In Hanyang City Palace, Guo Quanshu hurriedly walked to Luo Zhixue's office with a lot of documents.
After calming down a little, Guo Quanshu walked in.
As soon as I entered, I saw more than a dozen Hanlin Academy officials busy inside. One of them looked up and saw Guo Quanshu, and immediately stood up: "Master Guo, you are here. Have you brought the documents?"
Guo Quanshu said: "I've brought them all with me. I need to bother Wang Zhangyuan to report!"
Wang Qifu chuckled: "Mr. Guo, you're welcome. Please wait a moment. I'll report it right away!"
Wang Qifu immediately turned around, then walked to Luo Zhixue's office door and knocked twice: "Your Majesty, Lord Guo Quanshu is already here!"
A few seconds later, Luo Zhixue's voice came out: "Let him come in!"
After hearing this, Wang Qifu turned around and reappeared in front of Guo Quanshu after a while: "Master Guo, your Majesty has summoned you!"
Guo Quanshu then followed Wang Qifu and entered Luo Zhixue's large office.
After entering the door, Guo Quanshu immediately saw Luo Zhixue sitting behind the big table. He saw Luo Zhixue writing something with a brush.
Guo Quanshu bowed forward and said: "I pay homage to my emperor!"
Only then did Luo Zhixue raise his head: "Here you go, wait a minute while I approve this book!"
After that, Luo Zhixue lowered his head and continued writing on the note.
This is a letter sent from Nanyang Prefecture. It talks about the local work-for-relief affairs and requests that some money and grain be allocated for subsequent work-for-relief affairs.
Luo Zhixue has read it carefully and is giving instructions at this time: "Resisting against disasters is related to people's livelihood and it is urgent to increase the number of workers. If the money and food are insufficient, money and food may be allocated as appropriate."
The specific amount of food to be given is naturally not what Luo Zhixue needs to be concerned about. The ministers will naturally discuss it later, and finally it will be implemented by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Works and other agencies.
After giving instructions, Luo Zhixue put down his pen and looked up at Guo Quanshu: "Okay!"
After Guo Quanshu saw Luo Zhixue finished his work, he immediately said: "Your Majesty, I have brought over the resumes of the thirteen selected candidates."
As he spoke, he handed over a stack of documents in his hand.
Luo Zhixue took it and began to flip through it. These documents were all resumes of senior civil servants in the Chu Empire.
The reason why Guo Quanshu was asked to bring a bunch of resumes over was because the recently appointed magistrate of De'an Prefecture suddenly fell seriously ill, and now De'an Prefecture is a new control area and is in the process of improving the local county and town yamen. It is an important time to collect autumn grain.
Since the original prefect can no longer serve as governor, there can be no delay, so Luo Zhixue has to choose another suitable person to be the prefect to handle the subsequent affairs of De'an Prefecture.
The candidates on these resumes vary.
Several of them are old people from the Funiu Mountain period. These people all have similar characteristics. Their education level is not high and they can only barely read and write. However, since they are from Longzao and have strong seniority, as long as they don’t make any big mistakes along the way, they will be fine. They climbed up step by step, and now most of them are at the fourth or fifth level.
There are also a few who were demoted from official backgrounds, and their basic characteristics are similar. Before surrendering, they were low-level officials in the former Ming Dynasty. After surrendering, they gradually rose up, just like Dong Xinxin.
The rest are officials who were mainly scholars who were recruited in the past few months during the army's march eastward and south. Most of them were half-skilled scholars, and a few had the reputation of being a member of the army or even a member of the government.
The above three major groups are also the main civil servant groups in the Chu Empire.
Luo Zhixue looked through the resumes, looked at their employment history, then looked at the Ministry of Personnel Affairs' evaluation of their employment, and finally focused on one of the resumes.
Guan Xuelin, the current director of the Fisheries Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, is from Nanzhao County. He was one of the first batch of scholars to defect to Nanzhao County after the Baoxiang Army went south.
He has the reputation of being a scholar, but he is already an old scholar in his forties, and he is still a poor scholar...
After the Hometown Protection Army went south, they settled in the Li Qingdian area and recruited various talents. In order to ensure that his family could have enough to eat, Guan Xuelin surrendered to the thieves in one fell swoop...
He served in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry from the beginning, but there was too big a shortage of local officials in the rural protection army, so he temporarily served as the magistrate of Nanzhao County and the magistrate of Nanyang Prefecture for a period of time.
These service experiences are not considered formal transfers, but part-time positions.
In the early months, there was a shortage of talents in the Baoxiang Army, especially middle- and senior-level civil servants, so it was common for people to hold multiple positions.
Guang Guanglin was just one of them, and this person did quite well while serving as the magistrate of Nanzhao County and the Tongzhi of Nanyang Prefecture.
Especially when he served as Tongzhi of Nanyang Prefecture, he made great efforts to restore the local people's livelihood and achieved considerable results.
After thinking about it for a while, Luo Zhixue said directly: "Let's take Guan Xuelin. Let him take up the post in De'an Mansion immediately. He should seize the work of De'an Mansion as soon as possible. We must not delay the work!"
Guo Quanshu immediately said: "I obey the order!"
After responding to this matter, Guo Quanshu said again: "Your Majesty, the preparations for selecting officials are almost complete. According to our visits and investigations, there are currently a total of twenty-six former Ming officials who were elected, appointed or dismissed, and at least two more. More than a hundred scholars with great reputations are willing to defect to our great state of Chu and serve Your Majesty!"
Luo Zhixue said: "Since everything is ready, don't delay in recruiting directly. There is a shortage of people everywhere. Having this group of people can also alleviate the gap!"
After Luo Zhixue finished speaking, he thought for a few seconds and then said: "As I told you last time, this kind of official selection is a temporary emergency measure. It is okay for the time being, but we still have to hold the imperial examination ourselves. , the one who selects talents!”
Guo Quanshu said: "I have already discussed with the Ministry of Rites and Education and are planning to hold our first imperial examination in Chu in late November. It is for the enthronement of Enke. Next year, we will hold a more comprehensive examination." The imperial examinations will be held from the county examination to the general examination."
Luo Zhixue said: "Well, this imperial examination needs to be run and it needs to be run well. You can go back and discuss it with the Ministry of Ethics and Education. You must select more available talents to enrich each institution!"
“In addition, the military will also have a group of soldiers who have retired due to injuries and other physical reasons. These soldiers have all received literacy classes. At that time, appropriate arrangements must be made to allow them to transfer to local areas and play an important role.
There is still a talent shortage problem in the new Great Chu Empire. Whether it is mid-level or senior officials or ordinary staff, the Great Chu Empire is in short supply.
This is mainly because the contemporary literacy rate is too low. Luo Zhixue worries that the literacy rate these days may not be even 90%.
Moreover, among the many people who are literate, they only know a few hundred commonly used characters, the kind that cannot even write official documents.
In addition to the lack of talents, it also has something to do with the Chu Empire itself.
After all, they came here to rebel. In the past, they were still thieves in people's eyes. Many people were also wary of the Great Chu Empire and were not so willing to become officials in the Great Chu Empire.
Under such many circumstances, the Chu Empire has never been able to recruit enough administrative talents.
In this regard, Luo Zhixue has also thought of many ways, such as recruiting a large number of half-hearted scholars. They do not require you to be talented, but only need to know a few hundred common words to meet the needs of the most basic officials.
You can learn things like writing official documents after you come in, and you can even continue to study and improve your cultural level after you come in.
Another example is setting up various types of administrative training courses to recruit officials within its own system, especially grassroots officials who are a large number of half-hearted scholars, for rotation training, and selecting those with outstanding performance as candidates for mid-level officials and focusing on training them.
Another example is selecting officials from within the military.
Why are officials selected from the military? Because the military has its own literacy education. After entering the recruit camp, the soldiers of the Baoxiang Army need to attend literacy classes in addition to daily training.
I won’t learn anything too advanced, just things like reading and basic arithmetic.
Even the Ming Jiang soldiers who surrendered need to attend literacy classes.
Although the cultural level of these soldiers who have gone through literacy classes is not too high, they are still much better than the illiterate.
During the battle, soldiers will inevitably be injured. Some of the injured soldiers who are not suitable to continue fighting in the army will retire and be assigned to serve in the administrative system.
In fact, the number of this group is not large for the time being, because the Baoxiang Army's combat casualties have never been large, and some of them survived after being injured, but there are even fewer people who are not suitable to continue serving in the army.
But Luo Zhixue attaches great importance to these people, and they are often assigned to important positions, especially in the two major local police and tax police agencies that are in charge of force.
Because to a certain extent, these people are the foundation of the Chu Empire.
The Great Chu Empire has been an army since the era of Baoxiang Army!
The current Da Chu Empire is actually an army in the name of the country. The military is the main body, and the administrative officials actually serve the military.
This relationship cannot be confused.
Retired soldiers, recruited scholars, demoted officials, and some elderly people from the Funiu Mountain period together constitute the current civil service system of the Baoxiang Army.
Such a relatively mixed civil service team with uneven levels is naturally not good.
But Luo Zhixue doesn't expect them to be very good. He just needs to be able to maintain people's livelihood and production step by step without causing large-scale unrest in the local area.
As for real local governance, it can only come slowly later.
First of all, the number of officials needs to be increased. There are only a few officials. It’s useless to talk about governance when no one is doing anything!
Under this background, Zhang Zijin, who visited friends in Hanyang City, also took advantage of the situation and became an official of the Chu Empire.
Under the introduction of Fang Xubing, who had surrendered to Chu first, and after an in-depth discussion with the official of the Literary and Selection Department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the Great Chu Empire, he readily agreed.
It's not that he is imprudent, it's that the other party gave too much!
The Director of the Literature and Selection Department seemed to be particularly satisfied with his talents, especially his opinions on the imperial examination. After the conversation, he directly threw over him a top-notch official hat.
And he is not a local official, but an inspector under the Imperial Examination Department of the Ministry of Ethnic Education, who is directly involved in the upcoming Dengji Enke affairs.
He still doesn't quite understand the official system of the Luo Chu Dynasty, but he knows that in the Ming court, the position of school inspector is definitely a smooth path!
Since Luo Chu treated me as a nobleman of the country, I will repay him as a nobleman of the country!
Zhang Zijin didn't know that all the twenty-six candidates or officials who came over on their own initiative had been awarded the fifth rank.
