Chapter 289: White Crows, Black Crows, Grey Crows… What Do They All Have in Common?

In Yang Jingchen's duty room, the bronze charcoal braziers in the four corners blazed warmly.

Several enormous standing screens were plastered thick with slips of paper, recording all manner of project progress and data tables.

A newly allocated pendulum clock stood in a corner, its brass pendulum swinging back and forth, slicing time.

The Great Ming Emperor Zhu Youjian, beneath the thunderous momentum of the New Policies, had also set many unremarkable motions in train.

One of these was the redefinition of artisan ranks at the Wensi Institute.

The Institute was now divided into disciplines — iron smelting, glassmaking, cannon casting, clockmaking, and others — summoning the realm's finest craftsmen and admitting them by examination of skill.

All who entered the Wensi Institute were first graded on manual craft, divided into four artisan ranks.

Beyond craft alone, they could accumulate merit through invention and the improvement of techniques, divided into four master-artisan ranks.

Matters of salary and invention rewards need no elaboration.

What drew the realm's artisans most, however, was the very last provision.

— Any artisan who ultimately accumulated sufficient merit to attain the official rank of "First-Class Master Artisan"

would be permitted by the Emperor to hang the five characters "Royal Grand Master Artisan" upon his private shop. Valid for life!

Was this merely fame?

How could it be only fame! It was plainly a surging, endless dividend!

A gilded signboard that could feed a man for a lifetime!

Thus, once this edict was issued,

the realm's skilled craftsmen poured into the capital like rivers rushing to the sea.

In the Jiangnan region, where news traveled freely and the New Policies were already known by hearsay,

many master clockmakers simply relocated to the capital outright — bringing their entire households, shops, and apprentices with them.

This was why such laborious and intricate objects as clocks had, within a matter of months, gradually been distributed down to the Minister level — and why the clockmakers of Northern Zhili had suffered a wave of superbly ferocious competition from their southern colleagues.

Yet fierce as this shock was, it did not harm the Northern Zhili clockmakers' business.

What the sovereign favors, those below will pursue with ardor.

The Emperor's fondness for clocks naturally drove a vigorous demand for them in the capital.

In the end, the Northern Zhili clockmakers' business grew even more brisk than before.

After sending Hong Chengchou on his way, Yang Jingchen looked up at the clock.

By the newly instituted 96-ke system, it was 3:15 in the afternoon.

His brow furrowed unconsciously; a slight tension crept over him.

There were simply too many meetings today. He had not expected it to be this late by the time he finally sat down to handle "his own proper administrative affairs." He still had to pick up the pace — in a few more days the New Year holiday would begin, and once people's minds scattered, efficiency would plummet.

He had to get all the various tasks assigned before the New Year break.

Yang Jingchen drew a deep breath and pulled his gaze back to his desk.

The review document he had just finished was already finalized, but out of bureaucratic instinct, he habitually proofread it one more time.

Confirming there were no errors, he summoned a clerk and had the proposal sent to Qi Xinxiao at the Northern Zhili New Policies Group.

Only then did Yang Jingchen begin his formal work for the day.

"Draft for Comment Solicitation: Preparatory Work Plan for the Examination and Selection of County Magistrates and Department Magistrates in the Second Phase of the New Policies (Four Provinces)"

"Draft Plan for the Assessment Methods and Selection-Elimination Scheme for Prefects, Provincial Administration Commissioners, and Other Officials at All Levels Under the New Policies"

"Preliminary Investigation Report on Issues Concerning County Magistrates' Customary Fees, Private Secretaries, and Court-Session Silver"

"Draft of Several Measures for Preventing Favoritism and Fraud in the Ministry of Personnel's Selection of Officials"

Over a dozen documents awaited his review and work assignments.

Among these, some were documents conducted jointly with other departments.

The first three, for example, were collaborative projects with the New Policies Group, the Policy Group, the Official Governance Group, and others. Such project proposals generally required Yang Jingchen to offer suggestions or assign personnel to coordinate.

The fourth document and those following it, however, were projects his own department was carrying out internally.

Of the two categories, joint projects had predominated at first; now, internal departmental projects were gradually increasing.

If one could say that the New Policies had initially been driven by Zhu Youjian personally assuming the role of project manager, pushing the heads of each ministry to take charge of their respective tasks,

then after the rollout of "performance-based division of responsibility," the heads of the various ministries and courts had gradually begun, beneath the chief engineer, to assume the project manager role within their own departments as well.

The so-called notion of "letting chief officials concentrate their energies on strategic thinking and resource allocation" was no hollow slogan invented to strip them of power.

It was precisely because they had felt this before-and-after difference so vividly

that the chief officials' resistance to the new "performance-based division of responsibility" law had passed with so little disturbance.

Yang Jingchen opened the first document, the plan for the examination and selection of county magistrates in the four provinces.

He had read for barely the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea before his brow furrowed into the character for "river."

This proposal had been drafted before the Northern Zhili examination-and-selection review, and it still bore many traces of the New Policies' first phase.

Yet how could the first phase and the second phase be the same?

The first phase had been pressed for time; examination, interviews, and training had all been crammed into a single month.

The second phase, however, could be executed more perfectly, more meticulously, more unhurriedly.

The first phase had covered Northern Zhili.

The second phase covered four provinces: Shanxi, Shandong, Henan, and Shaanxi.

Investigations into local conditions, limited by distance and the intimidating force of imperial authority, could not possibly be as convenient or thorough as in Northern Zhili.

And considering the problem of transportation, it was even less feasible to gather everyone in the capital for centralized training as had been done in Northern Zhili.

The Great Ming could not possibly endure a situation where every county in the four northern provinces was simultaneously left without a chief magistrate for several months.

As he leafed through the pages, he worked his inkstick. By the time he finished reading, his thoughts had just taken shape.

He set brush to paper and wrote first: "Minister of Personnel Yang Jingchen offers the following suggestions on this proposal."

Then his brush raced like a dragon and a serpent, his thoughts pouring forth like quicksilver flooding the ground.

First, move it earlier.

The draft sets the selection examination to begin only in the seventh month? Far too late!

"The Bureau of Appointments in the Ministry of Personnel shall begin operations immediately. Before the second month, a new round of selection and summons must be completed."

"Otherwise, there is simply no way to manage the timing of county magistrates from every province entering the capital, and this is especially true for the magistrates of Shaanxi."

Second, expand it.

"The scope this time must be expanded. Beyond county magistrates, assistant magistrates, registrars, constables, and other subordinate officials should also fall within the scope of the selection examination."

"Otherwise, with a mere fifteen hundred-odd county magistrates in the whole realm, there is absolutely no way to saturate and cope with the vacancies that may arise among the several hundred magistrates of the four provinces."

"Taking the New Policies in Northern Zhili as a reference, the dismissal rate was nearly half. That means at least four hundred candidates must be organized before the need can be met."

Third, change the investigation and transfer procedures.

"For this round of local-condition investigations, counties that are relatively close may submit official reports in advance."

"For magistrates of more distant counties, there is no need to wait for reports to ascend layer by layer through the local hierarchy. They shall carry their investigation reports directly with them when entering the capital."

"Beyond the official dispatches sent to county magistrates, we must also make good use of the juren currently in the capital."

"After the spring metropolitan examination concludes, the Ministry of Rites may take the lead and order the juren of these four provinces who failed the examination to fill out and submit local-condition reports on the four provinces while still in the capital." "The Ministry of Personnel may, at its discretion and based on the quality of the local-condition reports submitted, give priority in official appointment and assignment."

"The concern in this matter is how to handle juren who are not from the four provinces. We must not let it turn into a situation where the worry is not scarcity but inequality."

Fourth, rotational training.

"The four provinces differ vastly in terrain, and the distances of the routes vary. How can they all be treated as one and the same?"

"Even with radio-station contact, we cannot allow local chief officials to be absent in large swaths. The vacancy ratio in each locality should be controlled to twenty percent or even below ten percent." "For Henan, Shandong, and Shanxi, where the routes are short, divide them into five groups entering the capital."

"Shaanxi's route is long, and the temper of its people is fierce and tough. It is a place where fire sits upon kindling and must be handled with even greater caution. It must be divided into ten groups." "When the chief official enters the capital, county affairs cannot go a single day without a master. Order the assistant magistrate to serve as temporary acting magistrate. The prefect, the Provincial Administration Commission, and the Provincial Surveillance Commission must extend their oversight downward." "For this oversight responsibility, the Ministry of Personnel already has a draft in progress. After the Lantern Festival, a draft can be produced and a meeting convened."

Fifth, training.

"The content of the training must not be rigid and unchanging."

"A mechanism for dynamic updating must be established for the new training content."

"Content emerging from the New Policies in Northern Zhili must, according to the after-action review mechanism, be updated monthly and summarized quarterly."

"The content in the 'New Policies Bulletin' should also be continuously updated into the training materials."

"This matter should be the responsibility of dedicated personnel from the Northern Zhili New Policies Group."

Sixth, inspection tours.

"The inspection teams need not wait until the county magistrates' selection examination concludes before setting out. They can prepare in advance and take up their posts in advance!"

"This is a measure to address the problem that the quality of local-condition investigations in each province is weaker than in Northern Zhili."

"I have already read the first drafts of the local investigation series of reports. Regarding 'per capita income,' it is indeed a very good lever. We must urge each investigation team to finalize their drafts as quickly as possible and produce model templates."

Seventh, coordination between the Provincial Administration Commission teams and the New Policies.

The selection examination for the Provincial Administration Commission teams is nearing its end. Once the personnel and teams for each province are finalized in the first month, they will leave the capital one after another.

For the other provinces, it would not matter so much, but the Provincial Administration Commission teams for these four provinces have an extremely close relationship with the second phase of the New Policies.

We must discuss the upper-and-lower coordination between the Provincial Administration Commission teams and the county magistrates, and formulate a dedicated plan.

On this matter, the Ministry of Personnel already has a draft. Likewise, a meeting will be convened after the Lantern Festival, striving to finalize everything and complete the briefing before each Provincial Administration Commission team leaves the capital." Yang Jingchen wrote more and more smoothly, the brush in his hand as if possessed of life, leaping swiftly across the paper.

Eighth: the matter of evaluating old-policy achievements.

The second phase of the Yongchang New Policies will not necessarily occur in the second year of Yongchang.

Some counties that return early from the selection examination may begin implementing the New Policies as early as the middle of the first year of Yongchang.

In this regard, care must be taken to evaluate the achievements of the two years separately.

We must both encourage county magistrates to implement the New Policies ahead of schedule, and also avoid unfairness in the second-phase achievement evaluations caused by the sequence of entering the capital.

On this matter, the Bureau of Evaluations in the Ministry of Personnel is already drafting a plan. It is expected that discussion can begin in the second month.

Ninth: the matter of New Policies subordinate officials.

Tenth: radio-station authority and reporting.

Without his noticing, the xuan paper on his desk had already been filled across five or six sheets.

Densely packed, in the end he wrote a total of twenty-three recommendations.

Only when there was nothing left to write did Yang Jingchen finally exhale a breath of stale air and toss his brush back into the brush-washer. He felt as if every pore on his body had opened, utterly exhilarated. This feeling was far more satisfying than debating in the court, quoting classics to argue over what makes a gentleman and what makes a petty man.

In the past, when serving as an official, one sought to do as little practical work as possible. After all, the more one did, the more mistakes one made; the less one did, the fewer mistakes one made.

Now, when serving as an official, what one seeks is a kind of "thorough clarity."

The problem sits there before you, like a tangled mess of hemp. If you can cleave it open with a single stroke and tease out the threads, that thrill of controlling the situation is utterly intoxicating. He picked up the stack of still-wet recommendations, reviewed them once more, and revealed an extremely satisfied smile.

In truth, red-ink commendations are awarded based on concrete achievements. This kind of early-stage planning and solicitation of proposals would not earn red-ink commendations.

Yet Yang Jingchen had absolutely poured every ounce of his strength into thinking.

On the one hand, within a major project, how much each department does or does not do is in fact determined by the discussions in this initial preparatory phase.

Without leaving a trace, he had inserted tasks for each bureau of the Ministry of Personnel into these twenty-odd recommendations.

The Bureau of Appointments, the Bureau of Evaluations, the Bureau of Honors... everyone had work to do, and everyone had merit to claim.

As Minister, one must not only know how to report upward, but must also understand how to find work for one's subordinates.

Achievements, achievements... if one's hands hold no tasks, from where do achievements come?

If those below have no achievements, then from where do his, Yang Jingchen's, achievements come?

On the other hand, in his heart, Yang Jingchen actually saw things very clearly.

The matter of red-ink commendations—its surface reasoning is to take the past opaque and arbitrary imperial favor and make it transparent and systematic, dedicated solely to driving the New Policies. These words are both right and wrong. No matter how fair and objective it is, it is still a false imperial favor. How could it possibly compare to true imperial favor itself?

In the final analysis, each person's future prospects still depend on who, in His Majesty's eyes, can be put to great use. Whoever can be put to great use, will be put to great use.

Those who can be put to great use will naturally be put to great use. All manner of tasks will be pressed upon them, and achievements will naturally follow like a shadow.

Wasn't that exactly the case with Zhang Zhiji and Luo Yangxing?

And the demonstration of such talent lies partly in getting things done — and partly in precisely this un-redlined "policy determination"!

Not to mention... the attitude revealed in policy determination — "sharing Your Majesty's urgency, anticipating Your Majesty's thoughts" — is even more important! That is why Yang Jingchen made this matter the very first priority of his official business today.

He reread the entire proposal once more, his heart swelling with the utmost self-satisfaction.

Penetrating to the core, discerning the subtlest details — had Heaven not brought forth me, Yang Zaifu, the Great Ming would have been ten thousand ages of endless night!

"Someone come."

A clerk entered with a bow and quickened steps.

"Take this and have it copied in multiple sets. Distribute them to every Vice Minister, Bureau Director, and Bureau Secretary."

"Require each of them to submit their individual opinions before the end of duty today."

"At five o'clock, assemble in the Ministry of Personnel Conference Room 001 for a consolidated review."

"First thing tomorrow morning, this document is to be presented before His Majesty."

Five o'clock — which was precisely the normal end of duty...

Yang Jingchen did not find it the least bit problematic to convene a meeting only after the workday had ended.

He had merely, with the lightest of touches, added one more straw to the backs of the oxen and horses of the Ministry of Personnel.

That done, he rose and paced two circuits of the room, loosening his stiffened back.

His gaze fell upon one of the screens.

Ministry of Personnel — Red-Ranked Official Evaluation Table by Bureau

At present, it was still entirely blank.

Even under his own name, Yang Jingchen, there was not a single red mark.

But he had already seen the red-rank list due to be announced at the New Year's Day Grand Court session.

Very soon, this table would be densely plastered with red-rank cards.

Yet... those red ranks were based only on the seventh year of Tianqi.

What about the first year of Yongchang?!

Yang Jingchen halted his steps, a flash of keen light passing through his eyes.

The wave of new governance had only just begun. Since he, Yang Jingchen, had already planted himself at its crest, he would never permit himself to be dashed upon the shore.

He returned to his seat, skimmed through the remaining drafts, and then summoned the clerk once more.

"Go now and summon the Bureau Director of the Bureau of Appointments. That draft on 'Ministry of Personnel Examination of the Corrupt and Avaricious' still has several loopholes — I want to question him personally."

"Also, inform the Bureau Director of the Bureau of Merits. Tell him I have some new thoughts regarding the review of privileges for retired local officials, and have him come here at four o'clock."

"And regarding the matter of private secretaries, go find..."

Directive after directive issued from this room. One official after another was summoned in. One topic after another was debated, overturned, and assigned. Yang Jingchen immersed himself thus in this flow state of commanding with sweeping authority, of speaking law into being — utterly oblivious to heaven and earth.

Yet if the Ministry of Personnel was like this, and its Minister was like this — how could the other departments be any different?

By now, even a leisurely office like the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, which managed rites and ceremonies, had to think carefully.

What exactly could it do for the Great Ming... and what exactly could it do for His Majesty?

To that end, they had racked their brains and pooled their collective wisdom, finally submitting a "Preliminary Opinion on the Review and Reorganization of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices' Kitchen Staff," which was currently awaiting committee review.

White crows, black crows, gray crows — these various labels seemed to slice the Great Ming's officialdom into distinct groups.

But in truth, they all shared one commonality: they were all "crows."

And are crows not, after all, the cleverest birds under heaven?