs to support your own family, as for the people who helped you handle official affairs in the past, you need to pay. All the salary will be borne by me in the future, such as the master's salary, the book office's salary, etc. "

"This..." Zhou Hengchen hesitated for a moment.

Zhou Hengchen knew very well, what would it mean if the salaries of these people were borne by Li Jing?
The so-called work for whom is paid by whom, these people are the most powerful assistants of the county magistrate, but they have to obey other people's orders in the future, so the county magistrate himself will be emptied?
Li Jing also saw what Zhou Hengchen was worried about. He still wanted this person to work for him. If he wanted someone to work, he had to give him a certain amount of autonomy. right.

Li Jing dispelled Zhou Hengchen's worries with one sentence: "Magistrate Zhou, I will be responsible for the expenses of the personnel, but you can choose the personnel yourself. Of course, the premise is that you must be able to work and do a good job."

Sure enough, Magistrate Zhou was overjoyed when he heard this. Although he could not control the financial power, he had the personnel power in his hands. He could decide who to use or not to use, and he could promote or remove his subordinates from their posts, so that he could control his subordinates.

This is the right to speak, that is, power.

Of course, the biggest right to speak is in the hands of Li Jing, because whether Zhou Hengchen can be the county magistrate is up to Li Jing to decide.

The motivated Zhou County Magistrate immediately started working.

The first thing is to make a list of talents.

Now only Zhou Hengchen, the county magistrate, is left in the Lingchuan county government office. The county magistrate, the master book, and the history of the classics are all gone.

Although these positions require the appointment of the court, there must be someone to do the work before the appointment of the court, right?If the principal cannot be appointed, a deputy can be appointed first.

This is really good news for scholars in Lingchuan.

What was the purpose of reading for the ancients?
There is only one answer, to obtain fame and fame, that is, to be an official.

But fame is not so easy to obtain. Some people spend their whole lives not even being admitted as a scholar, and even if they pass the exam, they cannot be an official.

To be an official, you must at least recruit people. In fact, it is not so easy to recruit people to become an official. You have to report to the official department first, and then wait for a vacancy. Waiting for several years or even ten years is common.

Even if there are vacancies, they are only some low-level officials, such as the master book, classic history, professors (from the ninth rank), and even teaching instructions (equivalent to the county education bureau chief, the rank is not in the ranks, that is, no rank).

Since the starting point of raising people to become an official is too low and the background is not good, all the jobs are done in the wrong, so it is extremely difficult to promote.

Unless they are very rich and can buy connections, such as Xu Baichuan, because of the connections, he was promoted to the county magistrate in a few years, and later relied on Wei Zhongxian's eunuch party, and even became the magistrate.

Or their unique characteristics, for example, people like Hai Rui, the famous Hai Qingtian, this upright official who was hated by his colleagues in the officialdom, Hai Yanwang, because of his special personality, he was appreciated by the big shots and promoted. extremely fast.

It only took four years for Hai Rui to be promoted from a low-ranking county magistrate to a seventh-rank magistrate, and more than [-] years later, his official position was the right capital envoy of the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate, a second-rank official, equivalent to Senior officials and cadres.

But such a person can only be regarded as a special case. It is very difficult for most of the juren to be promoted.

It can be seen from this that it was actually very difficult to be an official in the Ming Dynasty.

But now for the scholars in Lingchuan, the opportunity has come, even if they are not Juren, they can be officials. (The main reason is that there is no Juren, and all Juren are waiting for vacancies in the Ministry of Officials.)
Whether you are a child student or a scholar, as long as the county magistrate passes the interview, you will have the opportunity to become an official. This news is really exciting. Although you are a deputy, but you have not arrived for the main job, then the deputy has the final say.

For a while, the gate of Lingchuan county government office was full of scholars.

Seeing this scene, Li Jing secretly sighed, this is the appeal, the appeal of a seventh-rank official of the imperial court, thinking that he could not find scholars to do things for him after begging for nothing, and a county magistrate with a piece of paper Announcements can have such a big effect.

Li Jing didn't go to the interview, but just explained to Zhou Hengchen: Hire as much as possible, and weed out later if it really doesn't work.

For Zhou Hengchen, it is obviously impossible to accommodate so many scholars, but he also knows that Li Jing keeps these people because he has money and no place to spend to support a bunch of idlers.

So he came up with an idea, assigning all these people as deputies, each in charge of a region (with the village as the unit), under the euphemistic name, using actual work to test everyone's ability.

Now, the cadre team in Lingchuan is severely overstaffed. There are dozens of positions such as deputy director-general and deputy history. Everyone just cares about the big things.

There is a great man's saying that strength is great in numbers, and this time Li Jing finally realized the meaning of this sentence.

With so many people working, it took only a few days to complete the two tasks that Li Jing asked Zhou Hengchen to do. The information of all the victims who could not eat was recorded, and then food was distributed according to the information. The land and population that are not registered are all counted.

Zhou Hengchen had just finished these things, and Hutou and Chen Erzhuang came to Lingchuan with people protecting Yuan Keli, Shen Zheng, a group of people, and a large amount of food and supplies.

Seeing the mountains of grain loaded into the county treasury in Lingchuan, Zhou Hengchen was completely stunned. This Li Jing is too rich!
But Li Jing didn't have time to talk to him at all.

Because Yuan Keli is here!
Yuan Keli is over 70 years old. Although his physical condition is still good, Li Jing dare not be careless, for fear that something will happen to the old man.

But Yuan Keli obviously didn't buy it, and reprimanded him the moment he saw Li Jing: "Stinky boy, do you think I'm old and can't move, and you let me stay in the mountains? You don't even think about it. Can you live in the mountains?"

Li Jing didn't dare to speak back, Yuan Keli seldom scolded others, and even less scolded Li Jing as a brat, this time scolding him was obviously very angry.

"Sir, don't be angry. Be careful that you will lose your body. I'm worried that the weather will get cold and you will be frozen." Li Jing said with a cautious smile while helping Yuan Keli beat his back.

Yuan Keli shook his head and sighed: "Jimin, I know you are filial, and I'm afraid you'll tire me out, but after occupying Lingchuan, the next move is crucial. If I don't understand the movements of all parties, how can I be here?" Can you sit in the mountains?"

"Mr. Lao is bothering you." Li Jing sighed.

Since Yuan Keli came, Li Jingdang even gave a detailed introduction of the current movements of the officers and soldiers and the movements of the rebellious army.

After listening to Li Jing's introduction, Yuan Keli pondered for a long time and said, "There is something you may have overlooked. Did you not ask the county magistrate of Lingchuan to deliver a letter to Cao Wenzhao? Even the magistrate of Zezhou didn't send someone to notify him? "

Li Jing nodded and said, "No!"

Yuan Keli sighed and said, "That's right. Otherwise, with Cao Wenzhao's personality, how could he not respond after so many days? You must know that not only we have scouts and spies, but Cao Wenzhao has been fighting for a long time. , every time we fight, how can we not inquire about it? I think he has already inquired about the situation in Lingchuan County, but he still doesn't know which side we are on, nor does he know our intentions, so he dare not act rashly."

Li Jingwen nodded silently, knowing that Yuan Keli was speaking politely. He used the rebellious army as a pawn to contain the army, but Cao Wenzhao was not stupid. How could he not take advantage of an extra army that looked like a friendly army out of thin air?
Now Gao Yingxiang's tens of thousands of rebel troops are trapped by him in the area of ​​Zhaojialing Village, unable to advance or retreat. Naturally, Cao Wenzhao waited and watched while resting his troops.

Cao Wenzhao's purpose is self-evident. Naturally, he hopes that Li Jing can fight to the death with the rebel army.Judging from the current situation, isn't Li Jing also regarded as a pawn by Cao Wenzhao?
"In Mr.'s opinion, what should we do now?" Li Jing asked hurriedly.

Yuan Keli shook his head and said: "On the surface, our tactical goal has been achieved, but in fact it is far from our original strategic goal. Our original strategy was to go west to Zhongtiao Mountain and occupy important resources. , in order to facilitate the production of firearms, and at the same time guard the front line of Henan and keep our financial resources."

Yuan Keli sighed and said: "But now the officers and soldiers are not moving, and the rebel army is also blocked in the Zhaojialing area. Everyone has formed a stalemate. If you want to achieve our intention, you must first give up a goal, or now Just open the entrance to Lin County and let the rebel army enter Henan, so as to mobilize the army, or force the rebel army to turn around and run to the Zhongtiao Mountain area."

Seeing that Li Jing hesitated, Yuan Keli continued: "If you want to get something, you have to give up first. You can't take away all the benefits at once. In fact, these two choices are good for us. Choose to let the rebellious army enter Lin County, we can let Sun Meng quickly seize the military power, so that Hongshanling area will have no worries, and you can also do some inconvenient things under the banner of the official army. If you choose to let the rebellious army enter Zhongtiao Mountain, then we can Occupying the resources in the Zhongtiao Mountain area will ensure that our future military supplies will be safe.”

(End of this chapter)