When Li Changshi, who was wearing a mixed blue robe and official uniform, followed Guo Yunhou into the courtyard of the Wenhua Palace, he felt the gaze of the officials he met on the road.

Obviously, officials of his rank and who were not speech officials were rarely summoned by the emperor in the past, so these officials were a little surprised to see him following behind Guo Yunhou and walking straight towards the Wenhua Palace.

When he lowered his head and looked at Li Chang, who was walking calmly on Guo Yunhou's heels, he didn't seem to be aware of the gaze of these officials, but his somewhat stiff steps as he walked revealed that his heart was obviously not as calm as it looked now.

Li Changshi was a native of Tongzhou, and his ancestors migrated from Jiangxi to Beijing during the Yongle period, and soon after an ancestor of the Li family entered the public gate, and the Li family also became a family of hereditary officials.

The officials of the Ming Dynasty are the most direct contact between the court and the people, and they need to implement all kinds of policies issued by the court, so in the eyes of ordinary people, these officials who are in frequent contact with them represent the court, and which officials who are difficult to contact are only dealt with with the gentry class on weekdays, but are rarely paid attention to by the people.

It is precisely because of the delicate position of the officials and the general perception of the people that these officials can distort the policies of the imperial court at will, so as to extract benefits from the people. And they themselves, by virtue of their familiarity with the policies of the imperial court, exempted themselves or their relatives and friends from all kinds of obligations.

However, although the officials of the Ming Dynasty had these benefits, in the early Ming Dynasty, as long as they had a little asset, they were reluctant to let their family members serve as officials, because the status of officials was too low. Under the regulations of Emperor Hongwu, the status of officials was equal to that of prostitutes, and those who served as officials were not even qualified to participate in the imperial examination.

That is to say, once someone enters the path of a servant, unless someone helps, they basically cannot get out on their own. It is also called a servant.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the source of officials was mainly the government to fill and fine, and the government selected more than five people, who had strong legs and feet and could read and write, and were filled by the personnel of the farming family, or were punished for making mistakes. The former will have to work for about a lifetime, while the latter will have a chance to leave the official path.

Up to now, most of the officials are selected by the public and the officials, and most of them only have the name of an official and have no actual position. The reason for this peculiar state of affairs is simply that the official, despite his low status, can be exempted from other servitude.

If a family with property in the countryside can't produce a scholar, they will settle for the next best thing and spend money to buy the status of a clerk in order to keep the family property. Of course, there is also a distinction between the officials of the higher and the lowest, the officials of the post station are the lowest, followed by the state and county, as for the officials of the six ministries that Li Changshi once served, they belong to the senior officials, and the invisible power is not much worse than the state and county orders in remote places.

But this kind of invisible power is not something that can be flaunted, and their identity is also determined, their current position is almost the end, they may not be rewarded for doing a good job, but they may lose their current position if they do a bad job.

This kind of rule of doing more and making more mistakes, and not doing good rewards, laziness and punishment for attendance, naturally can't cultivate any good people. During his tenure as a clerk, Li Changshi was able to collect only some bad rules and did not wantonly embezzle the materials in the treasury, and he had already stood out from the officials of the Tongzhou treasury who did bad things.

Of course, for an official like Li Changshi, who was born in a public family, he really couldn't look down on the blatant corruption and embezzlement of materials in the treasury by other colleagues in the treasury. For him, who is knowledgeable, this kind of means of making money is not only too risky and too low-tech, but also most of the income has to be contributed to the boss.

The Li family has served as a member of the household treasury in successive dynasties, and has long formed a set of hidden and effective means on how to use the treasury materials to obtain benefits. Therefore, Li Changshi was able to calmly respond to the audit of the household department, and there was no shortage in the warehouse.

But what he didn't expect was that he was actually named and commended by the emperor for this, and was promoted from a clerk to a six-grade head of the household department. Li Changshi's family has served as a clerk for many years, and even the household treasury has served for almost four generations. It can be said that the family is extremely rich, and if it were not for the identity of his family, the land that his family could buy would never be inferior to the few largest landlords in Tongzhou.

The 38-year-old Li Changshi is in the most energetic season of his life. He doesn't have any other hobbies, except to study math problems. This is also because the Li family ancestors have formulated strict family rules, not allowing their children to be involved in gambling, prostitution and other vices, but they can take learning mathematics as a personal hobby.

When Li Jiazu was a clerk, he saw with his own eyes that many children of large families were first lured by their colleagues into such vices, and then they began to enter the trap, and finally caused the family to decay. And those who are good at this way will also have no good end, so they left this family rule for their families.

As for taking mathematics as a personal hobby, it is because as a clerk, you can't help but master mathematics, otherwise once there is a loophole in the accounts and money you manage, it will be a disaster.

If nothing happens, Li Changshi will probably be a decent official, and spend his life as peacefully and steadily as his parents, if there is no accident of Houjin's entry into the customs.

However, the Tongzhou Treasury case in the first year of Chongzhen broke his peaceful life and made him jump out of a mediocre life.

In his past life, Li Changshi felt that he was an ordinary person who could be very content with an ordinary life, just like his father and grandfather. Every day, I went to the yamen on time to take a roll call, then went to the treasury to inspect and record the accounts, after work, I took the school to take the children's homework, chatted with my wife for a few words, got a pot of wine and drank a few glasses, and studied math problems in the evening, and the day passed.

But when he was promoted to the position of the head of the household department in charge of the Tongzhou treasury, and when he saw that his former colleagues and superiors were now bowing down in front of him, and he didn't dare to make a little color, a wave of wanting to do something to gain the emperor's approval suddenly appeared in his heart.

He enthusiastically re-established the management system and supervision methods of the household treasury in accordance with his own experience and understanding, and combined with the management methods given by the internal government. The chaotic Tongzhou treasury quickly changed its appearance.

His exploits were really seen by the emperor and he was once again rewarded by the emperor. However, Li Changshi also felt the jealousy and contempt of those officials from the imperial examination in the household department, thinking that he was just a lowly villain who succeeded by luck.

The comments and contemptuous glances of these officials obviously greatly stimulated Li Changshi, and he desperately hoped to succeed again, so as to silence these right-path officials who were in high positions but had no economic talents. He wanted to prove that although he was only a petty official, he was completely worthy of his official position in terms of his ability to do things.

When the emperor asked the household department to sort out a plan for the development of cotton planting, he racked his brains to write a plan that he thought was the most feasible, so as to compare it with the plans drawn up by those officials who came from the imperial examination, and wanted to smash all kinds of false statements imposed on him by those officials.

However, when the plan was handed in, Li Changshi, who began to calm down, realized that in order to refute the unrealistic plans drawn up by those officials, he seemed to have accidentally criticized some of the land reform policies implemented by the emperor in Shunyi, which made him really uneasy for a few days.

When Guo Shangshu of the household department ordered someone to inform him yesterday that he was going to take him to face the saint this morning, he tossed and turned all night until it was almost dawn before he squinted for a while. Because he really didn't dare to conclude that the emperor's summons today would be a blessing or a curse for him.

When Zhu Youzhen looked at Li Chang, who knelt on the ground as soon as he entered the door, he was really startled. Obviously, the head of the household department has not yet fully grasped the etiquette of officials when they meet the emperor, and has brought out the habit of serving as a servant in the past.

Zhu Youzhen quickly reacted, he waved his hand at the two, exempted Guo Yunhou and Li Changshi from saluting, and instructed the chamberlain to set up a seat for Guo Yunhou.

Only then did he say calmly to Li Changshi: "I read the plan you submitted yesterday about the cotton planting industry in Henan, Shandong and other places, and I asked Mr. Guo to bring you here today, just to hear for yourself how you envision this plan..."

Chongzhen listened to Li Changshi explain his plan with a calm face, and asked some unclear parts of the plan from time to time.

The conversation lasted for more than an hour, and the emperor's questions were so detailed that Li Changshi had to think about them for a while before he could answer them, which also made him feel very stressed.

When Chongzhen felt that he had already understood the same, he ordered the attendants on the side to take Li Changshi down first. After watching them walk out of the door, Zhu Youzhen turned his head to Guo Yunhou and said, "I see, the household department can revise the plan drawn up by Li Changshi, and then it can be implemented as soon as possible."

I only have two requirements, all the fields of military and martyr families are not allowed to be enclosed without authorization, and the inner government will send people to supervise this matter. The enclosed land owned by the owner shall not exceed 15% of the area of the enclosed wasteland, and reasonable compensation shall be given. The Ministry of Household Affairs first set the compensation standards for land in each county before allowing the occupation of wasteland to begin.

In addition, the Ministry of Household Affairs set up a special department to organize and implement the plan for the development of cotton planting, and Li Changshi was put in charge of this affairs. ”

Guo Yunhou looked at Chongzhen in surprise and said: "Isn't this a little inappropriate, this Li Changshi is just a small official, and he is just a low-ranking director, let him be in charge of this plan, will the local officials not cooperate?" ”

Zhu Youzhen thought about it and replied: "Then Mr. Guo will personally serve as the main person in charge of this department and let him serve as the deputy position." You put a name on it, and let him do it. In this way, those local officials have nothing to say. If they still have an opinion, then it would be better to change the local official.

This plan is not conducive to the ordinary people in various localities, and if an incompetent person is put in charge of implementing it, I am afraid that the cotton planting industry will not succeed at that time, but it will become an excuse for large local households to encroach on the land of small households.

Li Changshi was indeed born as a petty official, but he was familiar with the situation and was the drafter of the plan, so he was more suitable than others to implement the plan. That's it. ”