Staff members were recommended as officials, although they often appeared in the pre-Ming Dynasty, and it was not yet a common practice, but in the Jin Dynasty, the behavior of joining a certain adult's curtain to seek an official position has become a norm.

After all, you can't ask the Jin nobles who have just come out of the deep mountains and old forests to hunt for decades, and after becoming an official, you can immediately understand the various rules and unspoken rules of officialdom, and the imperial court can't hand over all positions to the Xia people, so the staff system began to prevail in the Jin Dynasty.

Often, a golden proprietor will hire a few or even more than a dozen masters to assist them in becoming officials.

Many of the staff members who were appreciated by the proprietor were later elected to the local government as officials, which is a matter of mutual benefit, and the staff will be grateful to the proprietor when they become officials, and the proprietor can also use the staff to expand his influence in the court, so why not?

Today, in the middle of the 19th century, a complete industrial chain has been formed, especially the master of Shaoxing in the south of the Yangtze River is the most famous.

And the recommendation has become the second-class existence of the imperial examination contempt chain after the Jinshi selection official, and it is higher than the third-class Guozi Supervisor Department and the fourth-class Mengyin official, and the lowest is of course to spend money to buy officials.

The reason why this retro official election method, which has been abolished since the beginning of Ming Taizu, can become the second class sought after in the officialdom of the Jin Dynasty is because you have the ability to get the recommendation of the officials, and the kind that is not able to rely on relationships is still looked down upon.

However, anyone who can be a successful staff member has no ability and is not capable, and they are often even more capable than those who are really officials.

It's just that these people have some bumps in the road to the imperial examination, so the officialdom still recognizes the ability of this kind of staff to recommend and accept officials.

There are even examples of high-ranking officials such as the prefect and governor, and even the governor of one side.

For example, the governor of Liangjiang in Jiangning and the minister of trade and trade of Wukou, Lord Li, can be regarded as coming from the curtain of Zeng Fuzi, a famous minister who is known as the "nemesis of the heavenly kingdom".

Such examples have led to the imitation of scholars, but those who are truly capable will choose to live in the Lord.

A talent like Ning Jinsheng is also outstanding among the masters, with a fame, it is rare that he is still a strong man second only to the innate master, he can be literate and martial, and he can protect the safety of the proprietor at critical moments, and he chose to join the dark official curtain like the prefect of the demon capital, in fact, many people in the officialdom regretted it.

But I never thought that this despised Lord Wu, who took the non-imperial examination route, was suddenly promoted all the way from a small seven-rank county official, and in just five years, he achieved the current position of the prefect of the demon capital and the four-grade Daotai, if it is a golden noble, it is needless to say, it is not uncommon to be promoted from a low grade to a second or third rank of governors, generals and other high positions, but this is an extremely rare scene for Xia officials.

Because this position is one step up and crosses that threshold, it is the feudal official at the level of the local governor, so I don't know how many people's jaws were shocked by this fact.

In fact, Ning Jinsheng is quite satisfied with his proprietor, because although this Lord Wu is greedy for money and lustful, he has a cautious personality and is good at drilling camps, and he does not lack the decisiveness to make a desperate bet, otherwise he would not have spent money to buy the Ministry of Officials, and took over the hot potato of the Demon Capital Zhixian regardless of the crisis, and then he was promoted to the fifth level in a row to become the prefect all the way, and later he was awarded the title of Sipin Dao for his meritorious service to foreigners.

You must know that at that time, the place of the Demon Capital was under the front of the Heavenly Changmao Army, and it was a dangerous position that everyone avoided.

In Ning Jinsheng's opinion, it is indeed a good thing for such corrupt officials to stay in the officialdom of the Jin Dynasty for their anti-Jin forces, not only has they gradually eroded and hollowed out the foundation of the Jin State, and many things are inconvenient for them to do, but the officials of the Jin Kingdom themselves have no scruples about doing it.

For example, smuggling some contraband or something, as long as the money is in place, these officials can talk about anything.

In recent years, the reason why their organization has been able to blossom everywhere along the southeast coast and grow exponentially is due to the help of these corrupt officials!

Ning Jinsheng was also satisfied with Lord Wu's knowledge, such a person was worthy of their co-optation and cultivation, and it was not in vain that he and the organization bothered to push the other party to their current position.

Just as Master Ning was thinking about the things of these days, suddenly a slight sound of breaking the air appeared on the courtyard wall.

Ning Jinsheng, who seemed to be weak and actually strong, immediately looked up and saw a golden paper figure flying down the wall lightly.

"Master Ning, I haven't seen you for two days, I miss you very much, you and I meet here......"

The paper man's lips did not move and spit out such a sentence, and with a flick of his arm, a small ball of paper fell in front of Ning Jinsheng's body, and then disappeared.

It's like no one's land.

While stretching out his hand to take the paper ball, recalling Lu Lianbin's previous story, Ning Jinsheng suddenly wanted to understand which party sent this paper man to deliver the message, and he was slightly relieved.

When I opened it, there were only a few small thin words on it. It doesn't look like it was written with a brush or charcoal, but it looks more like a pen from the West, but the handwriting is more delicate and clear than that of a pen.

As for the simplified characters above, Ning Jinsheng didn't care, generally except for formal occasions such as writing books and speaking or exchanging official documents, the letters in private of these readers are naturally how simple and how to come, so the simplified characters are not surprising to him at all, at most there are differences in individual glyphs, but there are many simplified characters of the same word, and the appearance of a few that are not commonly used does not affect reading comprehension.

After thinking about it for a while, Master Ning carried a small purple sand pot in his hand, and took a sip as he walked, and the officials and colleagues he met on the way greeted him as usual, and walked out of the palace from the side door without arousing any suspicion.

According to the address on the note, Ning Jinsheng walked unhurriedly to a teahouse only a hundred steps away from the mansion.

Because this teahouse is close to the government office, it is not as lively as its counterparts in the market, and most of the people who come and go are not officials, scholars, or businessmen.

Meeting in the private room upstairs is not only convenient to talk about all kinds of private matters, but also close to the government and other places, so it is convenient to pass on news nearby.

Master Ning himself doesn't come often, but as a staff member of the prefect, he will often talk to people from other forces on behalf of Lord Wu here, and ordinary insider trading actually doesn't require the officials themselves to interview, and the staff on both sides will negotiate the matter while drinking tea and eating.

This is already a tacit thing in this era.

"Yo, Master Ning! The little one is saying hello to you, you haven't seen you in a few days! ”

The guy in the teahouse enthusiastically spoke an official dialect with a slight Jiangnan accent, nodded and invited Ning Jinsheng into the teahouse.

Although the master is not an official, but firstly, the family represents the official, and secondly, if he can become a master, he must at least have the fame of showing talent, and more of them are lifting people, Ning Jinsheng also has the fame of lifting people, regardless of whether he is ranked or not, he is also qualified to wait for the officials to be elected as officials, although usually the officials are only adjutant officials such as the chief bookkeeper and county cheng, and they can be called masters wherever they are placed, so these small people dare not slack off at all.

Ning Jinsheng bowed slightly, gave the guy a small pimple of silver beads as a reward, and said:

"You don't need to wait here!"

The man immediately understood that there was something to talk about, and then he didn't say a word, but bent down deeply and exited the door, without even shouting out words of thanks.

This is the rule of their teahouse, downstairs can sing to welcome guests, but in this upstairs private room to talk about things, although not necessarily all of them are not visible to the light of day, but the guests will not want to reveal their identities, so the ordinary restaurant tea shop after watching the appreciation of the thank-you behavior is not feasible here, if you don't want to be hated by the guests and beaten out by the owner, obediently quitting is the best choice.

The people waiting upstairs are also cautious, don't look at what shouldn't be, bow their heads and send refreshments in, and then bow their heads and come out. Except for the two parties who have made an appointment, no one knows who entered which private room and who they went to talk to.

If it is changed to a storytelling teahouse or a green house, many customers are very high-profile, who rewards how much will have a psychology of comparing with each other, and the store will also deliberately sing out loud to let everyone know, which is also a disguised trick to promote consumption.