The word official is generally used together, but in fact, it refers to two kinds of people, the first is an official, and the second is a small official, although these two kinds of people may not be much different from ordinary people, but in fact, there is a huge gap between them.

Officials are appointed by the imperial court, and have a formal official status in the official department, while the small officials are the personnel hired by the officials, who usually help themselves deal with some official affairs, in the words of later generations, the officials are the official employees of the imperial court, and the small officials are temporary workers, and the salary of this temporary worker must also be paid by the officials who employ them, which is one of the reasons why the officials usually spend so much, after all, they not only have to support their own family, but also support a group of small officials under them, then the cost is even greater.

There are two main types of officials in the Ming Dynasty, the first is to enter the officialdom through the imperial examination, this kind of official can be said to be rooted in the seedlings, and there is a lot of room for promotion in the future, and the second is the student provided by the Guozijian, they can also be officials after graduation, but the future is not as bright as the imperial examination officials.

In addition to the above two, there are other ways, such as the shadow of the ancestors, the emperor's special gifts, and even some small officials will also be promoted to officials because of their excellent work, but this is extremely rare. The temporary workers of later generations have been working for a long time, and it is still possible to convert them into regular workers if they find a relationship and give some gifts, but these temporary workers of the Ming Dynasty are more miserable, generally speaking, small officials can rarely be promoted to officials, and most of them are working all their lives, even after they die. Children and grandchildren will also take over their classes and continue to do it. In some yamen, there are even cases where three generations of descendants are officials at the same time. Moreover, even if a junior official becomes an official, he can only be a low-level official, and he is also discriminated against in the officialdom, and he cannot be compared with an official from the right path at all.

Although the officials are inferior to the officials in terms of status, you can't underestimate them, you must know that the number of officials in the Ming Dynasty is disproportionate to the number of officials, for example, in a county town, there are only three real officials. They are the magistrate, the lord and the county, in addition to these three people, the other people in the yamen belong to the small officials, it can be said that these small officials are the real principals in the yamen, plus some small officials have been working in the yamen for several generations, and have accumulated huge contacts and rich experience, sometimes even the newly transferred officials have to slap these small officials, otherwise they will not be able to stay in the local area at all, so the energy of these small officials.

However, it is precisely these petty officials who have no hope of promotion, and can only stay in their original positions for the rest of their lives. In this way, the officials have no pursuit of the future. The rest is only the pursuit of money, which has also formed the phenomenon that the Ming Dynasty's yamen has no money to come in, no matter what you do, you need to spend money on the yamen, as long as you use money to open up the joints, then even unreasonable things will become reasonable.

These small officials did not belong to the official establishment of the Ming Dynasty, and their salaries were also provided privately by the officials who hired them, and the officials of the Ming Dynasty were very low, so they were able to get not much of them, and they were not even enough to support their families, so that these officials could only use their positions to make money for themselves, it can be said that the corruption of the Ming officialdom started from these officials, and then those officials were also pulled into the water either actively or passively, so the spectacle of no one in the Ming officialdom was formed. Even this phenomenon persisted for hundreds of years and continued to exist in later generations.

Because of this, Zhou Zhong wants to rectify the rule of officials, naturally not only focus on officials, the most important thing is the reform of the lower-level officials, and want these officials not to be greedy, the most important thing is to let them see the hope of promotion, not as before, only a few extremely good officials can be promoted to officials, so in this case, Zhou Zhong proposed to break the barriers between officials and officials, as long as the assessment reaches a certain level in the future, and passes the assessment of the Metropolitan Procuratorate. According to the law, they can be promoted to officials.

In addition, Zhou Zhong also completely abolished the symbiotic relationship between the officials and the officials, after all, the officials are provided by the officials privately, so that these officials are like the officials' domestic servants, and even will be dismissed by the officials at will, so that the officials are too much controlled, so in order to relieve the situation of the officials dependent on the officials, Zhou Zhong once again stipulated that the officials will also provide the imperial court, and each position has a corresponding salary, and like the officials, they are issued by the local bank.

The officials have the hope of promotion, and if they want to be promoted, they must perform well enough, which improves the enthusiasm of the officials and allows them to restrain themselves, and they will no longer make money as unscrupulously as before.

In addition, in order to improve the overall quality of the officials, Zhou Zhong also stipulated that whether it is the imperial examination or the Guozi prison, the students must start from the local officials, so that the overall quality of the officials can be improved, and the officialdom experience of these people can also be increased, and they will not know how to govern at all as before.

After all, as long as they are people, they have the desire to make progress, especially the officials in the officialdom, and they understand how important an official is, which used to be out of reach, but now Zhouzhong's reform has made them all see hope, so these officials naturally support it with both hands.

But compared with the support of the officials, the resistance in the officialdom is also very large, these resistance mainly comes from two aspects, the first is those diehards in the officialdom, they think that the official is the official, the official is the official, there is a huge gap between the two identities, and it must not be confused.

In addition to the stubborn officials above, there are also those scholars, these scholars are either preparing to participate in the imperial examination, or they are students in the Guozi Prison, originally they only need to pass the imperial examination, or graduate from the Guozi Prison, they can get the official status, but now as soon as the Zhou Heavy Reform comes out, they can only go to be small officials, although the time is not long, but they are still very dissatisfied, thinking that it is not decent to read.

Officials and scholars have the greatest say in this era, so no one can ignore their opinions. Although the number of petty officials is larger, they have no right to speak, and they are not able to express their demands, so they can only pin all their hopes on Zhou Zhong and the cabinet.

For those stubborn officials who oppose the integration of officials, Zhou Zhong does not take it to heart, after all, most of these officials are some pedantic people, and even their brains are a little unclear, because any official with a little brain will not oppose this matter so blatantly, after all, they usually have to rely on the small officials to do things, if they oppose this matter, it is to be the enemy of the entire small official class, not to mention anything else, even those small officials under them will regard them as enemies.

However, compared to those stubborn officials, another class of scholars is too troublesome, first, they are huge, not to mention anything else, there are tens of thousands of students in the Guozijian alone, as for the number of scholars in the world, it is estimated that at least one million or so, such a huge group almost controls the trend of public opinion in the entire Ming Dynasty, so Zhou Zhong does not dare to offend easily.

To deal with these readers, it is still up to the readers, Zhou Chong, a pseudo-reader, is obviously not good, so he called Jiao Fang, Wang Qiong and others together to discuss, but Wang Qiong said a solution with a smile, and immediately got the praise of Jiao Fang and others, which also made Zhou Zhong even more appreciative of Wang Qiong's talent.

The method proposed by Wang Qiong is actually very simple, that is, in the future, the scholars of the Ming Dynasty only need to be admitted to Xiucai, and they can be arranged to serve as small officials in the government. As for the students who have passed the imperial examination and can officially graduate from the Guozijian, their starting point is higher, and they can serve as officials in some key departments in the capital, such as the Sixth Ministry, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and even the cabinet.

Wang Qiong's method doesn't seem to have changed much, but the requirements for scholars who serve as small officials have been lowered, and then they have given those high-end readers a preferential treatment, but it is this small change that makes most of the readers very satisfied, especially the requirement of scholars to be officials is reduced to Xiucai, which has attracted most of the readers.

In fact, it is not surprising to say that although there are many scholars in the Ming Dynasty, there are only a few who can really pass the imperial examination, and as for the Guozijian, it is not so easy to enter, there is no way or no money, don't think about it at all, and the number of graduates every year is not much, so for most readers, they can only stop at the stage of Xiucai and lifting people, especially the class of Xiucai, which accounts for the vast majority of readers.

It is precisely under this circumstance that Wang Qiong stipulates that as long as he is a showman, he can enter the official mansion as an official, and now as long as the junior official does a good job, he will have the opportunity to become an official in the future, so that those who have no confidence in the career are naturally very welcome, after all, even if they fail the exam, there will be a way out in the future. (To be continued......)