Qing Yao

Chapter 81 What kind of meeting is it so late?

I'll enjoy the good life, you'll all live well. We'll share the money, have fun together, solve problems together, shoulder responsibilities together, and even if we're in handcuffs, we'll all reach out. If we don't reach out, we'll take down the one holding the handcuffs.

This was Zhao An's principle for being an official.

He plans to use one-third of the tuition fees saved from the temporary enrollment to improve the living conditions of the faculty and staff of the school, increase their income, and enhance their job satisfaction.

This approach not only united all the faculty and staff of Yangzhou Prefectural School, including the school officials, to his side as professor, but also mobilized the enthusiasm of all faculty and staff, laying a solid foundation for comprehensively improving the teaching quality of Yangzhou Prefectural School.

In the Qing Dynasty, there was a senior official named Wang Danwang who successfully united all the officials in Gansu by doing this. He even united the bannermen who had the right to submit secret reports. The whole province worked together to deceive Emperor Qianlong for several years, embezzling, lying, and misappropriating more than ten million taels of silver.

After this senior Wang was transferred to the position of Governor of Zhejiang, he came up with a unique idea to borrow money from the gentry and wealthy merchants of Zhejiang under various pretexts, and borrowed several million taels of silver in total!
Upon hearing of this, the imperial court dispatched officials to investigate. The investigation revealed that the gentry of Zhejiang all agreed: "Lord Wang is an honest official; he is innocent. He has never borrowed any money from us!"

He must be an honest official, he must have been wronged, and he must have never borrowed money.

Otherwise, if Lord Wang falls from power, who will repay their money?
Unfortunately, even the most meticulous plans can have flaws!
Senior Wang ultimately failed because of a meteorological report from Gansu.

They were completely wronged.

Zhao An is following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Wang, hoping to enrich his resume with his wisdom and contribute his modest efforts to local development.

We can't just occupy a position without doing anything; that would be letting down the old man's cultivation.

The principal said he wouldn't pocket the surplus from the "borrowing fees," which gave the vice-principal ample opportunity to make the most of it.

We're all in education, is it really necessary to be so explicit?

Ma Xuezheng happily returned to draft the regulations for the students to study under the professor's ideas. He was just waiting for the prefectural examination to end so that he could take advantage of the momentum of the examination to implement the matter. Zhao An also moved into the former Professor Jiang's office the next day.

It's very large, at least the size of two bureau chiefs' offices.

The arrangement was quite elaborate. To put it simply, Zhao An felt a subtle surge of literary energy within his body after staying inside for less than five minutes.

The scholarly energy within the body, combined with the official hat on the head, the official robe on the body, and the official boots on the feet, creates a powerful aura.

No matter who comes in, they have to slap their sleeves and kneel on one knee to greet Principal Zhao.

A scholar doesn't need to kneel when meeting an official, but an official must kneel when meeting another official.

The greeting was originally a Manchu greeting to his superiors, but over the centuries it became a common greeting among Han officials, which shows that the Manchuization of Han officials during the Qing Dynasty was still very serious.

Those who came to pay their respects were all academic officials from the prefectural school. Including Zhao An, there were a total of eight academic officials with ranks in the entire prefectural school: one professor, one academic director, four instructors (including those who were formally appointed), and two academic registrars.

In addition, there were six low-ranking clerks without official titles, whose roles were equivalent to department heads, class advisors, or office directors, and were the specific persons in charge of departments.

All other faculty and staff members are temporary workers, including teachers.

Although the professor was the head of the prefectural school, he did not have the power to dismiss the lower-level school officials. This power was in the hands of the provincial education administration. Therefore, even if Zhao An had been a novice primary school clerk who did not do any work, the former Professor Jiang could not have fired him.

The jobs of the clerks and temporary workers under the academic officials were all controlled by the professor alone.

If I tell you to get lost, you have to get lost.

So, in the morning, it was the school officials who came to pay their respects, and in the afternoon, it was the teachers, the cafeteria ladies, the gatekeepers, and the school bus drivers who came to pay their respects.

You can't come empty-handed to pay your respects; please give something according to the old custom.

Otherwise, if the new principal is unhappy, he'll lose his job. To make it easier for Principal Zhao to collect the inaugural fees, Instructor Tong specially placed a bamboo basket at the entrance of the principal's office. Those who were qualified could go in to pay their respects and pay the fee, while those who weren't qualified could simply announce their arrival from outside and put a red envelope into the basket.

This saved the principal a lot of trouble; meeting with each person individually would be exhausting.

Throughout the day, Zhao An lost count of how many polite and official phrases he had exchanged. He had drunk three large pots of tea alone. Fortunately, his income was considerable; he had collected nearly five hundred taels of silver from his official duties upon taking office.

The majority of the money went to the school officials and clerks; the temporary workers' share was less than two hundred taels in total.

Zhao An understood that these people were giving him money not only because it was against the rules, but also because they hoped to leave a good impression on him, the new principal, and avoid being laid off.

What these people didn't know was that Principal Zhao had no intention of laying off any employees; in fact, he planned to increase the number of positions.

It's completely unreasonable that the government has over 400 students and only over 100 staff members. There should be at least 200 staff members.

Soon, the number of students transferring to study there increased.

Is it reasonable to allocate more staff to comprehensively protect students' interests?

The principal's desk was piled high with various documents, some issued by the provincial education commissioner's office, some by the prefectural government, and many more requests and reports from the county and prefectural schools below.

The focus was mainly on the prefectural examination.

Previously, Professor Jiang was mainly in charge of the prefectural examinations. Now that the person in charge has changed, the staff below will definitely come to ask the new professor if there is anything special to add to the prefectural examinations.

What could Zhao An possibly add? It was nothing more than following the established rules: sign what needed to be signed, affix the seal when required, and do everything according to the agreement reached between the previous administration and the prefectural government.

In his spare time, he also studied and improved his skills by reading past examination papers from the Yangzhou Prefectural Examination. As the principal, he not only had to participate in the entire examination process, but also act as the deputy examiner for grading the papers.

The opinions of the chief and deputy examiners, along with those of other examiners involved in grading the papers, are combined to form the reference standard for the candidate's final grade.

Since he was to provide written feedback, Zhao An certainly couldn't write comments like "I understand," "not bad," or "okay" on the candidates' papers, and he didn't know what to write either, so he had to refer to the wisdom of his predecessors.

To put it bluntly, it's about stealing the comments from previous examiners.

Wouldn't that make him, the deputy examiner, seem very knowledgeable?

He was also careful, looking for old papers from thirty years ago to look at, because comments from recent years would be easier to spot. If the officials in Yangzhou knew that Principal Zhao even copied the comments for the papers, wouldn't he become a laughing stock in Yangzhou's officialdom?

I was dizzy from reading, but thankfully I had absorbed a lot of knowledge into my brain. I got up and moved around in the office for a bit before walking to the window and quietly looking at the school buildings not far away. Listening to the students reciting their lessons with their heads swaying, I felt inexplicably pure inside.

It looks like it's been washed with dish soap.

Zhao An's main approach to managing the academy was to grasp the overall direction without interfering in the details. As a result, the daily operation of the academy was not disrupted by the change of principals.

Seeing that it was almost time, Zhao An wanted to leave work early, but Tong Xundao came over to inform him that the government office had just sent someone to notify the professor to attend a meeting.

Why are you calling me to a meeting so late?

Zhao An looked up at the setting sun, and for some reason, he suddenly instructed Tong Xundao with a hint of nervousness: "Take more constables with you to the government office."

The "chading" were the security personnel of the prefectural school, who were able-bodied men dispatched by the local county government. In addition to preventing people from causing trouble at the prefectural school, they were also responsible for escorting the school officials when they traveled.

He added, still not entirely at ease, "It would be best to have the constables bring knives and accompany me."

(End of this chapter)