Da Ming: The system granted me immortality; I clock in every day.

Not long after, Xia Yuanji stormed out of the main hall.

His face was flushed, and he was still clutching a stack of unapproved memorials in his hand. He strode through the side hall, ready to leave.

Just as Xia Yuanji was passing by Gu Yannian's desk, his gaze inadvertently swept over it, and he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

He saw the young clerk, dressed in a seventh-rank blue robe, flipping through account books with his left hand while rapidly manipulating an abacus with his right.

The abacus beads, under Gu Yannian's fingertips, turned into a blur of afterimages, emitting a series of crisp and dense "crackling" sounds like a downpour hitting banana leaves.

This speed is simply unbelievable.

What shocked Xia Yuanji even more was that Gu Yannian's eyes never left the account book.

My right hand is typing blindly entirely based on muscle memory.

With each page turned, he would immediately write down an incredibly precise total on the scrap paper next to it.

Xia Yuanji was the most outstanding financial expert in the Ming Dynasty, and he was extremely good at financial planning.

But he knew that if he went up there, his speed wouldn't even be one-tenth of that young man's.

Xia Yuanji quietly walked up behind Gu Yannian.

Holding my breath, I watched him finish calculating the entire thick ledger of autumn grain in Tongzhou.

"Seventeen thousand four hundred and fifty shi and three dou and two sheng..."

Xia Yuanji silently calculated the last stroke in his mind and found that the number written by Gu Yannian was exactly the same!

"My lord..."

Xia Yuanji finally couldn't help but speak, his voice filled with barely concealed excitement.

Gu Yannian pretended to only then notice someone behind him, quickly put down his pen, stood up and bowed.

"This humble official, Gu Yannian, the registrar of the Wenhua Hall, greets Minister Xia."

"No need for formalities, no need for formalities!"

Xia Yuanji grabbed Gu Yannian's wrist and stared at him intently, as if he were looking at a priceless treasure.

"Your calculations are truly masterful! Those incompetent fools in the Ministry of Revenue, even if ten of them did it for three days, couldn't match what you've accomplished in half an hour!"

"Gu Yannian, is it? I'll immediately go and plead with His Highness the Crown Prince to transfer you to the Ministry of Revenue as a clerk, specifically in charge of the capital's granary accounting!"

Another one has come who wants to promote him.

Gu Yannian sighed helplessly in his heart, but put on a very sincere bitter smile.

"Lord Xia, you flatter me. My calculations may seem quick, but they are merely the result of a skilled trade, relying only on brute force and rote memorization."

"If I were to go to the Ministry of Revenue and face the national treasury accounts that oversee the entire situation, my blockhead would probably not be able to utter a single word for half a day, and I would definitely mess up important matters of the court."

"Humility! Excessive humility is arrogance!"

Natsuhara Yoshi blew his beard and glared.

"I have an excellent eye for people. It would be a waste to put someone as meticulous as you as a clerk in the Wenhua Hall!"

Gu Yannian knew that Xia Caishen was an extremely stubborn person.

If his attention isn't diverted, this situation will be difficult to resolve amicably.

"Lord Xia, you think too highly of me."

Gu Yannian bowed slightly and changed the subject.

"I just heard that you are worried about money and grain, sir. When I was a commoner, I heard some salt merchants talking about it. Now the court is implementing the salt-exchange policy in the nine border regions, where merchants transport grain to the border in exchange for salt permits."

"But the journey was long and the losses were enormous, so the merchants complained bitterly and the grain they paid gradually decreased."

Xia Yuanji frowned.

"This is indeed the case. This is also the most troublesome problem for the Ministry of Revenue. What are your plans?"

"This humble official speaks presumptuously. If the imperial court were to allow merchants to recruit refugees near the border, cultivate wasteland, and grow grain locally, the produced grain could be directly stored in the granary and converted into salt certificates, wouldn't that save the cost and losses of transporting it thousands of miles?"

"With the salt permits obtained by merchants, the displaced people found a way to survive, the military rations at the border were secured, and the pressure on the Ministry of Revenue was naturally relieved."

The solution proposed by Gu Yannian is the historically famous "Shangtun".

This system gradually matured in the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, greatly alleviating the logistical pressure on border defense.

Upon hearing this, Xia Yuanji froze on the spot as if he had been frozen in place.

It was as if a thunderbolt had exploded in his mind.

Countless crucial details concerning border defense, salt administration, and household registration were instantly connected at this moment.

Yes!

Settling and trading on the spot is an absolutely brilliant and highly profitable strategy!

It not only solved the problem of military food supplies, but also pacified displaced people and increased the prosperity of the border region.

"What a brilliant idea to grow grain locally! What a brilliant strategy of commercial settlement!"

Xia Yuanji was so excited that he trembled all over and grabbed Gu Yannian's shoulders tightly.

"Gu Yannian, you are truly a genius! With this plan, the Ministry of Revenue can recover for at least three years! I will go and report this to the Emperor immediately!"

Xia Yuanji had no time to worry about poaching people; he turned around and rushed out of Wenhua Hall like a whirlwind.

They even forgot to pick up the fallen leaflets.

Gu Yannian rubbed his aching shoulders and shook his head helplessly.

He bent down, picked up the notes, and neatly arranged them, placing them aside.

The virtuous officials of the Ming Dynasty were all like wound-up tops, devoting themselves wholeheartedly to the people.

All he wanted was to leave work on time.

Gu Yannian glanced at the darkening sky outside the window and tidied up the writing implements on his desk.

Today is the Winter Solstice. Shen Wan said before leaving home this morning that she would make mutton and scallion dumplings for dinner.

No matter how important the affairs of the world are, they are not as important as a bowl of steaming dumpling soup at home.

He pulled his green robe tighter, pushed open the palace door, and stepped into the swirling snow.

Spring of the thirteenth year of the Yongle reign.

The ice and snow in Shuntian Prefecture gradually melted, and the willows along the moat sprouted tiny buds.

The weather in March is unpredictable, with sudden shifts between warm and cold; the spring breeze still carries a hint of chill on the face.

The Ming Dynasty held its first special imperial examination after moving the capital.

Scholars from all over the country carried their books and traveled thousands of miles to the capital.

All for the sake of leaping over the Dragon Gate, so that one can shed the white robes and don crimson and purple.

To demonstrate the court's emphasis on civil administration, Emperor Yongle (Zhu Di) specially appointed Yang Shiqi, a Grand Secretary of the Inner Cabinet, as the chief examiner to preside over this talent selection ceremony.

The imperial examination had strict rules to prevent collusion between examiners and candidates.

After all the exam papers were submitted, they had to go through two tedious processes: "sealing" and "copying".

Hundreds of clerks, drawn from various ministries and departments, were gathered in the copying office behind the examination hall.

They worked day and night to rewrite the candidates' papers in red ink before submitting them to the examiners for review.

As a clerk in the Wenhua Hall, Gu Yannian was naturally not exempt from the common practice.

He was shoved into this suffocating transcription office by a transfer order.

The air inside the transcription room was extremely stuffy and polluted.

Hundreds of clerks were crammed together in front of rows of narrow desks.

The strong smell of cheap ink, sweat, and black smoke from burning cheap candles mingled together.

The fumes made people dizzy and lightheaded.

Many elderly clerks stayed up for two days and two nights, their eyes bloodshot like rabbits', their hands trembling like leaves.

Gu Yannian sat upright in a corner seat, his blue official robes still neat and new, without a single wrinkle.

[Ding! Today's attendance complete. Attribute point gained +1.]

"Add it to your spirit," Gu Yannian murmured to himself.

To this day, he has spent more than a decade in the Hanlin Academy and the Wenhua Hall, and his various attributes have steadily broken through the thousand mark.

The extreme value for an average person is ten.

His current mental strength has reached a terrifying level that is completely incomprehensible to ordinary people.

He picked up a candidate's original exam paper from the side of him, glancing at the paper only briefly.

That lengthy article of several thousand words is like a painting etched in my mind.

Every stroke of each character is crystal clear.