Chapter 702 Master's counterattack: I am a college student, what education do you have?
The entire administrative order in Jiangnan is being restructured. This process will not be too fast, but it will not be too slow. As batches of officials going south gradually arrive, the new order will replace the old order, allowing Jiangnan and the entire Ming Dynasty to move towards the future.
In Nantong Prefecture Office, Zhou Changning, the magistrate of Zhejiang Province who has been in office for two months, is sorting out documents. He was transferred from Beizhi County Magistrate, but he is not from Beizhi County but from Shaoxing Prefecture in Zhejiang Province.
A master from Shaoxing, Zhou Changning worked as a staff member in his early years. In the 18th year of Chongzhen's reign, he heard the news about the reform of the imperial examination system in the north. He resigned as his boss and went to Beijing to apply for university. He was successfully admitted that year. He graduated from university.
Later, he served as town mayor, town magistrate, county magistrate and county magistrate. This time, he was even more lucky and was promoted to magistrate.
Prefectures are administrative agencies between prefectures and counties. They are not permanent and are generally established in more important places. According to the provisions of the new system, the chief officials range from the sixth rank to the fifth rank. Zhou Changning's configuration is the sixth rank.
His rank has jumped two levels compared to when he was the county magistrate, and his official calculations are pretty good.
Because he came from a staff background, Zhou Changning has always done a relatively detailed job in his work. What he hates most is that the papers are rough and bulky. But the papers he saw today violated his taboo.
"Inform the members of the state's administrative council to come to the small meeting hall to discuss the matter." Zhou Changning was upset by the eucalyptus in front of him, and was about to hold a meeting to emphasize.
If this document was written by someone else, he wouldn’t have to convene a meeting with the team members, he could just pass it over and criticize it. The person who submitted this document was none other than the former King of Nanzhong Prefecture who is now the temporary governor of the prefecture.
Qi.
It seems that this Wang Qi has a close relationship with Zhou Changning. During the Chongzhen period, he was elected as a scholar, and later became a Jinshi in the small court of Nanjing. He is also from Shaoxing. In his early years, his uncle was his boss when he was an aide. The two knew each other before.
It's just that there was a big difference in status at that time. One was the young master of the master's family, and the other was a wage earner.
The status of staff in the master's family is not certain. For some senior staff, the head of the family has to give up three points, while some staff are no different from ordinary domestic servants. When Zhou Changning first became a staff, he was just coming out to do things.
As a young man, his status is naturally not high. If his status were high, he would not be tempted to go north.
At that time, in the Wang family, young masters like Wang Qi never looked at him seriously. But now, he has become his Shangguan, and his uncle who had been the prefect has already passed away. For this careless young master,
, Zhou Changning has wanted to talk to him for a long time, but he has been unable to do so because of his feelings. Today, he couldn't help it and wanted to beat him through a meeting.
The team members quickly arrived at the small conference room. After everyone was seated, Zhou Changning said: "We are called to a meeting today mainly to emphasize the issue of reports and submissions. The imperial court requires that official conduct be pragmatic. Among them,
Naturally, the document that best embodies the pragmatic style is the eucalyptus. The eucalyptus is sparse and the reporting matters are unclear, making it unnecessarily general. The document only has opinions and no evidence. How can the superior judge the truth and make decisions?
Recently, the state wants to collect statistics on the employment status of river transport boatmen and people in the state and city in order to report to the superior and formulate the state's economic development plan. But so far, I still have not obtained specific statistics, only some conceptual statistics.
What should we do next? After the meeting, we will summarize and make corrections and change our style as soon as possible, so as not to delay the development plan of the whole state."
"Zhizhou, if you have something to say, just say it directly. If you are dissatisfied with my documents, why bother to go through a general meeting to criticize it. If you don't want to adopt the report on river work and the city's business operations that I made, don't adopt it. What's the point of making weird remarks in a roundabout way?
What's the matter? Regarding the state's plan to improve people's livelihood, which of my suggestions is unreasonable?" Wang Qi didn't take Zhou Changning's accusations seriously at first, but later he heard that people working in river engineering and Zhoucheng
Afterwards, he couldn't sit still. Wasn't this just calling him out by name? So he couldn't hold back his anger and broke out directly on the spot of the meeting.
"Wang Zhou Ling! This is a government affairs meeting. What are you doing? What I'm talking about is work. If you fail to correct your responsibilities, you will be encouraged. Don't act on impulse." Faced with Wang Qi's attack, Zhou Changning did not lose his composure.
.
"What does it mean to act on impulse? You just can't listen to honest advice, but you find reasons to embarrass me. My suggestion is to reduce taxes, recuperate the people, and propose to the court to reopen canal water transportation to solve the livelihood difficulties of river workers. Which one is untenable?
"?" Wang Qi did not give up, but continued to argue at the meeting.
"Wang Qi, which of the suggestions you made is not a lie? How does it hold water? How many river workers and transport ships are there in Tongzhou now? Do you know how the river workers make a living now? How many shops, production houses, etc. are there in the state?
How many people do not make a living from the land, and how many are completely unemployed and struggling to make a living? Without doing any surveys and statistics, you are shamelessly giving advice! Are you giving advice? You are posing a problem for the court.
If you only ask questions but don't solve them, what's the use of having an official like you?
Restoring water transport is easy to say, but do you know how much extra expenditure the court incurred every year because of water transport? How much of the huge wastage went to the hands of river workers? Tax reductions, can the taxes reduced by the court flow to the hands of ordinary people?
Have you ever thought about this?" Zhou Changning saw that Wang Qi was so ignorant, so he no longer cared about face and scolded this ignorant guy.
"Why don't you stop paying taxes and reduce taxes? Do you have a way to relieve the plight of the people? Do you have to sit back and watch these people starve to death? Such behavior is not what we who read the books of sages would do. But people like you may be able to bear it in our hearts.
.”
"Reading the books of sages? Are you studying like this? I am not like you. I have gone to university seriously and systematically studied the knowledge of managing the world and applying it to practical applications. It is you and other empty talkers who sit back and watch the people suffer and the court is weak.
! From today onwards, Wang Qi will suspend his duties as a state magistrate and follow me to go to the state city and rivers to conduct research. I will teach you how to be a good official who can solve problems and benefit the people."
Zhou Changning does not have the power to remove the state order, but he has the right to propose the suspension of his actual duties in the administrative council. There are currently nine members of the administrative council in Tongzhou, five of whom are officials from the south, so Zhou Changning's proposal went smoothly
pass.
Because of Wang Qi's inappropriate speech at the meeting, he was suspended from his post for observation. When he walked out of the meeting room, he really wanted to go home directly. But when he thought about it, if he did this, his official position would be completely lost.
He was a little unwilling to do so. He had to write a document to express his love to the superiors. At the same time, he stayed here and accompanied Zhou Changning to conduct research to see what he could come up with. If he had the ability, he would find money to build the rivers in the state.