On the 14th day of the first month of the fifth year of Xuanping, Dongchen Village.

Chen Lifu got up early in the morning, and after getting dressed and breakfast under the service of the maids, he got into the carriage and took a few entourages into the city.

Today's Chen Lifu is not the same as in the past, not civilian clothes, but the Confucian clothes often worn by officials of the Tang Dynasty, which outsiders also call official clothes, this official uniform is made by several old mothers in the family for days, because Chen Lifu wants to wear it into the city today, and go to the Ministry of Rites and Literature to participate in the election of officials.

This official Confucianism was based on the traditional Confucian clothing worn by scholars.

The general style is the same as that of traditional Confucianism, but there are differences in details, such as seams and textures, and the overall tone is more stable.

However, it is worth noting that at present, the Tang Dynasty did not mandate what clothes officials should wear, because only different styles of metal badges were stipulated for the identity of officials, such as copper badges below the eighth grade, silver badges from the seventh to fourth grades, and gold badges above the third grade, and the patterns on them were also different.

However, in the case of convention, in recent years, Confucian clothing has quietly become the official uniform used by most officials.

Although Chen Lifu is now wearing the same Confucian clothes as many Tang officials, he is not wearing a badge that represents his grade, which means that he is not an official of the Tang Dynasty now.

After the renovation of the official road into the city years ago, it became much wider and smoother, and the carriage walked on it smoothly and quickly, and Xichen Village was originally on the outskirts of the city, so it soon arrived at the city gate, according to the practice of entering the city in the past, this time without Chen Lifu's orders, the entourage paid the silver directly, and then the group entered the city directly from the fast channel.

After entering the city, the carriage went directly to the yamen of the ministry, and after the entourage handed over an invitation letter and reported his life, Chen Lifu was able to enter the yamen of the ministry, and his entourage naturally could not go in with him, but went to the side room for the sedan chair driver, coachman and others to rest and settle down.

After entering the yamen of the ministry, Chen Lifu found that the people in the yamen were all in a hurry, and the people who entered and exited some office rooms were fast in and out, and looked at one of the houses through the half-open doors and windows, and saw that the four or five people inside were all buried in the copywriting, a busy scene.

This Li Tang's yamen looks different from Zhu Ming's yamen.

He has been to this place many times before, because this was originally the yamen of the Nanjing Ministry of the Ming Dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty just changed a signboard at the door, which regarded these as the yamen of its own officials.

However, he also heard that now in Jinling City, although there are already complete departments, most of the principals are squires, and there are not many people, and the scholars of various ministries and more officials of various ministries are still in Zhaoqing.

However, he also learned from the Tang Dynasty newspaper that it would not take long for the holy driver to set off for this Jinling City, and maybe in the next month or two, the yamen of the Ministry of Officials will be even more crowded!

Guided by one of the clerks who led the way, he entered a side room and waited, but he was obviously not the only one in the room, and there were already five people here before him.

With his words, there are six people in this place.

And among these six people, he still knows three of them, all of whom are officials like him, and although the other two have never seen them, they have also heard of the name of this newspaper, and even if they dig into the relationship, they can also be related to the same year, classmates, brothers and the like.

But most of the people who come here are preoccupied, everyone is here for the election of officials like Chen Lifu, and when they entered the room, the person who led the way had already said that there were offices next door to the left and right, and an adult in the office on the left was not very good-tempered, and he was the most taboo to make loud noises.

If it's an ordinary adult, it's just the adult who works in the office next door, but the director of the Ministry of Officials and the Appraisal Division, is a senior official of the fourth grade, if this person is offended, when everyone is an official in the future, people will give you a deliberate hard smile, and this evaluation will not be so good-looking.

So everyone consciously said a few simple greetings, and then closed their mouths and sat down.

After waiting for a quarter of an hour, one of them was called away by a clerk from outside, and a few minutes later, another was called away.

People continued to be called away, and in the process, several more people came one after another.

Chen Lifu looked at the time, and then looked at the few people who came in front of him, it is estimated that it will not be long before he can take his turn, fortunately, he went out early today, otherwise it will be delayed.

Sure enough, about a quarter of an hour later, someone called Chen Lifu's name, and immediately Chen Lifu got up, tidied up his clothes slightly, and then stepped to follow.

Following the clerk who led the way, it didn't take long for him to be taken to an office, and there were three people sitting inside, Chen Lifu naturally would not slack off at this time, and he didn't dare to put the top three jinshi on the shelf, because he had already seen the badges of the three people in front of him, and the leader was a high-ranking official from the third grade, while the other two were a fourth grade and a fifth grade.

You don't have to guess to know that these people should be high-ranking officials of the ministry.

Immediately, he said respectfully: "Backward Chen Lifu has seen all the adults!" ”

At this time, the official who was sitting on the side spoke: "Sit down, time is tight, let's start!" ”

Then the three people above just didn't have any nonsense, they just opened their mouths to ask, and most of the questions asked were Chen Lifu's career experience in the past, Chen Lifu naturally did not have the slightest concealment, although his career was very short, but it was not for other reasons, but because of the impeachment of Yan Song and was dismissed.

This kind of thing is quite famous in Shilin.

But then, when the people above began to ask Chen Lifu in detail why he was impeached, on what grounds, and what specific evidence he had, Chen Lifu was asked dumb, what evidence did he have at that time, but he was young, and he wrote a few articles casually under the fever of his head, which was nothing more than even if he heard about it.

After answering this, he couldn't see how the adults above felt him, and after about a quarter of an hour, the adults above just said, this conversation is almost over, let him go out and wait first, but don't go first, there will be detailed arrangements soon.

With a nervous mood, Chen Lifu went out, and then was taken to another room to wait, coincidentally, there were still those people from before.

There is obviously no rule prohibiting loud noises in this room, and there are tea and snacks, and several of them are still talking.

When those people saw Chen Lifu come in, one of them said: "Brother Chen, we talked about you before, how about it, I had a good chat with the adults just now, among a few people like me, you have the best reputation, and this election will definitely be entrusted with a heavy responsibility!" ”

When Chen Lifu heard this, he thought of the situation when he answered the question just now, and that scene was not a scene of a happy conversation!

Immediately said: "There, Chen just chatted casually with the three adults, as for the result of the election of officials, it naturally depends on the meaning of the adults, and Chen has also heard that many old-timers are also out of the mountain, and they should be entrusted with important tasks, and they should also be old-timers. ”

But the man said: "I can't say that, I have inquired, this time the election of officials, although most of our officials can participate, but the position of this election official, but not all depends on the resume of the previous dynasty, a few days ago I heard that there is an old man who came down in the position of the former court, and in the end he was only awarded six grades!" ”

"Really?" Chen Lifu was casually surprised in his words, but he didn't care, this is for sure, people are the Li Tang Dynasty, not the former Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty's high-ranking officials, if they want to change their bodies and restore their former power here in the Li Tang Dynasty, it is impossible.

Chen Lifu guessed that the Li Tang Dynasty was probably trying to win over the hearts of the people, so how could he give any real high-ranking official positions.

And Chen Lifu's guess is not wrong, in fact, the Tang Dynasty engaged in such an election of officials, which was really to win people's hearts, stabilize Jiangnan, carry out political momentum, and publicize public opinion, otherwise it would not have been so fanfare to engage in such a large-scale election of officials.

Although there is really a part of the factors in it to supplement the shortage of officials, this is only a secondary factor, and the Tang Dynasty still relies on the imperial examination and internal selection to really replenish officials.

Low-level officials are supplemented by a large number of imperial examination scholars, while middle- and high-level officials are naturally mainly promoted from within.

On the one hand, it is a matter of ability and experience, it is better to select people who have been officials of the Tang Dynasty for a few years from the inside than to directly find a messy person from the outside, and on the other hand, it is actually for reward.

People followed you Li Xuan to rebel, in order to get promoted and make a fortune.

The generals were promoted step by step in the expansion of the army, and the civil officials were also promoted after the gradual expansion of the territory, and the county commander was promoted to serve as the same governor, and even served as the prefect in one step, and the prefect was promoted to the rank of Taoist, the political envoy, and the political envoy was promoted to the governor.

Except for the positions of the cabinet ministries, which are not easy to change, local officials are basically promoted very quickly.

And when Chen Lifu was chatting with people outside, in an office inside, several officials took Chen Lifu's resume and began to discuss, these officials were naturally not high-ranking officials who chatted with Chen Lifu before, but ordinary officials of the ministry.

"Director Xu, they have already circled the approximate scope, well, this Chen Lifu should be sent to serve in various departments directly under the cabinet, not in charge of local government, and his position is mainly sharpened!"

One of them looked at the comments on his resume and said, "If you have a grade, you will be sure to be seven!" ”

"Let's look for it, see if there is a suitable seat, the position of Zhengqipin is now missing in many departments, look at that position is relatively lacking"

At that moment, those few people began to flip through the file, and soon there was a humane: "There are still a few inspectors missing from the grain collection department of the Ministry of Taxation, which happens to be the seventh product, and the Ministry of Taxation has been urging it several times, let's send a few people over as soon as possible!" ”

"Inspector of the Grain Collection Division? Isn't this the inspector in the tax inspection team, this position is not light, and it is easy to offend people, I am afraid that he will not be able to bear it as a newcomer!

At this time, there was another humane: "Whatever, since the Ministry of Taxation is urgent, it's him, there are still a bunch of people to deal with behind here, faster, otherwise, I will have to work overtime tonight!" ”