Chapter 240: The First Day of Employment

"What? You asked me to be a wingman for that county official? In the elegant and quiet Shen Yuan study, Shen Liao's unbelievable exclamation came, which made the servants who were waiting nearby look sideways, and they all held their breath and concentrated, for fear of disturbing the two sons who quarreled and talked and harmed the pond fish.

"Ruida, don't be impatient." Shen Yu frowned, and wrote lightly: "It's just for you to help, I have already told Jing Chun, as long as you go to the county office from time to time to sit for a while, remind Jing Chun of the things that you should pay attention to, and give you the maximum freedom for the rest of the time, I will definitely not interfere with you." ”

"I didn't agree, so why should he interfere." Shen Liao said coldly: "Big brother, don't you know, what I hate most is these tedious things, I can't avoid them, you still want me to be in a cage, it's too ruthless." ”

"What ruthless, this is also to spur you on." Shen Yu shook his head slightly, and sighed: "Ruida, you see that Jingchun is a few years younger than you, but he is already a Jinshi and a county official, and what about you, who sings and drinks wildly on weekdays, is obsessed with gold and stone calligraphy and painting, and even doesn't even participate in the exam, is it that in your eyes, these side roads are more important than the future of fame?" ”

Shen Liao was silent, and wanted to nod his head very much, but when he saw Shen Yu's eyes that hated iron and steel, he couldn't say this anyway.

"Our Shen family has been passing down poems and books for generations, our uncle and grandfather are all Jinshi, and my father and uncle are also Jinshi, thanks to the blessing of the ancestors, I was lucky to win, and finally did not lose the face of the Shen family." Shen Yu said earnestly: "Father often says, your talent is above mine, as long as you are willing to study hard, your future achievements will definitely be far greater than mine, and Sister Yao also has high hopes for you, I hope you will not disappoint your family." ”

"Then I'm studying hard at home, so why bother to be a staff member." After being silent, Shen Liao said softly, he didn't understand these truths, it was just his nature, he looked down on fame and fortune, if it wasn't for his family's expectations, he would never have taken the Xiucai exam.

"It's good to study hard, but if you just learn and don't ask, you can't improve your knowledge." The Song Dynasty's style of study was more pragmatic, and he had his own unique views on learning, and dead poetry and books were not familiar with the world, which was undesirable in the eyes of the world, and his thinking was not as rigid as in the Ming and Qing dynasties, so Shen Yu vetoed Shen Liao's decision.

"Jing Chun studied under the great Confucian He Shi of Bianliang City, he is very knowledgeable, and he has lived in Kyoto for a long time, and he has seen a lot of knowledge, I asked you to be a staff member by his side, just hoping that you can take this opportunity to ask him more for advice to enhance his knowledge." Shen Yu said with a smile.

"I, ask him, for advice." Shen Liao shouted, his eyes wide open, and his face was unconvinced.

"Yes, what's the matter, the way of cultivation, the master comes first, what is there to be surprised about." Shen Yu said with a smile: "Of course, Jing Chun and I are close friends, so I am naturally willing to point out to you, so I don't need you to be a disciple." ”

"If you still want me to perform the gift of a disciple, it depends on whether he has the ability." Shen Liao sneered, in Hangzhou, except for the eldest brother Shen Yu, among the younger generation of scholars, those who want to convince themselves may not have been born yet.

Smiling slightly, Shen Yu knew his younger brother's temperament, and was afraid that he would be indifferent, so he deliberately said this, and when he saw that his goal was achieved, he cleverly changed the topic and said: "Ruida, I am ready to set off tomorrow, and I am ready to invite Jing Jingchun to come and introduce you two to him, and you will have to be close to him at that time." ”

"So fast, didn't you say you'd leave in a few days?" Shen Liao was surprised.

"With your help to Jing Chun, I am naturally relieved, so what's the harm in setting off early." Shen Yu said with a chuckle.

"I haven't said yes yet." Shen Liao pursed his lips and muttered, "Famous young talent in Bianjing, I really want to see if it is worthy of the name." ”

In the early morning, there was a sound of bamboo planks tapping in his ears, Chu Zhen flipped his body in a daze, and planned to continue to sleep with the beauty next to the pillow, but he didn't expect to pounce on him, and couldn't help but snort, and immediately opened his eyes, looked at the familiar and unfamiliar bedroom, and shook slightly, and then woke up, knowing that he was already in Qiantang, not in the Chu Mansion of Bianliang City.

In a trance for a moment, there was still some discomfort with the change of identity, slowly put on his clothes, in the more than ten days on the ship, without the service of the first child, Chu Zhen has learned to be self-reliant, a few breaths of effort to dress neatly, open the door to see, but see that the sky is still only a white patch, not completely transparent, judging by experience, it should be about six o'clock now, that is, the ancient Mao time.

Seeing Chu Zhi's figure, Liu Renzhi, who had been waiting in front of the door for a while, came over with a smile on his face to salute and say goodbye, followed by Changgui who was holding a warm water towel, and asked Liu Renzhi to wait for a while.

The county is the foundation of the rule of the imperial court, and the functions of various departments of the imperial court are extended on this basis.

Household registration, taxes, acres, water conservancy, Caoyi, etc., can be piled up to form a half-person-high city wall, and the advantage of having an uncle who has been a county magistrate is that Chu Zhen randomly extracted the county government's account accounts from those materials, and the others didn't look at it at all, and asked directly: "Master Liu, when the magistrate left the county, did he leave any unfinished cases?" ”

"Nope." Liu Renzhi shook his head and said, a trace of surprise flashed in his eyes, looking at the appearance of the new magistrate, it seems that he is no stranger to the situation in the county office, not at all like a first-time official, when he first came to the magistrate of the county for quite a few years, he really spent half a month looking at these volumes, and then he woke up to the fact that most of the volumes here have expired and are useless.

If you don't spend some time and patience, you don't know what to do, and these data are written by people, and it is also a very normal thing to be smeared and modified, and it is indeed difficult to judge the truth from it, as long as you are willing to spend a year and a half of time, carefully verify and check, you can naturally get the most real situation, the problem is that since you have this time patience, it is better to directly inspect the field, and why do this time-consuming and laborious, and unflattering things.

Carefully flipped through the situation of the county Yadu branch, and saw that there were still more than 2,000 yuan in the treasury to use, and there was no mess left for himself, Chu Zhen was a little happy, this predecessor is really interesting, if you have the opportunity to meet in the future, you must thank him well.

The Song Dynasty stipulated that after the local government paid the annual tax to the imperial court, the remaining part could be used by itself, generally in the payment of soap officials, repairs to the county government, and replacement of equipment, at the disposal of the county, prepared to say, should be squandered, of course, there is also a premise, the reason for spending public money must be reasonable, but also to say exactly where the money is spent.

As long as you don't embezzle money into your own pocket, how to use it is your own business, even if it is irrelevant business, it doesn't matter if you invite guests, anyway, making friends with literati in the eyes of the world, is an elegant thing, which is more enviable than modern public and private use, after all, compared with the sneaky, unsightly public private use, people can use it above board, justifiably, without worrying about being invited to tea.

Smiling, as if remembering something, Chu Zhi hesitated and said, "By the way, Master Liu, why don't you see County Lieutenant Li." ”

The local official system of the Song Dynasty, the early stage basically followed the old system of the Tang Dynasty, the administrative organs were divided into two levels, the state and county, after the Song Taizong, the country was divided into a number of roads, the road is equivalent to the road of the Tang Dynasty, which became the road, the state, the county three levels.

The county is the lowest level of local administrative institutions, and the Song Dynasty stipulated that the customization of county officials is: more than 1,000 households in the county, still place orders, captains, and master books, and all three members; If the household is less than 1,000, there is a member of the cessation order and a lieutenant, and the county order is also the chief bookkeeper; If it is less than 400, the main book and the county lieutenant will be stopped, and the main book will also be the governor of the county; If it is less than two hundred, the main book will be stopped, and the county lieutenant will be served, which is no different from the previous generation.

But there are also different from the previous generation, the officials are more than the same thing, but also restore the post of county lieutenant, the original county lieutenant is in charge of the military, five dynasties and ten countries, the county military by the Jiedu envoy sent a town general to manage, to the Song Dynasty, changed to the county lieutenant, its power and the town general is far from the same, only in charge of local security and litigation and other things, the power is weakened, but still divided the power of the county order.

The reason why so many positions were set up was, in the final analysis, that the Zhao and Song dynasties realized the harm of separating feudal towns in the Tang Dynasty, and were not worried about the local power in their hands, so they wanted to concentrate all the local administrative, judicial, financial, and military powers in the central government, creating a situation where the strong cadres were weak and the branches were weak.

And there is also a significant feature that most of the time the county does not set up an order, and the imperial court directly appoints the Beijing official to take the official to take charge of the government of a county, that is, the so-called county affairs, know, is the meaning of the agent, so the county will not stay in the local area for too long, basically a three-year term, after the expiration, no matter what the political performance, must be changed, or promoted or moved, to prevent officials from staying in one place for too long, colluding with local forces to sit big, difficult to control.

"Two days ago, there was a fight between two villages in a certain township for some reason, and the county lieutenant Li went to mediate, but the incident happened suddenly, and he couldn't tell when the adult would arrive, so he could only go to deal with it first, not intentionally neglected, please don't be surprised." Liu Renzhi hurriedly said, how to say that he is also a colleague, and the relationship is not bad on weekdays, he is not willing to let Chu Zhen misunderstand.

"I came by boat, and there was no way to inform you in advance." Chu Zhen smiled and said: "Those who don't know are not guilty, and besides, the business is important, what do I have to blame." ”

Liu Renzhi breathed a sigh of relief, but he heard Chu Zhen say in a deep voice: "Master Liu, the fight between the two villages involves local stability, which cannot be ignored, and I haven't seen County Lieutenant Li come back for two days, so it can be seen that the matter is not trivial, and I have to send someone to investigate, but I don't know if the state government knows about it?" Saying that, Chu Qian's good mood also faded, I was afraid that it seemed safe and sound on the surface, but there was an undercurrent in the dark, and it would be troublesome.

"The two villages are far away from the county seat, and it will take some time to go back and forth to deal with things properly, so there should be no problems." Liu Renzhi said softly: "This matter was reported to the state government, and then ordered by the state government to be handed over to us for handling. ”

It's just a matter of overstepping the level to report, Chu Zhen didn't feel confused, after all, the official offices at the third level of the county, state and road are all in the same city, and if it is himself, he also chooses to go to the state government to report the case, after all, in the world's cognition, officials with a big rank should be more trustworthy, maybe they can do less in the future, Chu Zhen thought happily, and did not feel that his authority was affected at all.

"In that case, let's wait a little longer." Chu Zhi said, anyway, Liu Renzhi must have more experience than himself, and there should be no mistake in humbly obeying.

"By the way, my lord, this is your job contract, please take a look." Liu Renzhi nodded slightly, then took out a few yellowed pages of paper from his arms and respectfully presented them.

"I'm tired." Chu Zhi said lightly, and took the contract very naturally.

The officials of the Song Dynasty, the high salary and welfare, I am afraid to make modern people jealous, the content is rich, breathtaking, not only there are fixed monthly regular salary, Lu Su, job money, spring and winter clothes, food and clothing, tea and wine, kitchen materials, charcoal and livestock feed, etc., clothing, food, housing and transportation, and even the expenses of family members, all paid by the imperial court, and there is also a tax reduction and exemption of the job field.

Vocational field, as the name suggests, is only obtained with official positions, and does not belong to the officials themselves, nor does they have to work personally, naturally there are full-time farmers to cultivate, and officials only need to receive the harvest income on time, and as long as the official is not in this position, the ownership of the vocational field will naturally not know who the flowers are.

belongs to his own legitimate interests, Chu Zhen did not have the habit of pushing out, put away the job field contract, and said with a smile: "Master Liu, I will ask you about something." ”

"Please speak clearly, the lower officials will naturally know everything, and they will say everything." Liu Renzhi hurriedly bowed his hand, although the contact time was not long, but he could see that this new county official is not very old, but he is not a master who can be fooled at will, and he still has to deal with it carefully.

"I heard that the second son of the Shen family, Shen Ruida, once worked as a priest in our county, but is there such a thing? Why did he resign as a detainer in the end? Chu Zhen asked with a smile, this kind of thing is not good to ask Shen Yu in person, so he had to inquire behind his back, as for how Shen Liao could become the county government secretary and other questions, Chu Zhen knew it, and he didn't need to ask, so as not to make people laugh.

Not to mention that the Shen family is a big local family, just because Shen Liao's deceased father Shen Fu is an official, it is enough to introduce Shen Liao to the position of a soap official who does not enter the stream, and the position of the soap official is clearly marked in private, as long as they can afford it, some county officials don't mind hiring a few more small officials who don't occupy the establishment.

From getting off the boat to greet him, and then to the county government banquet, his eyes can be said to be inseparable, and he is about to come out of his words, since even that person doesn't mind speaking out, then what else do you have to worry about, maybe it's the one who asked this to ask yourself, but I don't know what the two mean.

Liu Renzhi secretly pondered, and then smiled: "Speaking of the Shen family's Erlang, not only the county government, but even the people of Hangzhou are praised, they love to read, they are proficient in Zuo Chuan and Hanshu, they are good at calligraphy, and they are also handsome. ”

Listening to Liu Renzhi talking a lot of nonsense, Chu Zhen did not show impatience, but listened carefully with a warm smile.

"Back then, people were not sages, who could do nothing, young and frivolous, besides, it was a romantic person like Erlang, it was inevitable to make some minor mistakes, Erlang, did something to annoy the eldest son of the Shen family." The key words were vaguely mixed up, and Liu Renzhi continued: "I felt that I couldn't let him go on like this anymore, so I simply let him go to the county government to experience a period of time." ”

Chu Zhen's curiosity is not too strong, and he will not deliberately inquire about other people's **, he smiled when he heard this, and interjected: "Then how did he behave after he became the boss?" ”

"It's just very competent, or maybe it's a family heirloom." Glancing at Chu Zhen lightly, Liu Renzhi sincerely admired: "I originally thought that no matter how smart Shen Erlang was, he would have to study for a few days to become familiar with the work of the detention department, but I didn't expect that he seemed to be no stranger to this matter, whether it was writing official documents and lawsuits, or counting Caocang, there was nothing rare for him." ”

"It seems that what Brother Wentong said is true, with such a staff member by his side, he is not afraid that someone will deceive and fool himself." Chu Zhen whispered, people must be self-aware, have a specialization in the art industry, and if they don't understand it, then naturally they have to find someone who understands to help.

"When Erlang was in the county office, a few of us were much more leisurely." Liu Renzhi seemed to be a little nostalgic, shook his head slightly and said: "It's a pity, the county government is just a small pond, and it can't accommodate a person like Erlang, so he only did it for two months and left." ”

"What is the reason?" Chu asked.

"The lower officials don't know." Liu Renzhi said uncertainly: "I heard that I am tired of it." ”

"Tired of it?" Chu Zhen thought about it slightly, and then said with a chuckle: "Master Liu, please go and prepare a sedan chair, it is really rude to come to Hangzhou City for the first time, and you have not yet visited the state government to visit your superiors." ”

"My lord, please wait, the next official will go." Liu Renzhi hurriedly said, reaffirming in his heart that although this county official is young, he must be no stranger to the worldly feelings in the officialdom.

"Well, the volume seems to be a little scattered, and when I come back, I have to ask Master Liu to explain it carefully for me." Chu Zhen said with a smile.

"The lower officials dare to disobey their orders." Liu Renzhi lowered his head and said, sighing lightly in his heart, he knew that the county official understood so well, so he wouldn't play these little tricks.

Sitting on the stable sedan chair, when he set off towards the state office, Chu Zhen felt a little happy in his heart, it seems that being a county official is not as difficult as he imagined, as long as he is careful and careful, he can still be competent.