"I'm afraid Lao Xi'er won't agree." Wu Shilai couldn't help but shook his head when he heard this, "They are so smart, how could they do such a thing as 'giving up the sweet melon and looking for sour plums - asking for trouble'."

"It's okay, just give them a bigger melon." Zhao Hao said calmly, "I'll give Wang Tianguan a gift later and see what he says."

"Well, as long as the gift is big enough, Lao Xi'er will be easy to talk to." Xu Wei nodded, and suddenly laughed: "It's ridiculous that Feng Bao and his gang haven't realized that a disaster is coming."

"There's nothing we can do. He's old and sick, and has been controlled by the people around him." The writer sighed and said, "In the past few years, it was Xu Jue and Feng Bangning and those idiots who were waving the flag and pretending to be a tiger."

"The impeachment has been submitted today. Even the dumbest person should know that disaster is coming, right?" Zhao Hao said, "When Xu Jue finds you, you might as well tell him directly that now we have to keep the money but not the people, or keep the people but not the money. Only by donating most of the family property to the emperor can we help them escape unscathed."

You must explain things clearly and give precise instructions to idiots, otherwise they really won't understand the implicit meaning and won't know what they should do.

"Before that, they have to clean up all the things that could cause trouble." After a pause, Zhao Hao said lightly, "If they leak anything in the future, I will send their entire family to mine in Africa."

At first, Zhao Hao could only warn people to be exiled to Seosan Island, and later to Tamra Island, Sado Island, Taiwan Island... Now he can finally achieve the achievement of "African Warning".

~~

After talking about Feng Bao, Zhao Hao said to Zhao Jin: "After Wang Guoguang retired, it is finally my elder brother's turn to take charge of the selection."

"At my age, I should have gone back to hug my grandchildren. Brother, you'd better look for someone else." Zhao Jin smiled bitterly. He was afraid of Xu Wei's bullying.

"That won't do. My father is counting on you and Uncle Wu to keep the peace." Zhao Hao smiled and took out a Zhonghua cigarette and put it in his mouth, comforting him, "You have to stand guard for this last shift."

"Ah..." Zhao Jin was just pretending. The Minister of Personnel was the pinnacle of the career of officials who were not from the Hanlin Academy. His qualifications were enough, but he was always suppressed by Zhang Xianggong. If he retired before becoming a minister, it would be a lifelong regret.

"After taking over the Ministry of Personnel, we should try to tilt our officials to the local areas as much as possible." Zhao Hao lit a glass of Huazi for Zhao Jin and said, "For those who really can't be sent to the local areas, we should arrange more of them in Nanjing. We must reduce the proportion of officials in the court."

"Why is this?" Zhao Jin was a little puzzled. The promotion of officials in Beijing was much faster than that of officials outside the capital.

"This way, local areas can train people." Zhao Hao said softly, "It's mainly because the group believes that the court will be caught in meaningless internal friction for a long time to come. If we have too many people in Beijing, we will not only stand out, but also become meaningless victims."

"I see." Zhao Jin nodded and said, "We only have one of the four governors-general, and only five of the twenty-two governors-general. This is indeed too few."

After the Governor-General of Rivers and the Governor-General of Grain Transport were merged into the Prime Minister of Rivers and Grain Transport, there were only four governors-general left in the country - Governor-General of Ji and Liao Zhou Yong, Governor-General of Xuan and Da Zheng Luo, Governor-General of Three Borders Chen Sanmo, and Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi Niu Mowang.

Among the twenty-two governors were Jin Xuezeng, Governor of Yingtian, Tang Hezheng, Governor of Zhejiang, Zhang Wei, Governor of Fujian, Yu Shensi, Governor of Guangdong, and Wu Kangyuan, Governor of Shandong.

As for the provincial governors, provincial governors, and county magistrates, there are so many of them that it is impossible to list them all, but they probably account for about one-fifth.

As for the rest, one third of our own officials served in various government offices in the two capitals, one third served as assistants in various provincial governments, and another one third had been waiting for vacancies in the provinces for many years but could not be filled. They were given the title of "so-and-so commissioner" by their superiors and were sent around at will, suffering hardships and taking the blame.

Many people couldn't stand it and went home on sick leave, or even went to work in the group...

The reason for this terrible situation, apart from the loss of control over the Ministry of Personnel in the past seven years, was mainly because cutting redundant staff was an important part of Zhang Juzheng's reforms.

During the fifteen years that Zhang Xianggong ruled the country, he laid off a large number of redundant staff almost every year. His logic was simple, because under the supervision of the performance evaluation system, the work efficiency of officials was greatly improved. Naturally, there was no need for so many people to do the work, and a large amount of salary and office expenses could be saved...

In the ninth year of the Wanli reign, when the most drastic layoffs were made, Zhang Juzheng laid off 419 people at the central level and 902 local officials! During his reign, the total number of Ming officials decreased by three tenths!

In this context, even Zhao Hao's disciples could not avoid becoming victims... This is also another clear evidence of the split between Zhao Hao and Zhang Juzheng.

In fact, Zhao Hao was privately happy to see this situation. At that time, his large-scale immigration had just started, and there was a shortage of management talents overseas. Moreover, these disciples with achievements came to the overseas administrative district to work, which was not only a great opportunity for them to learn from scratch, but also allowed the administrative personnel trained by the group to learn how to work with traditional civil servants, so as to avoid being caught off guard in the future.

Now that Grand Tutor Zhang has passed away, and both the Prime Minister and the Heavenly Official are surnamed Zhao, it would be unreasonable if they didn't take care of their disciples.

However, Zhao Hao still hoped to let them train in the prefectures, counties and districts as much as possible. Not only can they avoid future court storms, but once there is a change in the world, these local officials will be much more useful than the officials in Beijing... Of course, this is not something that can be told to outsiders.

~~

After instructing Zhao Jin, Zhao Hao poured Wu Shilai a glass of wine and said:

"Uncle Wu will take over my elder brother's position as the chief minister."

"Hey." Wu Shilai quickly took it with both hands and said, "I will do my best to do what I should do."

"Uncle Wu will probably have a hard time in the next few years." Zhao Hao apologized, "As the saying goes, things will turn around when they reach their extremes. The censors have been suppressed for too long during the Longqing and Wanli dynasties, so there is bound to be a big explosion. As the chief censor, you will get into trouble if you don't handle it properly."

"Alas, someone has to do something." Wu Shilai smiled bitterly. The Left Censor-in-Chief had a very high status and great power, but he had little control over his subordinates. The thirteen supervisory censors all had the power to submit memorials individually. Not to mention the guys in the Six Departments, who didn't even bother with the Chief Censor.

"It doesn't matter. I'm used to the ups and downs."

"That's right, Uncle Wu, don't worry! You are still young, even if you go down, you will definitely be able to make a comeback in the future." Zhao Hao smiled and clinked his glasses with him and said, "When my elder brother retires in the future, it will be your turn to take over the Heavenly Official position."

"Hey, I'll listen to you, nephew." Wu Shilai quickly clinked his glass with Zhao Hao's and said with a smile on his face, "Just like the past twenty years."

"Let's do him for another twenty years!"

"Okay, haha!" The two laughed and drank it all in one gulp.

While chatting and laughing, the young cabinet minister had already arranged the two future ministers of the Ministry of Personnel...

Finally, Zhao Hao toasted to the two of them:

"I'll leave the capital and my father in your care."

"Don't worry, young minister. We will do our best to serve you as your prime minister!" Zhao Jin and Wu Shilai hurriedly raised their glasses together.

After drinking the cup, Zhao Jin said with some concern: "But the emperor is already in his prime, I'm afraid he won't allow power to fall into the hands of others. It's hard for my uncle to be as all-powerful as Grand Tutor Zhang."

"Hey, what are you thinking about?" The drunken Zhao Shoufu burped and said, "I'm not that kind of person..."

"Brother, your worry is justified. The emperor finally regained power, just like a child who finally got the toy he had always wanted. He will definitely be excited for a while." Zhao Hao pretended not to hear and said to Zhao Jin and Wu Shilai:

"I estimate that in the next one or two years, he will reinstate many officials who were demoted by my father-in-law and demote many officials who were highly valued by my father-in-law."

"It's entirely possible." The two worriedly said, "Then what should we do?"

"As for my elder brother, I think we should just go with the flow. We want to occupy the position of Heavenly Official for as long as possible, so we must try our best to make the emperor feel that my elder brother is in the same group with him."

This is not just wishful thinking. Zhao Jin is blessed with the emperor's favor!

His son Zhao Shixi was a favorite of Emperor Wanli... He didn't become a eunuch. He was the commander of the left guard of Wuxiang Army, guarding the gate for the emperor!

During the love affair storm, Zhao Jin and his superior Zhang Han wrote to Zhang Juzheng to persuade him to mourn. As a result, Zhang Han ordered him to retire, but Zhao Jin was spared by Emperor Wanli because of his son and was only fined.

But Zhao Jin did not learn his lesson. Instead, he became the core figure in the court opposing Zhang Juzheng.

Because he was the heir of Wang's school of thought and the leader of the government, he had always been at odds with Zhang Juzheng, who opposed empty talk and suppressed the School of Mind. In the eighth year of Wanli, Zhang Juzheng banned lectures and destroyed academies, which led to his severe criticism by Zhao Jin...

Zhao Jin is not acting like Zhao Hao.

Because no matter how close the relationship between people is, they will never be two completely overlapping circles. There will always be non-intersecting parts - for example, Zhao Jin believes in Wang Xue, and Zhao Hao believes in science.

Zhang Juzheng had no choice but to let him go because of the relationship between Zhao Hao and his son.

As the number one figure in the court who opposed Zhang, even if the old nephew did not have that relationship with Xiwa, he would naturally be the emperor's confidant after he took power!

"As for Uncle Wu, it's the other way around." Zhao Hao glanced at the pitiful Wu Shilai and said, "You must do your best to protect those impeached officials. They are the capable officials who created the Wanli New Deal!"

"Oh, it seems that my life is really hard now..." Wu Shilai nodded with a wry smile, thinking to himself, why am I so unlucky?

"It doesn't matter. You can stay here for as many years as you can." Zhao Hao said with a smile to relieve his stress: "We have long been able to accept more immigrants overseas. Let's loosen up in the second half of the year and send out an extra 500,000 immigrants. Starting next year, we will send 3 million per year, 10 million in three years, and the advantage will be even greater!"

"So many?" Everyone gasped. Even though they were the core members of the Jiangnan Gang, none of them had ever been overseas.

"Not many, just ninety-eight cities. Next year there will be more than one hundred cities, with less than thirty thousand people in each city." Zhao Hao said without any concern.

"Haha, okay. When I am dismissed from office and return home, I will definitely visit the 18 overseas provinces and see the great territory we have built for China!" Wu Shilai seemed to be injected with energy. He swept away his timid look and said with spirit.

ps. After 12 hours of traveling, I finally got home. I took a nap, coded a chapter, went back to sleep, and got up tomorrow morning to work hard!