Chengdu.

The Sichuan Governor's Yamen had just opened, and there were no other staff members except for one who was in charge of cleaning, and there was not even a candidate for governor. Deng Ming accompanied Gong Yan to inspect the governor's yamen, and asked the other party, "What does Mr. Gong think of this yamen?" ”

Gong Yan looked at this building, which was much smaller than the prefect's yamen, and shook his head: "This is clearly a courtyard." ”

"There are several rooms, and besides, the governor's yamen is not very big, what do you want a big courtyard for? Housing prices in the capital are getting more and more expensive. "In order to save money, the governor's yamen is not even on Chunxi Road - I found a small house in the south of Chengdu, and hung a plaque that is the address of the governor's yamen.

Now the prefect's yamen in Chengdu is not small, but that is a problem left over from history, and Deng Ming acquiesced, and it is not used by Liu Jinge's family. The tax bureau and the punishment yamen also lived in it, and Qin Xiucai and He Daoning always wanted to move out, but because there was no new yamen that was imposing enough, they did not make the trip for a long time.

Deng Ming believed that the yamen was an office space, so the governor's yamen did not give officials a residential area or a courtyard, which saved a lot of area at once. Moreover, the governor's yamen has no judicial and tax collection powers, so naturally there is no need for too many offices, nor does it need ancillary facilities such as public courts, so in the end I feel that such a courtyard will be in place.

In addition to the problem of function, the more critical reason is that the governor's yamen now has no owner. Liu Jinge's prefect yamen was reluctant to pay a large sum of money to buy land and decorate the governor's yamen, and he said that if he wanted to pay, then Xuzhou could not stay out of it, and should fulfill the responsibilities of lower-level institutions; However, the Xuzhou side disagreed, saying that since the governor's yamen was located in Chengdu, the cost should be borne by the Chengdu prefect's yamen alone. Now it only takes the money for a small courtyard, and the Chengdu prefect yamen is very satisfied, and the Chengdu parliament is also satisfied (the imperial parliament has been dissolved again, but the Chengdu parliament has been held for longer and longer, and there are already signs of becoming permanent).

Xiong Lan's banking system will definitely not give money to the governor's yamen, and Qin Xiucai's tax system is the same, with the establishment of the governor's yamen, Qin Xiucai successfully persuaded everyone to no longer oppose the provincial taxation bureau to set up a separate office location - the provincial taxation bureau bought a large piece of land on Chunxi Road, planning to bulldoze the original shops on it, build a new office location, and the old house in the original prefect's yamen courtyard can be reserved for the Chengdu government tax - buy land, build a house, decorate, the new office building budget of the tax bureau is more than 200,000 yuan.

"This house cost three hundred yuan," Deng Ming told Gong Yan, and it was because of this amount of money that Liu Jinge generously said that the money would not be shared by Xuzhou. Before the establishment of the governor's yamen, the Chengdu prefect's yamen was also willing to bear the wages of the cleaners, which can be regarded as a filial piety of the prefect's yamen to the higher authorities: "I think it's very good, and there are four rooms inside and outside, and you can open it by cleaning, pasting the windows, and then putting tables and chairs, without tossing." ”

For the time being, it seems that the job of the Sichuan governor's yamen is to calculate the amount of provincial tax collected by the tax bureau, determine how to spend it, and then instruct the tax bureau to allocate it to the local government, that is, the prefect yamen of Chengdu or Xuzhou, and supervise their spending. Therefore, a house of reckoning was indispensable, a governor's own office, a common room for the staff, plus a living room and pantry.

"If you want to add people in the future, you don't have to worry about the place." Now the military power in Sichuan is not in the hands of the governor's yamen at all, and the pavilions are also subordinates of the prefect's yamen, but it is difficult to say what will happen in the future, so Deng Ming bought the two courtyards next door out of his own pocket, and added a large section of wasteland farther away. In case the governor yamen needs it in the future, he can also buy the land from Deng Ming and build a house. The governor's yamen is located here, and there is still the potential for land appreciation in the future, and Deng Ming can be regarded as using inside information to invest.

"If there is no good candidate, I can do this governor first." Deng Ming finally said that there were no henchmen willing to come to the position of governor, and it was not appropriate to appoint a person with no qualifications at random. After thinking about it, Deng Ming felt that it was still a good way for him to take on the same position, after all, most of the traditional power of the governor of Sichuan was now in his hands.

After saying this, Deng Ming, Gong Yan and a few guards walked out of the door, because this small house really has nothing to look at, and before going out, Deng Ming also instructed the uncle who was watching the yard: "Don't forget to lock the door when you leave." ”

"Yes." This uncle has just immigrated from Zhejiang, and he went out to do odd jobs to subsidize his son's family. When he was just approached by a mysterious prefect yamen official and asked him if he was willing to show the yard to the governor's yamen and give him a salary of one hundred and two every month, the old man almost fainted happily - to be the concierge of the governor's lord, or the porter's head, this kind of good thing would fall on him, a person who has no relatives and no reason, what kind of luck is this?

It turns out that his luck is really not very good, after seeing this house, the uncle's heart is a tile, if he didn't really know that the person who assigned the task was an official of the Chengdu Yamen, he really suspected that he had met a liar. The plaque of "Sichuan Governor's Yamen" was hung in front of the door, but the occasional passers-by did not pay much attention to the house, perhaps they all thought it was just a farce - a guy who had nothing to do hung a big sign on his door in this secluded place, and the Chengdu Governor's Yamen either didn't know, or didn't bother to care, just like them passers-by.

Today, the famous Baoguo Gong came to take a look around, and also issued some instructions about this yamen, which is probably the most exciting moment for the uncle to find this job. He plans to wait until he gets home from work today, and he will talk about it with his sons.

In the past two days, Deng Ming took Gong Ming around the various yamen in Chengdu, and politely asked the other party if he had any suggestions for improvement, and Gong Ming also told Deng Ming very honestly that he had no idea - if the organizational structure of Sichuan was developed on the basis of the original Ming government, then Gong Ming might be able to propose some amendments; But now, except for the name "prefect, punishment", there is no resemblance between the Sichuan government and the traditional government known to Gong Yan. Up to now, the operating principle of mutual checks and balances and cooperation in Gong Yanlian has not been figured out clearly, where can any suggestions for improvement be proposed?

After leaving the governor's yamen, Deng Ming returned to the headquarters of the standing army. This is his main place of stay in Chengdu, even if he is concurrently the governor of Sichuan in the future, it is estimated that Deng Ming will still choose to work here. In the past, Deng Ming often stayed in the yamen of the Chengdu prefect, because there were several institutions there, and it was convenient to find anyone; But now the prefect's yamen is not suitable for work, in addition to Qin Xiucai's taxes, He Daoning's punishment yamen is also busy preparing to move - after the governor's yamen was announced, He Daoning, like Qin Xiucai, took this opportunity to raise his yamen to the provincial level, although He Daoning is not as rich as the tax bureau, but with him the yamen has the backbone. I heard that after the punishment yamen was upgraded to the provincial level, Liu Jinge generously expressed his willingness to pay to help He Daoning repair the yamen, and the congratulatory letter jointly sent by the Xuzhou prefect yamen and the punishment yamen also expressed their willingness to share part of the cost, and the Chengdu Council and the Xuzhou Council were very happy to approve the appropriation - He Daoning still held a big stick in his hand to judge people "unconstitutional", and anyone dared to step on the governor's yamen without a governor, but no one was willing to provoke the punishment yamen.

"Mr. Gong should know something about Wu Sangui, right?" Deng Ming asked.

"Wu thief ......" Gong Yan snorted and asked rhetorically, "Why did Guogong ask this." ”

When he first arrived in this world, Deng Ming was very jealous of Wu Sangui, because this person's fame was too great. However, after more than four years, Deng Ming found that the gap between his original impression of Wu Sangui and reality was not small.

The first is military strength, Deng Ming felt that the other party did not seem to be as strong as he imagined at the beginning. Liu Tichun said many times that Wu Sangui was not particularly powerful, and if there was no Manchu Qing, then Li Zicheng would never lose to him; And Zhao Tianba also said that Wu Sangui had been defeated by Liu Wenxiu many times and forced to retreat in embarrassment, if it weren't for Liu Wenxiu's carelessness in Baoning, he would have been driven out of Shaanxi a long time ago. Deng Ming himself also felt that Wu Sangui seemed quite conservative, and could even be called inaction, only Wu Sangui still performed brilliantly when he crusaded against Shuixi, and his rapid victory made Deng Ming and Li Dingguo both vigilant. But then Wu Sangui reverted to his old ways, lying motionless in Guiyang, and missed the best opportunity to attack Yunnan.

The second is Wu Sangui's reputation, in the impression of Deng Ming's previous life, Wu Sangui was a street rat that everyone shouted and beaten; But now the reputation is quite good, and those who support the Ming Dynasty think that Wu Sangui has a last resort to surrender to the Qing Dynasty, and he has never been at war with the Ming army, even if he attacks Yunnan, it can also be regarded as his deep-rooted dislike of Liukou. Not to mention the Qing court, Wu Sangui is simply the representative of loyalty, and such a loyal veteran surrendered to the Qing court, which shows the Qing court's destiny.

Among the scholars, officers and even the low-level people, Wu Sangui's image is very good. When he was in Kunming, Li Dingguo also privately told Deng Ming that he thought that Wu Sangui, like Jiang Pai and Jin Shengheng before the incident, belonged to the object that could be wooed.

In the eyes of Wen Anzhi and Zhu Shunshui, Wu Sangui is even much better than Jiang Pai and Jin Shengheng before anyway, because Wu Sangui has not descended like Jiang Pai, or attacked the descendants of the imperial court like Jin Shengheng, which shows that he has a heavier affection for the Ming Dynasty in his heart, and he can withstand the pressure from the Qing court and not do those things that go against his heart.