White-robed Minister

Chapter 156 0154 [Preparing to Go Home and Get Married]

Gong Dingchen also submitted a memorial recommending Xu Lai, because he felt that he himself would soon be transferred.

Given Xu Lai's current situation, if he continues to be sent to other posts, he will either be promoted to the position of Vice Prefect of a prefecture or transferred to the position of Magistrate of a county.

The promotion to Tongpan is easy to understand, so why would someone need to become a magistrate?

Because a county magistrate is an official in charge of a region, he can enrich his official career and accumulate experience in governing the people.

Of course, he may also return to Beijing to take up a post.

If one were to return to the capital, one would either enter the Censorate, the Imperial Censorate, or the Imperial Academy or the Three Departments and Six Ministries. These would all involve holding relatively low-ranking official positions, gaining two or three years of experience working in the central government, before being sent out to serve as a local official.

Regardless, Xu Lai, now a high-ranking official in the capital, will undoubtedly have a smoother career path than others.

Selecting people like Yang Shu is truly difficult.

How are people selected for promotion to official positions in the capital?

The hard requirements are that one must have served for a sufficient number of years, and secondly, one must be recommended by an official.

Initially, three officials were sufficient for recommendation, but this gradually increased to five. A candidate needed five recommendation letters to have a chance of rising to the ranks of officials in the capital.

Moreover, the eligibility criteria for recommendation are being tightened year by year.

Nowadays, only local officials such as military commissioners, judicial commissioners, transport commissioners, prefects, or governors are qualified to write recommendation letters for others. Assistant prefects and transport commissioners are all disqualified from making recommendations.

This year alone, all civil officials in the censorate system, as well as all high-ranking military officers, have had their recommendation qualifications revoked.

If candidates want to be promoted to officials in the capital, it will be difficult to gather even five recommenders. Even if you maintain good relationships with all your superiors in your post, you can only gather four recommenders at most, and you will have to find one more from elsewhere.

Retired senior officials suddenly became popular because they still retained the right to recommend officials and were easier to reach than incumbent officials!

If Xu Lai is only a candidate, given the way he does things in Yingtian Prefecture, he might never be able to gather five candidates in his lifetime, and he might be stuck in the candidate selection stage for the rest of his life.

Because he had offended too many officials, out of consideration for each other, no one was willing to recommend him.

Now it doesn't matter. He was the top scholar in the imperial examination, and his career started as a government official in the capital. No matter what he does, he's not afraid. Even if he angers the emperor and is demoted to collect wine taxes or to be in charge of a Taoist temple, he will still be a government official in the capital.

Without serious misconduct, even the emperor and the prime minister could not strip him of his official title in the capital.

August th, Mid-Autumn Festival.

Yu'er took out new clothes and helped Xu Lai change into them, then combed his hair and tied it into a bun, and put a turban on him properly.

Bu Chao and Chen Xiaoyi also dressed up in their new clothes and dressed each other up.

They were going to the Mid-Autumn Festival official banquet. Gong Shen, who had come to replace Shen Qi, along with the newly arrived eunuchs from Hongqing Palace, relatives of the emperor, and the old guys from the Nanjing Garrison Command—all of them were going to attend the banquet.

As evening approached, Xu Lai strode out the door, with Bu Chao and Chen Xiaoyi following closely behind.

The banquet venue is just a short distance away.

That was the old government office from the early Song Dynasty. Later, Yingtian Prefecture was upgraded to Nanjing, and a Nanjing Palace City was built directly around the government office.

The palace has long been abandoned, and buildings collapse every year.

Ordinary people often sneaked in to plant vegetables and dry grains, turning the once grand Nanjing Palace into a vegetable garden.

Only the Chongxi Banqing Tower is regularly repaired.

Emperor Zhenzong of Song once held a banquet for the people in this building. Officials, students, and gentry all rushed to attend the banquet, but Fan Zhongyan remained at school, diligently studying. When a classmate invited him to go see the emperor, Fan Zhongyan said, "It's not too late to see him later."

At the entrance of the palace, twin towers stand tall.

Without any guards watching over them, Xu Lai and his entourage entered directly. Not far away was a large vegetable patch. Who knew who had planted the vegetables? If someone stole them, there was no one to complain to.

Today's banquet will be held at Chongxi Banqing Tower.

"Haha, Judge Xu is here!" someone shouted from the second floor.

Xu Lai looked up and saw that it was Xu Su, the transport judge, who was currently leaning against the window admiring the scenery.

Several more people came to the window, smiled and bowed to Xu Lai.

Xu Lai returned the greeting with clasped hands.

Immediately, an official came forward and said with utmost respect, "Judge Xu, please come upstairs."

Bu Chao and Chen Xiaoyi stayed on the first floor to eat.

Xu Lai walked up to the second floor alone. When he entered the banquet hall, the officials all stood up to greet him. Several famous courtesans also had their eyes shining, and all their gazes were fixed on Xu Lai.

This kind of treatment is not what a judge should deserve.

He was even pulled to sit in front of the transport judge, but Xu Lai refused outright and went straight to the seat below Zhuang Gongyue.

Wang Yirou seemed somewhat embarrassed because he had written a negative review of Xu Lai. Conflicts are normal in officialdom, but giving a negative review is tantamount to tearing off a relationship.

"Is that Xu Laohu?" an old man next to him said with a smile.

Wang Yirou said, "That's right."

The old man's name was Zhang Jingxian, and he had come to replace Wang Yirou as the transport commissioner.

Under normal circumstances, the transfer and handover of local officials usually takes place before May (before the summer tax is levied), before September (before the autumn tax is levied), or after November (after the autumn tax is levied).

At this very moment, it is the time of transition between old and new officials, and the transport commissioner and the judicial commissioner of Jingdong Road are to be replaced.

The newly arrived transport commissioner, Zhang Jingxian, looked at Xu Lai with considerable approval. He and Xu Lai were similar, only Xu Lai's methods were more radical.

When Zhang Jingxian first took office, he exiled Zheng Fang, the magistrate of Shanyang County. At that time, the environment was extremely lenient towards civil officials, and his exile of a county magistrate for corruption really shocked the court officials.

A few years later, Zhang Jingxian would again place Wang Kui under house arrest (house surveillance) until his death on charges of extortion and bribery—Wang Kui was a scholar of the Longtu Pavilion and a friend of Han Qi, Cai Xiang, and others.

The subsequent officialdom in Jingdong Road was quite interesting: the Transport Commissioner was replaced by the ruthless Zhang Jingxian, while the Judicial Commissioner was the mediocre and incompetent Gong Shen.

This is the exact opposite of the previous situation.

Gong Shen didn't feel mediocre or incompetent at all; on the contrary, he was proud and wanted to show off.

As the leader of the special task force investigating the Hongqing Palace case, he shouldn't have been in contact with other officials at this time, according to regulations. When Sima Guang came to investigate the case last year, he immediately established a rule upon arriving in Yingtian Prefecture: he would never meet with local officials or civilians privately.

Gong Shen not only showed no remorse but also brought up the case himself: "Those Taoist priests at Hongqing Palace, killing them all wouldn't be unjust. I'm under orders from the Emperor to thoroughly investigate this case, and I certainly won't spare them. But since they have rendered meritorious service in offering sacrifices to the late emperors, I'll spare their lives this time, exiling their entire families to the borderlands so they can reason with the Western Xia barbarians!"

Right now, the northwestern border is short of manpower, so sending a bunch of Taoist priests and their families there can help them cultivate wasteland and populate the frontier. It's a way of making use of what's not there.

Xu Lai couldn't help but roll his eyes. How could the verdict be made public before the case was even tried?

In fact, everyone present knew very well that Gong Shen had been sent by the emperor to save face, especially to help the eunuchs and the emperor's relatives distance themselves from each other.

If an upright minister were sent to handle this kind of shady task, he would not be as good as Gong Shen in doing it.

There were also two eunuchs at the banquet.

One was the horse-riding officer of Jingdong Road, and the other was the supervisor of Hongqing Palace who succeeded Yuan Fang.

These two eunuchs had already secretly received the emperor's order and immediately began praising Gong Shen for his excellent handling of the case. Then, the newly arrived maternal relative joined the discussion, and the four of them worked together to present a scathing account.

Many of the other officials present grew increasingly grim as they listened.

Because those four guys were spouting nonsense, making it seem as if Gong Shen had solved the major case of Hongqing Palace, while the local officials seemed to have done nothing at all.

Just then, another person entered the banquet hall: Zhang Gui, the newly appointed prefect of Yingtian.

Zhang Gui bowed to the crowd and went straight to sit down next to Gong Dingchen, who was still handling the handover.

Zhang Gui was the one who, despite Emperor Renzong of Song ordering all regions to hand over surplus funds, only handed over nine qian of gold on behalf of Huainan Region.

His most famous achievement was drafting an imperial edict posthumously awarding official titles to Vice Chancellor Liu Hang after Liu Hang's death.

It is said that the dead should be respected, and a deceased prime minister even more so. Yet, in the posthumous edict, he criticized Liu Hang for currying favor with the powerful. This angered Liu Hang's son so much that he led his entire family, dressed in mourning clothes, to the palace to weep and complain.

Zhang Gui, at the cost of being demoted to Huangzhou, managed to erase the posthumous honor bestowed upon the deceased prime minister.

All the officials had arrived, and everyone raised their glasses in a toast.

Today's banquet is both a farewell to the outgoing official and a welcome to the incoming official, and it's a good opportunity for everyone to get to know each other.

After a few drinks, Zhuang Gongyue whispered to Xu Lai, "Wang Caosi, Shen Xiansi, and Prefect Gong have all been transferred away, leaving only the two of us in Yingtian Prefecture."

"Wishing Judge Zhuang a promotion as well," Xu Lai said with a smile, raising his glass.

Zhuang Gongyue said, "Our promotions are all thanks to Xingzhi. Past grudges were just misunderstandings. I respectfully offer Xingzhi a cup of wine."

"No problem." Xu Lai raised his cup and drank it all.

Zhuang Gongyue said, "No matter where we are transferred in the future, we should keep in touch by writing letters. There are not many people I admire in my life, but Xingzhi is definitely one of them."

Xu Lai smiled and said, "I also admire Judge Zhuang."

"Haha, if you dare to say it, I dare to believe it." Zhuang Gongyue laughed and finished his wine.

Xu Lai sighed, "It's a pity that the court has yet to respond to the memorial regarding the Nanjing Imperial Academy. I estimate that by the time I am transferred, the court still won't have responded."

During the Spring Festival, Xu Lai took some time to submit a memorial to the throne, requesting that the Nanjing Imperial Academy be separated from the Yingtian Prefectural School, modeled after the Imperial College and the National Academy. This would break the monopoly of local nobles and powerful families over the Nanjing Imperial Academy.

As a result, the memorial disappeared without a trace, failing to make the slightest ripple.

Two weeks ago, he wrote another one, but the court still did not approve it.

Zhuang Gongyue comforted him, saying, "Take your time, we'll get it done eventually."

The courtesans had already begun dancing and singing, but Xu Lai was only concerned with eating and drinking. When the drinking games came to him, he just casually brushed them off, showing no desire to show off whatsoever.

He was too lazy to even write a poem for appreciating the moon.

Instead of wasting time chatting with these guys, he'd rather go back to his books or chat and joke with Yu'er.

August passed quickly.

Gong Dingchen, Shen Qi, and Wang Yirou successively left their posts, and were replaced by Zhang Gui, Gong Shen, and Zhang Jingxian.

Zhang Gui and Zhang Jingxian are both ruthless people, so Gong Shen's life was actually not easy.

Gong Shengang had just finished investigating the Hongqing Palace case when Zhang Jingxian impeached him for having extensive contact with outsiders during the investigation and for actively leaking case information at a banquet.

Gong Shen, who was eagerly awaiting a reward, was penalized with a two-month salary reduction by the court for impeaching someone.

Following this, Zhang Jingxian continued to impeach Gong Shen for illegally misappropriating funds from the Hongqing Palace case. This resulted in Gong Shen being demoted from all his honorary titles and receiving a severe warning from the court.

Xu Lai and Zhuang Gongyue were living quite comfortably, and their new boss, Zhang Gui, seemed to have no presence at all, with all the work in the government office proceeding as usual.

Even the autumn tax collection plan that Gong Dingchen had prepared in advance during his tenure was continued by Zhang Gui without being deliberately overturned.

Zhang Gui, this old man, can be incredibly ruthless when he wants to be, and incredibly Buddhist when he wants to be.

While other officials often agonized over performance evaluations, Zhang Gui didn't participate in them for ten years in his youth. Without evaluations, there was no way to get promoted, but he didn't care at all. He was content with whatever the court assigned him to, and wherever he was transferred, he would do his job well.

The month after Zhang Gui took office in Yingtian Prefecture, he said to his son one evening, "I have been an official for most of my life, and I have never been so relaxed. The hidden land in seven counties has been investigated and cleared out. After the miscellaneous taxes were reduced, the people are paying their taxes more and more enthusiastically. It seems that I, as the prefect, have nothing left to do."

The son, Zhang Xuanmin, said, "This is all thanks to Judge Xu. When I corresponded with Su Zizhan in the past, I heard him praise Judge Xu highly in his letters."

Zhang Xuanmin was a good friend of Su Shi and Wang Anshi, and they often exchanged poems.

Zhang Gui laughed and said, "It's perfect for indulging in poetry and wine, free from the mundane affairs of the government office. I've come to the right place; if I were to serve as an official elsewhere, I'm afraid I would live a few years less."

This old gentleman is actually someone who likes to take it easy. Unfortunately, most of the time he's exhausted because he wants to get involved in everything he sees.

Now, with Zhuang Gongyue and Xu Lai supporting them, the affairs of the mansion are being managed in an orderly manner.

Zhang Gui simply delegated all authority, only responsible for signing and stamping documents, and occasionally went fishing with a group of old guys from the Nanjing Garrison. It was as if he were living a retired life.

As a result, Zhuang Gongyue's actual power skyrocketed, making him practically a prefect.

Xu Lai also felt an unprecedented sense of comfort. One superior did not care about anything, another superior had a good relationship with him, and the officials below him were all very obedient.

He spends his days working and reading, occasionally taking Yu'er, Bu Chao and others shopping, and even has time to cook a few dishes himself.

But Xu Lai's reputation had already spread rapidly throughout the officialdom across the country.

Even Yang Shu, who was an official in Shaanxi, had heard about the Hongqing Palace case and knew that Xu Lai was clearing land in Yingtian Prefecture.

The imperial court issued a special official gazette to commend the matter.

Of course, the report mainly commended Gong Dingchen, and also mentioned Zhuang Gongyue and Xu Lai.

Anyone with a discerning eye can easily guess the inside story. If it were truly the achievement of the prefect or vice-prefect, there would be no need to add the name of the supervising judge. This time, the clearing of fields in Yingtian Prefecture was definitely carried out by the supervising judge!

Shen Qi, before, and Zhang Xuanmin, now, were both good friends of Wang Anshi. They each wrote to Wang Anshi, explaining in detail the land clearing process and telling him about the fish-scale register method.

Wang Anshi is studying Xu Lai's fish-scale diagram method!

Upon receiving the recommendation letters from Shen Qi and Gong Dingchen, the imperial court decided to recall Xu Lai to the capital for an early review.

However, this was during the autumn tax collection period, and the court ordered Xu to collect the taxes before leaving his post.

Finally, in November, the new prefect and the new judge arrived.

While handing over his work, Xu Lai wrote a letter to the imperial court requesting leave: he wanted to go home to get married first!

The mourning period for Yu Jing has long passed.

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