Hot flashes

The list of those to be promoted was drawn up on the very night that the four main culprits, Cui, Lu, Zheng, and Shen, were executed.

Xiao Jue did not use the cabinet, nor did he go through the Ministry of Personnel, nor did he even involve anyone in his opinions. He sat alone under the lamp in the East Warm Pavilion, added a few names with a vermilion pen, crossed out two, and finally put down the pen, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes for a while.

At the court assembly on the tenth day of the first lunar month, Xiao Jue read out the list to the public.

The list was very long, taking almost half an hour to read. It included officials of the third to seventh rank, officials from the capital to local governments, civil officials to military officers, and dozens of people.

Each time a name was read aloud, a low hum would rise in the hall—not of opposition, but of astonishment.

Those whose names were called included some of the lowest-ranking officials in various departments, some even clerks without any official rank, and a few seventh-rank county magistrates who had been summoned to the capital from remote, poor counties by a single order. They stood in the cold wind outside the palace for an entire morning, their faces turning blue from the cold, still unaware of what had happened.

What is most noteworthy is the promotion path of some of them.

The county magistrate of Jiangning County, under the jurisdiction of Jiangning Prefecture, was surnamed Lu and named Lu Jian. He was promoted directly from the eighth rank to the Vice Minister of the Court of Imperial Stud, a fourth rank, a promotion of six ranks.

When the news spread, some people in the court gasped, some looked at each other in bewilderment, and some lowered their heads in silence. Not one person stood up to object—not because they didn't want to, but because they dared not.

Lu Jian's actions in Jiangning County had already been reported throughout the imperial court through Han Zhang's secret report.

When the flood breached the dike, the county magistrate ran away, the county constable ran away, and most of the yamen runners ran away, but he was the only one who didn't run away.

He led a few old yamen runners who hadn't fled and dozens of young and strong disaster victims, using sandbags and wooden stakes to forcefully block the breach and save the water level of half the county.

For several days and nights, he ate and slept on the dike, soaking in waist-deep floodwaters. His legs were covered in bruises the size of bowls from being hit by driftwood, and his lips were frozen purple. He could barely stand, so he leaned against the dike and used his trembling hands to draw a simple topographical map, marking every possible location where the dike might breach. He then sent it to Han Zhang on horseback.

When Han Zhang received the drawing, the ink on it had already been blurred by water.

If such a person is not promoted, who should be promoted? As for his lack of official rank, not being a Jinshi (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations), and having no foundation in his official career—in Xiao Jue's view, these are not shortcomings, but advantages, enormous advantages.

There was also that old military officer who had retired from the Northern Army. His surname was Wei, and his given name was Wei Tie; his name was as rough as he was.

He spent twenty years in the North, fighting his way up from a common soldier to captain of a scout battalion. His body was covered in knife and arrow wounds, half of his left ear was cut off, and an arrow had struck his right knee, which still hurts so much on rainy days that he can't walk.

When Xiao Jue ascended the throne, rewards were distributed based on merit, and low-ranking officers like him were not even considered.

He spent several years sitting on the sidelines in the Ministry of War's Department of Military Affairs, where his daily work consisted of looking through maps and border reports sent from various places, piecing together the fragmented information, and writing it into the bi-weekly "Border Situation Summary".

The Minister and Vice Minister of the Ministry of War never even glanced at that "Border Situation Summary," but Xiao Jue read every single issue. Not only did he read it, but he also circled and marked it with a vermilion pen, and sometimes he would write a few words in the corner, asking Wei Tie about the source of a certain data or the basis of a certain judgment.

Wei Tie didn't know who was reading what he wrote. He simply wrote down everything he knew faithfully, without questioning right or wrong or trying to guess what his superiors wanted. He answered whatever they asked, and if he couldn't answer, he honestly said he didn't know.

Such a person could spend his entire life in the officialdom of the capital and never get ahead, but that's exactly the kind of person Xiao Jue needed.

He transferred Wei Tie directly from the Ministry of War's Military Affairs Department to the Privy Council. The Privy Council was a newly established institution after Xiao Jue ascended the throne, responsible for the collection and analysis of military intelligence. Although its rank was not high, its power was terrifyingly heavy. It was directly responsible to the emperor, and even the Minister of War had no right to interfere.

When Wei Tie received the transfer order, he was eating a cold steamed bun in the duty room of the Bureau of Personnel.

He stared at the transfer order stamped with the imperial seal for a long time, put down the steamed bun, wiped his hands with his sleeve, and only then dared to take it.

People like Lu Jian and Wei Tie were promoted in large numbers during this promotion process.

They had one thing in common—they had no clan to rely on, no powerful backers to depend on, and everything they had—official positions, salaries, future prospects, and even their lives—was entirely dependent on the emperor.

They won't become powerful clans, because powerful clans require generations of accumulation, and their family can't even produce a decent family tree.

It was even less likely that they would band together to rebel, because rebellion requires shared interests, and their only common ground was that without the emperor, they were nothing.

At the end of the list, Xiao Jue wrote a line of comments in vermilion ink: "All those promoted are personally selected by me. As long as they are alive, I am here; if they die, I am still here." This line was written in the blank space of the list. The characters were not large, but each stroke was powerful and penetrated the back of the paper. The ink bleeds through the paper as if it were branded on.

When Zhou Heng later saw this comment, he remained silent for a long time.

He recalled Xiao Jue's words in the East Warm Pavilion: "No clan, no backer, no old favors, only loyalty to the imperial power." At the time, he thought it was just a casual remark by Xiao Jue as a standard for employing people. But now, seeing this line of comments, he realized that it was not a standard, but a guiding principle.

Xiao Jue wasn't just using people; he was rebuilding a social class, a power structure that would fundamentally replace the legacy of aristocratic families.

Those officials from humble backgrounds, loyal clerks, and meritorious military generals who were promoted beyond their rank formed the first batch of cornerstones of the new class.

The issuance of the first batch of decrees promoting officials beyond their rank caused a greater shock to the capital's officialdom than the four treason cases themselves.

The treason case resulted in the execution of high-ranking officials, those old forces that had been entrenched with powerful families for decades. They deserved to die, and it was expected that everyone would applaud their execution.

But promotions that skip ranks are different; they affect the very foundation, the unwritten rule in officialdom that has existed for thousands of years—promotion based on seniority, with each radish in its own hole, and if the radish in front isn't pulled out, the radish behind can forget about getting in.