The untimely death of Song Qijing's father made Song Hongbao deeply sad.
Not only was the white-haired man giving black hair, but it was also because these two sons were the ones he had high hopes for, hoping to pass the Jinshi examination, earn a Jinshi memorial arch for the Song family, and lead the Song family to truly become a wealthy family.
The Song family has never produced a Jinshi.
Unfortunately, the father of Song Qijing, who was expected to become a Jinshi, died of illness.
Later, Song Hongbao could only place his hopes on other people. Unfortunately, each one was worse than the other, and even the talented scholars failed to pass the exam.
In the end, he had to rely on his only son Song Qijing, whose second son died of illness!
As Song Qijing grew up, he reluctantly inherited his father's talent for reading.
When he was eighteen years old, he took the examination for high school student examination. Although he failed in the provincial examination for the first time, there was still hope that he would be able to pass the provincial examination with a few more years of accumulation in the future.
As for Jinshi, don't expect it, it's not that level.
But when Song Qijing was preparing to take part in the second provincial examination, the Chu army had already captured the city of Hanyang and recruited famous scholars and senior officials as officials on a large scale.
The young Song Qijing was deceived by his friends and went directly to sign up to be an officer in the rural protection army. At that time, Luo Zhixue had not yet proclaimed himself emperor.
He was first awarded the seventh rank, and because he defected early, he was promoted very quickly in the next few months.
Now in late February of the second year of Chengshun, Song Qijing has served as a deputy director of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, rising from the fourth rank.
Otherwise, why do you think the Song family immediately moved closer to the officialdom of the Chu Empire and spent real money to purchase the Lin family weaving factory?
In addition to the Song family's original intention to enter the textile industry, there is also the relationship between Song Qijing.
All the direct descendants of the Song family have defected to thieves...oh, no, they have joined the dragon, and they have been promoted and divided into divisions. They have all become middle- and high-level officials.
How could the Song family stay out of the matter?
impossible!
If the Great Chu Empire was doomed that day and the Ming army came back, the first choice to deal with it would be the gentry and gentry who had taken refuge in the army to protect the thieves.
Because they are traitors!
And traitors are more hateful than enemies!
So Song Hongbao secretly sent his fifth son and his family to the south of the Yangtze River, leaving a backup bloodline for the Song family, and then took the remaining Song family members to lean towards the officialdom of the Great Chu Empire.
If it weren't for Song Hongbao himself being too old to do anything, he would have thought of directly becoming an official in the Chu Empire.
After all, he was a scholar, so he would definitely be good enough to get an official position, and he would be able to help his grandson Song Qijing to some extent.
But because I am too old and in poor health, I really can’t do it.
Since he couldn't help his grandson much in his career, he had to help clear other obstacles for his promising grandson.
At least, don't let this grandson ruin his future because of external things.
Try to give their old Song family a senior official.
As for the rest, we can only rely on Song Qijing's own efforts.
————
In Wuchang City, Song Qijing from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry did not know his grandfather's arrangements for him. Now he has dark circles on his face and looks extremely haggard.
Looking at the thick pile of documents on the desktop, Song Qijing put down the pen in his hand, sighed and leaned back on his chair.
too tired!
Before becoming an official, he had never thought that being an official would be so tiring.
Moreover, before he joined the Great Chu Empire, he had never heard of his surrounding mentors being so busy after becoming officials in the Ming Dynasty.
In his early understanding, being an official determines the general direction. He needs to stand at a higher level than ordinary people, look at the world of the court, and then make choices that are beneficial to the people's livelihood and the court.
As for how to implement the matter after making the choice, naturally many subordinates, especially officials, will handle it.
Didn't you see that many people passed the Jinshi examination and then went out to work as county magistrates? They all traveled around and took the beauty with them. From time to time, they were promoted to high schools and photographed, which caused a lot of panic.
In his opinion, if he joined the Chu Empire as an official, his life should be like this.
But he did not expect that after entering the court and becoming an official, his life would be completely different from what he expected.
He was assigned to work in the Agriculture Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry from the beginning. The Agriculture Department was considered a senior department in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and even in the entire administrative system of the Dachu Empire.
Because this department is responsible for agricultural production affairs, which is to encourage farming in the traditional sense.
Specifically, they need to be responsible for organizing land reclamation and land reclamation, and guiding farmers to resume farming and production to increase food production.
This kind of matter is a heavyweight matter for any country that is mainly based on agriculture. After all, food is the most important thing for the people.
If there is not enough food, people will starve to death.
Because of the heavy tasks, this department also has many things to do. The most important task at present is to guide the restoration of agricultural production in various places.
In the past few years, due to natural and man-made disasters, a large amount of land in northern Chu and Nanyangfu in Henan has been abandoned, and grain output has been reduced again and again.
After the Dachu Empire took control of these places, the first thing it did was to collect taxes, and the second thing was to organize the local people to resume farming.
Among them, Nanyang Prefecture, Xiangyang Prefecture, Yunyang Prefecture, and Junzhou have the most arduous tasks.
Because these four places have suffered double persecution from bandits and officers and soldiers in the past few years, a large number of people have been killed, injured or fled, and a large amount of land has been abandoned.
At the same time, Nanyang Prefecture and Xiangyang Prefecture have also suffered from relatively severe droughts in recent years.
It is said to be serious, but in fact, it is just like that in the modern society of later generations... The only thing that is enough to survive is a few more news reports saying that the water levels of rivers and lakes have dropped...
However, in the late Ming Dynasty, an era when technological capabilities and production capacity were seriously backward and water conservancy facilities were almost zero, drought of this degree has seriously affected local people's livelihood.
Ever since the Chu Empire moved south to control Nanyang and Xiangyang Prefectures, it has almost been thinking of ways to restore local agricultural production.
First, the banditry was eliminated, so that the local people were no longer threatened by bandits or officers and soldiers.
Then, the work-for-relief method was adopted, and a large amount of money and grain were allocated to recruit local refugees who could not survive, and the poor children were used to build various water conservancy facilities.
At the same time, he also called on the local gentry and ordinary people to contribute money and efforts to build various water conservancy facilities for their hometowns.
At the same time, grain seeds and agricultural tools are provided to local people through free distribution and interest-free loans in parallel, so that farmers can resume production.
These policies are naturally a good thing for local farmers, especially those tenants with very weak ability to resist risks.
But the implementation of policies also requires people to do it. After such a large amount of money is spent, the higher-ups, especially the emperor Luo Zhixue, want to see the results.
If the money is spent but no results are seen, not only His Majesty will have objections, but even other departments will have objections.
Why are other departments dissatisfied?
Because last year, when we finally decided to allocate money and food to several northern prefectures for disaster relief, we already had the money, but it was all squeezed out of limited funds.
Although the Dachu Empire's fiscal revenue was very high last year, its military expenditures were also large. Most of the fiscal revenue eventually turned into military expenditures for war.
This does not leave much funds for administrative agencies, and a considerable part of these administrative funds are taken up by the Ministry of Taxation and the Ministry of Industry, leaving even less for other departments.
With limited funds, various departments compete fiercely for funds.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry at that time snatched a large amount of funds from other agencies on the grounds of restoring agricultural production in several northern provinces and providing relief to local victims.
As for providing relief and restoring people's livelihood, other people don't have any opinions or dare to have any opinions.
But if the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry takes the money and fails to do anything, or spends all the money and fails to do anything, then don't blame the bosses of several other agencies for settling old scores.
For this reason, people at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry are also under great pressure, and the Department of Agriculture, which is specifically responsible for this time, is even more under pressure.
As a member of the Department of Agriculture, Song Qijing began his career as an official without ever touching the ground as soon as he joined the big family of the Chu Empire.
I go out early and come back late every day, dealing with various files that seem to be endless.
Unknowingly, Song Qijing, who was so busy that he was dizzy, would move up a level from time to time, and sometimes jump up to two levels.
In January this year, when he was the chief of a certain section of the Land Development Division of the Department of Agriculture, he followed the then director of the Department of Agriculture on a trip to Xiangyang Prefecture to inspect the local re-cultivation situation and the construction of water conservancy facilities.
It was already January after I returned from the inspection. After returning, because of my diligence and the fact that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry was really short of manpower, I was quickly promoted to deputy director of the Land Development Division of the Agriculture Department, and my rank was also promoted to the fourth grade.
When he entered Conglong in July, he was just an ordinary clerk in the seventh rank. By February this year, he had become the deputy director of the fourth rank, and it only took half a year.
This kind of promotion speed would be like riding a rocket if it were placed in the Ming Dynasty.
But it was normal in the Da Chu Empire.
Last spring, the Dachu Empire was only entrenched in the Funiu Mountain area. It only began to expand in March and entered Nanyang Mansion in April.
Strictly speaking, it only took one year for the Great Chu Empire to break out from the Funiu Mountain area.
In this year, the Great Chu Empire expanded from a few thousand people to nearly 200,000 troops. The territory it occupied expanded from a remote mountainous area to the entire northern Chu region plus Nanyang Prefecture in Henan and Wuchang Mansion in Southern Chu.
In order to control such a huge place, the number of administrative officials in the Chu Empire quickly increased from a few hundred people in the early days to tens of thousands.
In this kind of rapid expansion, if you join a few months earlier, as long as you don't make any principled mistakes, you can be promoted continuously...
Especially the dozens of people who came here during the Funiu Mountain period, including many ministers and ministers, and even more division chiefs and magistrates.
But someone like Song Qijing, who came here only after July, is still not bad. Getting promoted is as easy as drinking water.
His friend Chen Haoren, who had defected with Song Qijing, is now the deputy director of the Taxation Department.
That's a third-grade position, but also a position of real power.
Compared with someone like Chen Haoren, Song Qijing's fourth grade is not that eye-catching.
