When Zhu Cihong's order arrived in Nanjing, it was already the end of November.
Although both Zhang Yan and Ma Shiying were very surprised when His Majesty suddenly wanted to transfer Ma Shiying back to Beijing during the critical period when the imperial examination was approaching, they chose to carry out the order without hesitation.
Ma Shiying just hurriedly packed up, selected hundreds of officials, big and small, from the seven cabinet departments, and set off for the capital together without missing a moment.
Although the six government offices in Beijing have long been ineffective, and a large number of officials have been sent to various places, there are still hundreds of people left waiting to die. Naturally, Zhu Cihong will not let Ma Shiying come alone, but allows him to choose.
One hundred officials accompanied him so that he could start work as soon as he arrived in the capital.
Although Ma Shiying, the deputy minister of the cabinet, removed hundreds of people from various ministries and went to the capital, it had little impact on the administrative system in the south. That is to say, Zhang Yan was busier than usual, but the other seven ministries were not affected at all.
Because the seven departments themselves perform their own duties and do not interfere with each other, although the seven ministers are controlled by Ma Shiying, their own rights are also very great. The seven are also eager for Ma Shiying, their immediate boss, to leave so that they can report directly to the Queen Mother.
The cabinet was left without Ma Shiying as its backbone. It was really affected. It was not sure about everything, big or small, so it had to ask Zhang Yan for instructions. After Zhang Yan was busy for a few days, she completely delegated power to six departments.
Shangshu, now he became relaxed again.
Ma Shiying and a group of civil servants hurriedly hurriedly arrived in the capital before the year before.
As soon as he arrived in the capital, Zhu Cihong asked him to reorganize the various yamen first, and at the same time, he added a Ministry of Commerce and a Ministry of Agriculture. As for the Ministry of War, it was directly abolished, and the top leaders of the seven departments were only Zuo Shilang, and no new ministers were appointed.
After several years of training, Ma Shiying was indeed very experienced. More importantly, compared to other civil servants, he had already figured out the emperor's attitude.
He knows what he can do and what he cannot touch, and he also knows how much power he has. Unlike other civil servants who worry about this and that, he can completely let go of his hands and feet, so when he does things, he will naturally get twice the result with half the effort.
On the way, I had a clear idea of how to implement the New Deal in the four northern provinces. I decided to reorganize the central departments in the capital first, and then carry out administrative reforms, swapping officials in the four provinces, and integrating them into the civil service system.
Wait, after completing this series of measures, the population, fields, mines, and shops will be counted, and finally the distribution will be evenly divided according to the total population and the number of acres in each state and county.
Zhu Cixiang saw that what he said was clear and logical, and he understood the New Deal very thoroughly, and he was completely relieved. Just after the New Year, on the third day of the Lunar New Year, he led a group of imperial guardsmen to leave Beijing and go south.
This time Zhu Cihong planned to take the overland route. He would first go to the Yellow River outlet near Tianjin to check, and then go south along the Yellow River channel that was being built. After arriving at the Yellow River, he would go eastward through the canal and go south to Nanjing.
After more than two years of construction, half of the Yellow River reconstruction project has been completed. Since the Yellow River diverted the Huaihe River into the sea during the Song Dynasty, the old river course has been turned into either fertile farmland or villages over the past few hundred years, and has long been changed beyond recognition.
If the villages along the way are not relocated and the river channels are renovated, and the Yellow River is rashly diverted to the north, although the Yellow River will definitely be led into the Bohai Sea in the end, the losses and damage caused will definitely be huge.
Another point is that the return of the Yellow River to the north will have a huge impact on the canal. This is why the Ming and Qing Dynasties also knew the harm of the Yellow River taking the Huaihe River, but they always left it alone because they were worried that reintroducing the Yellow River to the north would affect the canal.
As for diverting the Yellow River to the north, it is actually very simple. Without considering the life and death of the people, just dig a dyke in the east of Henan Province, but then the course of the Yellow River will be uncontrollable.
Because the course of the Yellow River in the north has never been stable in history. It has changed its course several times. Each time it was earth-shattering and resulted in countless casualties. Naturally, Zhu Cixiang would not let the Yellow River make its own decision to return north, so he did not hesitate to spend a lot of money to build the river course first and then divert it.
, and the new Yellow River channel is generally built according to the previous Yellow River channel. Even if there are differences, it will not be too big.
Zhu Cihong walked and inspected all the way, very slowly, but countless scholars in the north were not as leisurely as he was. Instead, as soon as the New Year was over, they hurried south with their friends from the same hometown.
Because the second imperial examination of the Shenwu Dynasty will be held on the first day of February in all states and counties in the seven southern provinces, scholars outside the seven provinces can choose any state to participate.
However, the scholars from Shandong naturally chose to go to the nearest Xuzhou to participate, the scholars from Henan and Shaanxi went to Fengyang Prefecture, Xiangyang Prefecture, Xunyang Prefecture, and most of the scholars from Sichuan went to Jingzhou Prefecture.
Scholars from Guizhou and Yunnan are on their way to Hunan and Guangxi provinces, and scholars from Beizhili and Shanxi are also planning to go to Hubei to participate.
Compared with the three million candidates in the seven provinces, the other provinces combined only have two or three hundred thousand. These two hundred thousand are real scholars with financial resources, and there are almost no slave women.
After the beginning of the new year, the atmosphere in the south became obviously tense, such as in remote areas of Guangxi, Guangdong, and Fujian. A few years ago, Zhang Yan directly sent batches of imperial troops to personally escort the test papers to the capital cities of the three provinces.
These imperial guardsmen who escorted the examination papers were almost always in teams of ten, with two female soldiers in each team, and ten to twenty people were temporarily hired.
Not only the test papers, but also the imperial guards will personally escort them to the state capitals. The local garrison will also be responsible for supervising and maintaining order in each examination room. Even the distribution of test papers to the candidates and the process of clearing their names after the test will also be done.
All will be handled by the local garrison.
The officials of the Ministry of Rites in each state are only responsible for registration and assistance, and have no involvement in other matters. Even after the exam is completed, the candidates' test papers will be taken back to Nanjing by the Yulin Army for centralized review, and then the Ministry of Rites will announce the passing scores of each state.
List of talented people.
Although it is very troublesome to go back and forth like this, and it will take at least three or four months to get the results, it almost eliminates all possibilities of fraud.
Officials from all over the country had no access to the test papers of the candidates from the beginning to the end. Even if they had access to them, they would not know whose papers they were. The strict attention they paid to it shocked the Minister of Rites and civil officials from all over the country.
How much do you have to distrust their civil servants to make such an arrangement?
Obviously, everyone did not expect that the Queen Mother would be so ruthless. Not only did she send the Royal Guards to personally escort the examination papers to each examination room, but she also asked the garrison to take charge of the order of the examination rooms, leaving the civil servants completely unable to get involved. At best, it was just a matter of building the examination rooms in the early stage.