The Empress's No.1 Lackey-Chapter 182 - 161. The ’Examination Method’ from the otherworldly

Xiuwen Pavilion was located just outside the north gate of the palace city, encompassed by the Imperial City.

To ensure the imperial guards shielded it, and that idle folks could not approach, the secrets within the pavilion remained undisclosed.

After the carriage stopped, Zhao Douan stepped out and immediately sensed dozens of visible and hidden gazes sweeping towards him.

This was a significant enhancement in perception after advancing to a higher rank.

"Remember not to talk carelessly when we go in," Mo Chou stepped down from the carriage, her face’s fiery heat had subsided, switching to her court lady demeanor.

She didn’t forget to remind him.

"I know," Zhao Douan responded helplessly, wondering how much this unexpected "rival in love" distrusted him...

With Mo Chou leading the way, the guards at the entrance of Xiuwen Pavilion didn’t check their identities but stepped aside to let them in.

Stepping into the courtyard and bypassing a screen wall, a faint sound of intense discussion came from the largest room ahead.

However, the soundproofing was excellent; even with Zhao Douan’s keen hearing, he couldn’t make out the specifics.

It wasn’t until they reached the door that Mo Chou gently knocked twice and slowly pushed it open.

The "main office" of Xiuwen Pavilion came into view.

An aged voice then became clear:

"Governance of officials is of paramount importance!"

Then came the scent of fresh ink, paper, brush, and inkstone mingled together, forming an "aroma of literacy," as well as a serious and intense atmosphere of discussion filling the air.

Zhao Douan felt nostalgic, reminded of stacks of materials in the archives from his previous life and the strong tea and cigarettes during late-night meetings.

Well, he preferred to call it the "office scent"...

Inside the spacious room, scattered desks were arranged, each equipped with the four treasures of the study and unlit lamps.

At the moment, about ten people were seated around a large table pieced together in the middle, seemingly discussing something.

Zhao Douan instantly knew he was late.

"So, if the governance issue isn’t resolved, subsequent new policies can’t be implemented! The court’s decrees can’t be effectively communicated or executed below."

Grand Scholar Dong, dressed in a crimson grand scholar robe, hair and beard both white, sat with a sharp and defined facial contour, setting the first tone for the debate.

Recognizing him at a glance, Zhao Douan then saw beside Grandmaster Dong, at the head of the table, the Emperor of Great Yu in white ceremonial attire and wearing a crown, her demeanor authoritative and frosty.

Xu Zhenguan today had her hair elegantly coiled up, appearing extremely dignified and solemn.

She remained silent, overseeing everything. Upon seeing the two enter, she glanced but showed no other expression.

Today was a serious and earnest Empress...

"Let’s go," Mo Chou gently elbowed him, signaling him to remain silent.

Understanding, Zhao Douan thought: arriving late at a meeting and the leaders don’t call on you, just quietly find a corner to sit down.

His gaze swept the room and he spotted an unfamiliar official at the end of the table, in a corner, intently transcribing Grandmaster Dong’s words.

"Meeting recorder..."

Seeing this, Zhao Douan simply pulled up a chair and sat next to him.

He placed a basket of pears he was holding down, to conveniently peek at the recorded text later and catch up on the beginning of the meeting.

The recording official glanced at him, seemingly surprised.

But seeing Mo Chou nod, he continued to focus on his typing, ignoring the two newcomers.

Zhao Douan blinked, feeling something was missing and uncomfortable.

Slapping his head and under Mo Chou’s puzzled gaze, he casually took a stack of thick white papers from next to the recorder’s hand and grabbed a delicate brush.

Assuming the posture of listening attentively to the leader and taking notes, he finally felt comfortable.

— It felt right!

Now he leisurely observed those eight "scholars."

As expected, they were all quite young.

Although there were no name tags on the table, he still managed to match names to faces based on their "proximity to the Empress."

"The First Scholar," Han Zhou, closest to Grandmaster Dong, was a thirty-something scholar.

Dressed in scholar robes, somewhat frail, his hair neatly combed back, eyes clear, exuding a literary aura.

He had the gentle and refined demeanor of a scholar, fitting the stereotypical image of a "gentleman."

The aristocratic Wang You, around twenty-eight or twenty-nine, also in scholar robes.

With fair skin and aristocratic hands gently tapping on the table, the other elbow propped on the armrest in a thoughtful pose, his demeanor was the most casual among the young scholars present.

Ranked third, "Guo Jieyuan," was the oldest at around thirty-five, ordinary-looking, the kind you wouldn’t notice in a crowd.

He had the most common demeanor and was the only one among the three who looked at Zhao Douan.

At that moment, their gazes met, Guo Jieyuan smiled lightly, nodded, and then turned back to focus on the meeting.

At that time, with Grandmaster Dong reiterating the tone, everyone started discussing animatedly:

"Grandmaster’s words are very true, but the degeneration of the bureaucracy has been long-standing; in my opinion, to rectify it, the focus still needs to be on ’corruption’ and ’superfluous officials.’"

"How about cutting down and streamlining?"

"That isn’t right, superfluous officials were originally appointed by the late Emperor to disperse local authority, replacing one position with two... Now, it may seem redundant, but in reality, there’s a shortage of capable officials; if we cut down, wouldn’t that be crippling ourselves? Perhaps we can encourage integrity with higher salaries?"

"The National Treasury is hugely deficit, and we’re desperate to fill the void, where can we find the money? It might be better to restore the ancestral system and enforce strict penalties; though ineffective in the long term, it’s feasible in the short term..."

"...The accumulated malpractices are all in the Ministry of Personnel, solving them should start with the Ministry of Personnel, huh, isn’t it all Li Yanfu’s poisonous legacy?"

A group of young scholars each expressed their views heatedly.

Talking about the Prime Minister, they referred to him directly by name.

This was somewhat surprising to Zhao Douan.

Even more surprising was that faced with this discussion, almost as lively as a marketplace, neither Grandmaster Dong nor the Empress showed any intentions of intervening but instead seemed pleased to see it.

This was rather interesting.

The first day of discussing national affairs immediately entered into full swing... This was the atmosphere to discuss real issues, not the methodical, one-by-one reporting, where every word had to be measured against the leader’s mood...

Leaving other matters aside, Zhao Douan’s first impression of the Xiuwen Pavilion wasn’t bad.

Of course, it might also be that these young scholars were too eager to express their ambitions and had been suppressed for too long.

Today, with the presence of the Empress, they spoke freely, each vying to stand out.

"Is the court’s bureaucracy really that bad?" Zhao Douan whispered, turning to Mo Zhaorong who was sitting beside him.

Mo Chou had just finished reading the "meeting summary" and shot him a glance, but still sighed and nodded, whispering:

"Officials in Great Yu are scrutinized once every six years in the Imperial City and local officials every three years.

According to this ancestral system, although it’s hard to eliminate corruption completely, if strictly enforced, major errors can generally be avoided. But the late Emperor delegated power too long, and assessments were held by Li Yanfu, growing more lax over time; assessments became superficial...

Now, malpractices are rampant. It’s exceedingly difficult to resolve this issue, but the empty state treasury is a top priority; without money, nothing can be accomplished, hence there was the previous proposal to replace rice cultivation with mulberry... It was akin to a desperate attempt to find a solution.

And to replenish the National Treasury, we cannot avoid dealing with the bureaucracy..."

With Mo Chou’s explanation and combining the information provided during the scholars’ heated debates, Zhao Douan finally gained a clear understanding of the rotten state of Great Yu’s bureaucracy.

This wasn’t unexpected, as it’s easy to infer.

Wherever there’s human involvement, without effective supervision, chaos invariably breeds.

By deducing from the results where both the Li Party and the Eight Princes gained power, it was evident that the Old Emperor was a negligent ruler who failed to tightly hold the reins of power.

It wasn’t that solutions hadn’t been tried.

According to Mo Chou, the Old Emperor had reassigned the task of assessments from the Ministry of Rites to the cabinet.

This was equivalent to moving the responsibilities from a lower department closer to himself, a kind of attempt at "centralization."

But coincidentally, both the Prime Minister in the cabinet and Li Yanfu were Ministers of Personnel, so the assessment seemed transferred but in reality remained unchanged and became a mere formality...

"That’s how it was.

"Six-year Imperial inspections? Three-year major evaluations?"

Zhao Douan frowned, feeling that this system was somewhat familiar:

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"Is that all?"

Now it was Mo Chou’s turn to be speechless: "What else then?"

Zhao Douan didn’t respond; he was just habitually comparing this assessment method to the one he was familiar with in his previous life.

Apparently different, where were the KPIs? The nefarious performance indicators?

Not that the Great Yu’s assessment method didn’t involve these, but...

Something was off.

Very familiar... it seemed... he had seen it somewhere...

The discussion in the room continued.

No one noticed that in the corner, Zhao Douan closed his eyes, beginning to sift through his past life’s memories.

As his brain exerted pressure, bits of knowledge remembered from books he read in his past life started to emerge.

Six-year Imperial inspection...

Right, his past life’s leader’s favorite books on Ming Dynasty history had recorded these, the assessment methods of the Ming Dynasty.

Later, due to the long duration, they became a formality, resulting in paralysis of the assessment system, also managed by the Ministry of Personnel.

What was the solution later on?

As his memories deepened, a name suddenly popped into Zhao Douan’s mind:

Zhang Juzheng.

The next term spread smoothly: Zhang Juzheng’s reforms, the revival during Wanli’s reign...

What method did Zhang Juzheng use to solve the problem?

He seemed to remember he invented a very famous assessment method.

Zhao Douan opened his eyes, the brush held unconsciously in his hand scrawling across a stack of paper in front of him:

Examination Method.