Chapter 1351: Zhao Zhuangyuan meditates in Chaozhou Prefecture

Today is naturally the day when Mr. Zhao officially takes over the government affairs.

In fact, as soon as Lin Zhongcheng left, the management team he brought with him had already taken over all the work of the government office. It has been running smoothly for more than ten days.

The reason why he was so familiar with it was that there was not much difference between the operation of the prefectural government and the county government. All the political affairs that were still under his control were still handled separately by the nine departments, namely the signing department, the sixth department, the receiving department, and the shop manager's department.

The daily work has changed from being specific and micro, mainly focusing on execution, to being mainly about passing down orders and supervising and summarizing. All team members have worked in relevant departments of Kunshan County Government for at least one year, so they are naturally professionally matched. As long as they improve their perspectives, they can perform their duties under the leadership of Mr. Wu.

Moreover, the team that Zhao Hao has assembled for Mr. Zhao Erye can accompany him until he becomes the governor. Now they are only in charge of the prefectural government, so naturally they just do some watering.

~~

So Mr. Zhao slept very soundly.

Obviously, this level is much higher than that of the doorman, Mr. Yu.

It was not until the hour of Mao that the large cloud board in front of the moon gate of the government office was knocked seven times, and then the inner door, the hall door, the ceremonial gate, and the government office on the main gate were knocked in turn, finally waking up Master Zhao Erye who was still sleeping in the Tongzhi residence.

In fact, Shu Tongpan, An Tuiguan and others urged him to move to the prefect's official residence, which was spacious and where the main officials lived. Mr. Zhao refused. He knew clearly that if he was just an acting prefect, then living in the prefect's official residence would be fine. But he was still the co-prefect of Chaozhou. If he moved to the prefect's official residence at this time, it would be a waste of time and people would laugh at him for being so eager to get promoted.

Although Mr. Zhao may not be good at other things, he has been influenced by his family since childhood and knows the ins and outs of being an official.

Moreover, his Tongzhi official residence is equipped with cool music, which makes it very comfortable to sleep in. Only a fool would move.

After getting up and washing up, Mr. Zhao practiced a set of Wudang Changchun Kungfu in the courtyard. But without his son to practice with him, he felt very unmotivated.

Then he had breakfast in the flower hall. Without his son to accompany him, the breakfast was bland. If he had eaten stewed pork and drank soy milk, he would never have had this feeling.

After a quick breakfast, Mr. Zhao dressed neatly under the care of the Four Heavenly Kings. His official uniform was still the original blue silk one. Lin Run was not qualified to give him a red robe, so of course he was not qualified to wear it.

Then, accompanied by Wu Cheng'en and others, he walked out of the Tongzhi official residence on the east side of the government office and went to the lobby of the government office.

Of course, the government office also has to arrange daily meetings, because authority often comes from a sense of ritual.

As we all know, the sense of ritual is actually pretending to be Boyi. So authority is based on pretending to be Boyi...

Thinking of this, Master Zhao silently straightened his chest to make himself look more like Boyi.

Because they had to arrange the office, they had to use the main hall of the government office. If they put it in the Tongzhi Yamen, it would affect the effect of pretending to be Boyi, so Mr. Zhao didn't insist on this matter.

In fact, anyone who dared not to persuade him to go to the main hall to sit in court would definitely be punished by Master Zhao.

When he arrived at the front of the hall, the assistant officials of the government office and ten county magistrates had been waiting for him for a long time.

Seeing him come out, all the officials hurried forward to salute and greet him with "respectfully welcome to the prefecture".

This was the title decided after the dispute. According to Mr. Zhao, they should still call him "Sima". But the officials insisted that "Fuzun" meant "the head of a prefecture", not just the official prefect.

Since you are the boss of the government office, you are the lord of the government office, so you should be called the 'lord of the government office'. Doesn't that make sense? It's settled, no objection will be accepted.

After Zhao Fuzun and his subordinates bowed their hands, they began to worship the palace and seal. Because Mr. Zhao was acting, there was no previous official handing over the seal, nor was there a ceremony to receive the seal. So the wheel was completely simplified according to Mr. Zhao's wishes. Even the Ya God had just been worshipped a month ago, so there was no need to disturb the gods again.

This is because Chaozhou officials have gone to great lengths to find out that Zhao Fuzun really doesn't like red tape. He did such a good job in Kunshan that he didn't even give his fellow villagers a chance to send him an umbrella. He just left quietly without taking a cloud with him.

What a noble man.

So everyone didn't compete too much.

Little did they know that if they just argued a little longer, Mr. Zhao would follow suit...

Until now, he still regrets that he did not leave one of his boots at the place where his dream began.

But he was a little relieved because he had very sweaty feet.

~~

After the ceremony, the seal of Chaozhou Prefecture belonged to Mr. Zhao.

So he sat in front of the Jianghai Ivory Screen and accepted the worship of his officials.

Amid the rumbling sound of drums, the officials who had been waiting in the hall for a long time all bowed formally to congratulate the new emperor.

Then the emperor offered them seats, and after the officials thanked him, they sat down in the two rows of armchairs under the large desk in order of their official rank.

Next came the subordinates of the Lord of the Palace, the clerks and runners of the palace, who all came in to kowtow to the Lord of the Palace, who ordered them to present their gifts and then gave them some warm words of encouragement. It was nothing more than a new starting point, a new situation, and he hoped that everyone would do their best and live up to the conscience of heaven and earth.

But everyone loved to listen, and listened very carefully. The reason was that the bonus given by Mr. Zhao Er was very generous. Even the temporary workers who were not on the payroll received a bonus of 20 taels of silver. Their previous annual income, the sum of the white and gray income, was probably about this amount.

This was not the first time that Mr. Zhao had distributed money. When the Chaozhou defense war just started, he distributed a sum of money to each person. Although it was not much, it proved that he was not just talking nonsense... Later, I found out that Mr. Zhao came in a hurry and did not bring much cash. Chaozhou did not recognize silver bills, and the money houses could not handle the exchange in Jiangnan, so he could only take out a few thousand taels as a token of his appreciation.

After the victory of the Chaozhou defense war, Mr. Zhao was of course going to give out more rewards. At this time, his son came with money, and Mr. Zhao was much more generous.

In short, Mr. Zhao has only been here for less than two months, and everyone has already earned several years' income. And it's all legal.

Is there any money that is cleaner than the one given by the master?

So everyone loved to listen to whatever Mr. Zhao said, and they listened very carefully, for fear of missing a word that would affect their future income.

~~

Zhao Shouzheng didn't just have a lot of money to burn. This was all the money he earned with all his heart and soul, and every ounce of silver was soaked in his blood.

The reason why he was so generous was that he had concluded that "money makes the world go round", which was really true. The little devils in the government office were simply stubborn and unyielding. It was all nonsense to talk to them about self-cultivation, peace and dedication. If the money was not enough, they would be toads.

If you poke it, it jumps. If you don't poke it, it doesn't jump.

But when they are paid enough, it is a different story. They are more motivated, more responsible, more efficient, and even willing to work overtime.

Although Mr. Zhao had a strong management team, he could completely bypass them and keep the yamen running, just like he did in Kunshan at the beginning.

Well, other county magistrates were all sidelined by their subordinates, but when it came to Mr. Zhao, he was able to sideline all the subordinates. No wonder the reports of the inspectors and the provincial governors clearly pointed out that Mr. Zhao’s advanced management experience in Kunming was not replicable.

However, Zhao Erye's team also found in practice that such a one-size-fits-all approach without unity among local bosses often makes work awkward and difficult. Therefore, the lubricant of local bosses should not be excluded.

Therefore, in the second half of Kunming, Master Zhao added them back into his management team and gradually figured out a set of effective management methods.

To put it bluntly, it's like a carrot in one hand and a stick in the other. If you do a good job, you get a big, thick carrot, and if you don't do a good job, you get a big, thick stick.

But if this method is to work, a key point is whether the criteria for judging whether a job is done well or not is objective and whether the conclusion is convincing. This involves how to formulate tasks and conduct assessments.

Through the patient guidance of Mr. Zhao, the strict instruction of Mr. Wu and Mr. Pan, and his own exploration in Kunshan, Mr. Zhao finally developed a method that combined tradition with science.

The former refers to the traditional examination and inspection of officials.

Since the Qin Dynasty, all dynasties have adopted the ruling ideology of "Confucianism on the outside and Legalism on the inside". That is, according to the Confucian rhetoric, they say that they want to cultivate themselves and bring peace to the world, but their bodies are very loyal to follow the routine of Legalism.

Legalists do not believe that officials will be selflessly loyal to the court, let alone serve the people of the world wholeheartedly. Therefore, it is necessary to adopt the assessment method of "holding officials accountable for their deeds" and use both punishment and reward to force officials to behave like human beings. At least you have to do what you should do, otherwise the court will make you unable to even be a human being...

This is similar to the scientific management promoted by Mr. Zhao. It can be said that the truly excellent management ideas of ancient and modern times, both at home and abroad, are all Legalists in nature, and the only difference is which of the "law, power, and tactics" is emphasized. Whether it is the Zhang family or the Li family that is completely separated from the Legalists, they are basically just playing house.

The Guo Dynasty was the one that attached the most importance to examinations in all dynasties. Emperor Taizu, who was a Virgo, a control freak, a perfectionist, and a detail-obsessed, formulated various all-round examinations such as the Beijing Inspection and the External Inspection, and formulated various inspection rules for every detail.

Otherwise, the country would not have been able to maintain stability for two hundred years. This can only be said to be a miracle.

But by the Longqing period, this examination system had become plagued with problems and could hardly even maintain the normal operation of the government.

If we want to revive the Ming Dynasty, we must first revive the ruling team so that we can implement various reform policies. So we must first find the crux of the problem and then find a way to solve it.

This is a difficult question that few people in the world can answer, but fortunately, the idol’s father-in-law has already given the standard answer.

In the second year of Longqing, Zhang Juzheng made it very clear in his "Six Matters Memorial". And he will turn his program into national policy and implement it the year after next!

It is the famous Kaocheng Method.

Mr. Zhao, can't you just copy the answer?

Although this may be a bit unfair to my father-in-law, his daughter is already my daughter, so is it a big deal if I copy his answer?

(End of this chapter)