I am not Yuan Shu

Chapter 228 The Master of the Han Empire

The first department of the Tongzhengsi was the County and State Affairs Department. The main responsibility of this department was to receive and organize government reports submitted by the prefects and prime ministers of various counties and states.

The county and state system was the most important local governance system in the Han Empire and the most powerful local unit in the Empire. Therefore, these memorials involved many aspects such as people's livelihood, economy, and public security in various places, and were an important basis for understanding local conditions and formulating policies.

The second department was the Inspectorate, which was specifically responsible for receiving government reports submitted by the Inspectors of various states.

Similar to the county and state Cao, officials of the Inspectorate Cao also needed to carefully organize and analyze memorials so that higher-level officials could understand the dynamics of each state in a timely manner and make correct decisions.

It is worth mentioning that the reason why the Han Empire set up a system of thirteen inspectors in addition to the parallel system of counties and kingdoms was inspired by the feudal system of the early Zhou Dynasty.

An important means for the Zhou Dynasty to effectively control the vassal states in the early days was to require each vassal state to submit their national history books to the Zhou emperor, who would then hand them over to specialized personnel under the emperor for storage.

In name it is for storage, but in reality it is for comparison.

The Zhou emperor had someone under his command who was responsible for comparing the contents of the history books of various countries and finding the differences between them.

At that time, many small countries were close to each other and should have encountered many similar things, such as astronomy, geography, disasters, wars, etc.

If it is discovered that multiple vassal states that are close to each other have different records of the same event, or that one records it and the other does not, then the Zhou emperor will know that there must be something fishy going on within these countries and will question these vassal states about what went wrong.

Why are the records different?
Is there any crime or disrespect for the emperor?
Due to the transportation conditions and diplomatic restrictions at the time, it was impossible for the various vassal states to coordinate all the records in advance, so any small thoughts would easily be discovered by the Zhou emperor and then punished.

This system ensured the effective deterrence of the Zhou emperor over the vassal states during the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the officials responsible for reviewing the history books of the vassal states were the earliest Inspectors.

The name of the position of Inspector also comes from this - it is a sharp knife that the central ruler pierces into the local administrative system, discovering signs of disloyalty by the princes by checking the different records of both sides.

By the Han Dynasty, because county magistrates had enormous power, comparable to the monarchs of fiefdoms, in order to prevent them from becoming self-important, the Han emperor would send inspectors to monitor their behavior.

Although the Inspector did not have a very high status at the beginning, once the things reported by the Inspector were different from those reported by the county governor, he would be held accountable by the Han emperor, thus effectively supervising local officials.

Yuan Shu also inherited this rule, and deliberately received the memorials from county governors and prime ministers separately from those from provincial governors. He also set up these two Caos in the southwest corner and northeast corner respectively within the Tongzhengsi to increase the distance between the two departments.

Doing so can maximize the chances that the central rulers will discover local tricks.

These two departments belong to the regular communication departments.

In addition, the Tongzhengsi also set up a special Military Intelligence Department.

The duties of this department are particularly special. It is responsible for receiving military memorials from all over the country. These memorials often involve confidential information and therefore need to be transmitted through special channels.

After receiving such memorials, the Ministry of Public Security must forward them to the person in power as quickly as possible to ensure that military intelligence is transmitted and processed in a timely manner without any delay.

Similar to the Military Intelligence Department is the Disaster Intelligence Department. This department is specifically responsible for receiving and organizing reports on natural disasters and man-made disasters from all over the country, which also need to be reported to the emperor as quickly as possible.

After all these memorials were collected and counted, the Ministry of Public Security would classify them according to their content and urgency, and then send them to various government offices. This process required the officials of the Ministry of Public Security to have a rigorous work attitude and efficient work ability to ensure the smooth transmission of information.

In the current Han Empire, the main recipient of these memorials was naturally Yuan Feng, the Recorder of the Secretariat.

As the de facto supreme ruler, Yuan Feng naturally made the final decision on these national affairs, so he set up an office in the Shangshu Tai to handle state affairs more efficiently.

Here, he could review various memorials in a timely manner, make decisions, and hand them over to the Secretariat to convey to various service departments, and then to various state and county governments.

And this transmission work is precisely one of the important responsibilities of the Tongzhengsi.

They not only need to ensure that government affairs are uploaded and issued in a timely manner, but also ensure that the information is accurate. Therefore, the officials of the Tongzhengsi actually play the role of a group of errand runners.

But this does not mean that their job is easy and simple. On the contrary, they need to have high physical fitness and adaptability to deal with various complex situations.

Because the nature of the work of the Tongzhengsi places high demands on the physical fitness of officials, when selecting talents, the Tongzhengsi mainly focuses on the standards of being young, strong, healthy, and agile.

Those who look sickly, ugly or inferior should never be hired.

Yuan Feng recommended a group of young scion of Yuan's former students and officials to join the Tongzhengsi, while Yuan Shu also recommended a group of strong and healthy members of Yi Xin. The joining of these two groups injected new vitality into the Tongzhengsi and made its organizational structure more perfect.

Overall, Yuan Shu played a huge role in the construction of the Tongzhengsi.

As the actual designer, he not only put forward many innovative suggestions, but also guided Shen Ke and others step by step to set up the entire stall and adjust the personnel deployment.

Under the leadership of Yuan Shu, the Tongzhengsi completed the adjustment of the entire organizational structure in just three days and successfully handed it over to Shen Ke for management. Shen Ke took one look and praised the elite team of the Tongzhengsi.

This department is not only well-staffed, but also has a lot of good guys, strong and agile. Shen Ke even joked that even if they don't do their jobs and just fight, they can definitely do a lot. During the establishment of the Tongzhengsi structure, the court also took active action and arranged a group of people to spread out and inform the local prefectures and counties of the establishment of the Tongzhengsi and the new reporting process.

They informed officials from all over the country that from now on all memorials must be sent to the Tongzhengsi office opposite the Three Dukes' Palace. Regardless of whether they were general government memorials or proposals sent by the accounting clerks, they must first be received and arranged by the Tongzhengsi office.

However, it always takes time for news to spread. In the initial period, many officials, including local officials closer to Luoyang, still delivered memorials to the vicinity of the imperial palace as usual.

As a result, they couldn't find the original contact, so they had to ask around before they found out the new address of the Ministry of Public Security. They hurriedly sent the memorial to the Ministry of Public Security, which caused a lot of jokes in the process.

However, as time went by, starting from late October, more and more people gradually became aware of the existence of the Tongzhengsi and the new reporting process. They sent their memorials to the Tongzhengsi and handled them in accordance with the new regulations. This change not only made government affairs processing more standardized and efficient, but also made officials feel real convenience.

As long as the memorial was sent to the Ministry of Public Security, most of the subsequent matters would be handled by the Ministry of Public Security, and the person who sent the memorial would not have to run around in a tiring manner.

For those memorials that did not require an immediate reply, officials could return home with peace of mind after sending them to the Ministry of Public Security and receiving a receipt.

As for memorials that needed to wait for a reply, officials had to stay in the post house next to the Tongzhengsi government office and wait. Once the reply came, they could receive the reply with a receipt, record it after confirming that it was correct, and then return to the local area to report the matter.

The entire process is designed to be simple and unified, and there are clear records of everything going on, which effectively avoids any disputes.

This was initially reflected within half a month after the Ministry of Public Administration officially began operations.

The bigwigs in the court, including Yuan Feng, all began to feel how helpful a professional memorial classification agency was in handling government affairs.

The establishment of the Tongzhengsi was undoubtedly a major event in Luoyang City, and it could even be said to be a milestone event.

Although the new Shaofu had enormous power and dominated the imperial palace, his influence did not reach the level of major events in the world. Outside the palace, the Shaofu had little influence.

But the Tongzhengsi is different. It has become a place where information from all over the world is gathered and a source of first-hand information.

Whoever can control the Tongzhengsi will be able to make full use of the information gap to gain benefits and occupy an advantageous position in the power struggle.

This has been proven countless times in past power struggles, so the importance of the Tongzhengsi is self-evident.

Therefore, in the past ten to twenty years, the eunuch group has firmly grasped the information advantage and suppressed the scholars and officials.

And now, this advantage has shifted to the Yuan family.

This also means that the dominant position of the Yuan political group headed by Yuan Feng and Yuan Shu in the political ecology of the Han Empire was formally established.

Precisely because the Tongzhengsi had such an important status and role, its government office soon became one of the government offices with the highest security levels in the entire Luoyang City.

In order to ensure the safety and normal operation of the Tongzhengsi, Yuan Shu personally designed a strict security system for it, and dispatched an elite force from the Northern Army to carry out armed protection and supervision of the daily operations of the Tongzhengsi.

This army is not only responsible for the security inside and outside the Tongzhengsi, but also implements strict identity verification and registration system management for people entering and leaving. In this way, the security of the Tongzhengsi is effectively guaranteed.

Strict institutional norms were also implemented in the internal management of the Tongzhengsi. Officials had to show their identity documents when entering and leaving the government office, and they had to clock in and out on time to ensure the transparency and traceability of personnel flow.

For outsiders, to enter the Tongzhengsi, they need to obtain a temporary certificate outside, otherwise they will not be allowed to enter or exit. If someone wanders around inside the Tongzhengsi without a certificate and is discovered by armed soldiers, they will face severe punishment.

Soldiers have the right to capture, injure or even kill them without being blamed for doing so.

Because the soldiers acted in the course of performing their duties and protecting important information for the country, they do not need to bear any responsibility even if casualties occur.

Yuan Feng had already made this principle known bluntly at the court meeting.

The Tongzhengsi is my Yuan family’s private land. Don’t even think about trying to lay your hands on it. If anyone tries to lay their hands on it, I’ll chop off his claws!

If anyone dares to touch the interests of the Yuan family, getting injured and bleeding may be just a small matter, but if someone is targeted by Yuan, that would be a big deal!

Don’t blame Yuan for not notifying you in advance!

This warning was like a cold wind that made everyone shiver.

The rapid reorganization and establishment of the new Shaofu and Tongzhengsi was not only a change in the administrative system, but also a notification of two things to the entire Luoyang and even the whole world.

First, the nominal master of the Han Empire changed. It was no longer Liu Hong, but Liu Kui!

Second, the actual master of the Han Empire also changed. It was no longer the eunuchs, but the Yuan family!

(End of this chapter)