As the saying goes, money makes the world go round.
Money was always a good thing.
But if money could not be used in the right place, it was useless no matter how much money one had.
When Zhu Yuanzhang gave his officials salaries, the fifth-rank official's annual salary was less than a hundred taels. And socializing and giving gifts in the officialdom often cost tens, hundreds, or even tens of thousands of taels. This was especially painful for the officials in the capital.
If they had a high official position, they might be able to maintain their balance by accepting gifts. But for the low-ranking officials, no one would give them gifts even if they wanted to. Not all officials could accept gifts.
The civil servants in the Revolutionary Army did not have a high income. Instead, some technical staff had a higher income than the civil servants. Zhou Qingfeng implemented extremely strict supervision in his own system. Any bribery and corruption would be severely punished. At the same time, he did his best to take care of the civil servants' lives so that they would not be forced to find ways to earn money.
Most of the people who could work with Zhou Qingfeng were the peasants that he had trained himself. These people had low demands, high enthusiasm, and were not particular about their treatment. Because of this series of circumstances, the civil service position in the Revolutionary Army was not attractive to the Ming court officials. But there were always exceptions …
Ma Keshi, Eunuch Ma, wanted to show his skills and quickly expand his power by poaching people from the Ming court. Naturally, he would not poach those high-ranking officials like Ouyang Jun and Luo Lie. It would be useless to poach them. What he poached were the low-ranking officials who were below the seventh-rank and wore green robes. There were many of these officials and their treatment was poor, but they were the true backbone of the imperial court.
Wang Kunpeng gave Ma Keshi twenty thousand taels of silver. He did not just throw the money away. Ma Keshi was in charge of the staff. His subordinates wrote requests for money and he poached people to fill in the staff. The monthly salary was slightly higher than that of the Ming court. The main reason was that a few hundred taels of silver would be given according to their ability and rank, which was slightly attractive.
According to Zhou Qingfeng, giving money was not to make a flood, but to use it on the practical side. Otherwise, it would be useless no matter how much money was given. Instead, it would attract a group of useless people who only cared about profit.
As a result, there were only a few people who were willing to give up the dark side for the light. The people of the East Faction Guards and the Embroidered Uniform Guards were not lacking in ways to make money, so they would not easily run over to join them. On the other hand, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Works had a lot of poor officials who were so poor that they had to borrow money from loan sharks to make a living. That's right, there was such a thing in the Daming dynasty.
It also took courage to side with the rebels. Daming had established the country for more than two hundred years, and his legitimate status was still there. In the beginning, there were only a dozen or so low-level bureaucrats who could work under Eunuch Ma. These people could be considered to have staked everything on one throw. Dragging their families to Tianjin, they became Ma Gonggong's only manpower to open up the situation.
However, the advantage of having fewer people was that there were none of the bad customs of the original officialdom.
Wang Kunpeng instructed Ma Keshi and arranged his position within half an hour. Ma Keshi was appointed as the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Security. More than a dozen of his subordinates gathered for a meeting, and he began to distribute files and assign tasks. At the moment, most of his subordinates were from the Ministry of Justice. Someone flipped open the file and glanced at it, then said happily, "Ma Gonggong, this poisoning case is easy to handle. Just capture the beggars in the city and interrogate them."
In the Daming dynasty, being a bad person was a profession. For example, Xu Hongru of the White Lotus Cult liked to swindle and swindle people. When a group of people worked together, others couldn't interfere even if they wanted to. People of the same trade were enemies, and they would definitely fight over food.
The person who spoke was a real low-level official. He was not even from the Ministry of Justice, but a low-level Warden from Shunyi County near the capital region. He was the lowest level official. As the saying goes, "The difficult don't know, the skilled don't find it difficult." This Warden had dealings with the lowest level of society and was able to explain the mystery of the case in one sentence.
In ancient times, there really was a "Beggar Gang," but it was not some chivalrous Jianghu people. In fact, it was a gang of triads. The leader of these people lived in a luxurious house and kept beautiful wives and concubines. However, he lived by bullying the poorest child beggars and did the most sinister and sinister business.
Ma Gonggong usually dealt with high-ranking officials and dignitaries, so he didn't know much about these parasites at the bottom of society. After the Warden explained the situation, he sneered and said, "The Grand Marshal said that the current requirement is to immediately restore the normal production and living order of the city. Anyone who dares to defy the Revolutionary Army can be preemptively cleaned up."
What was' preemptively cleaned up '?
Everyone didn't understand.
Ma Gonggong grinned again and said, "After arresting and confirming their identity, kill them all immediately." He looked at the copy of the file in his hand again, "Everyone here has a heart full of ambition. Since you have pledged your allegiance to the Grand Marshal and the Revolutionary Army, don't be restrained anymore. It's just a group of beggars. After arresting and interrogating them, just kill them. "
The Warden who spoke continued, "These beggars are often entangled …"
"Anyway, they are not good people. Just arrest them and torture them. No one will speak for these dregs." Ma Keshi was not polite. He said to the Warden, "I will immediately approve the document. You go to find out who to arrest and immediately take action. There are five thousand militias in the city to maintain order. There is no problem to transfer hundreds of troops. I guarantee it will be fast and effective. "
"Before I came here, I heard that the Revolutionary Army does things differently and is swift and decisive." The Warden who spoke immediately laughed and said, "Good, good, this is the atmosphere of the new era of the Revolutionary Army. I have been a Warden for more than ten years. I have long wanted to kill the prestige of those beggars. "
In the Daming Dynasty, no matter what they did, there were a lot of constraints. They had to coordinate various interests. After a long time, no one could do anything, and no one could do anything. In contrast, although the Revolutionary Army was newly established, they pursued efficiency in doing things.
When the Warden who spoke heard that they could even transfer soldiers to help, he quickly waved his hand and said, "We don't need hundreds of soldiers. It's just a group of beggars. As long as no one asks for help or obstructs, a dozen government runners are enough to arrest them. Most of the big and small cases in the city are done by them. "
"Then let's arrest these guys as a big case in our capital region branch." Ma Keshi was new here, and he also wanted to immediately solve a big case to show his ability. He simply spread out all the files and let his subordinates read them one by one. He felt that all the cases related to the beggars in the city should be dealt with together. "Take care of all these city foxes and rats, and it will be a great achievement."
Ma Keshi arranged the task and immediately recorded the matter in the daily work briefing. After Wang Kunpeng read the report, he passed it to Zhou Qingfeng for review. Zhou Qingfeng was angry about the security of this ancient city. Every day, there were some trivial things that had a great impact.
It was rare to see people poisoning wells, and it was really disgusting to see people defecate in wells. Things like this had affected the stability of the people, and even the personnel of the Revolutionary Army had been affected. However, this matter was very difficult to investigate, and it was impossible to guard against it. They had no choice but to station soldiers at every well.
Zhou Qingfeng agreed with Ma Keshi's judgment. He personally commented on the briefing, "We must crack down on all kinds of criminal activities. We must be strict, heavy, fast, and swift. For those who have a bad record, we can first arrest them without evidence, and then investigate them. Stabilize the situation above all else. "
With Grand Marshal's approval, Ma Keshi's courage instantly increased. He really applied for a thousand militiamen to search the city and arrest all the identified suspects. For a time, several prisons in Tianjin were overcrowded, and a small prison could squeeze more than ten people.
The effect of the large-scale arrest was immediate. The city foxes and rats were swept away, and the chaotic situation was immediately brought under control. Zhou Qingfeng was worried that there would be a large number of unjust and false cases, so he specially went to Ma Keshi's office to inspect it. In the end, he saw the former eunuch of the Ming court's East Faction Guards actually organizing people to study. The content of study was the cadre training booklet he had written.
"Grand Marshal said that we must be good at mobilizing the masses, relying on the masses, and guiding the masses. The masses are the common people. The meaning of this sentence is for us to put down our statuses, not to put on airs as officials, and to have a good relationship with the common people. This time we have arrested so many people, we can't casually judge cases like in the past. We must do it beautifully, and this will inevitably involve mobilizing the masses.
In the past, our official prestige was too strong, so the common people were afraid of us and didn't dare to talk to us. When they saw us, they would take a detour. I know that all of you are learned people, and usually you can't talk much with those poor people, but from today on, you must go and talk to them properly. I have read Grand Marshal's articles, they are really well written. My colleagues still need to learn more. "
Ma Gong-gong wore a four-pocket civil servant uniform, and used the two hours of lunch break to gather his colleagues to educate them. When Zhou Qingfeng entered his courtyard, he was stunned. When the people in the courtyard saw him and hurriedly stood up, he wondered if they were putting on a show for him.
"Are they really studying?" Zhou Qingfeng asked doubtfully.
These small officials who had defected from the Ming court were all holding a study booklet in their hands. It was quite absurd. The 'Revolutionary Army' had repeatedly tried to absorb the existing intellectuals into their management system.
But whether it was the impoverished scholars, the captured generals, or the civil officials who defected, none of them took the initiative to learn the ideas of the 'Revolutionary Army'. They all felt that it was just changing places to be an official.
For example, the generals led by Liu Gu, those fellows were very stubborn about 'soldiers for generals'. They never thought of themselves as simple officers, their goal was to become warlords. This kind of thinking was deeply ingrained and simply could not be changed. The 'Revolutionary Army' could only carry out education from the bottom of society and cultivate their own talents.
This was because the public security of Tianjin must be improved. Forcibly imposing martial law was effective, but in the long run, it would affect the vitality of the entire city. They had to think of a way to screen out the criminals mixed among the citizens. The recruitment of Ma Keshi was originally an emergency, but they did not expect this emergency guy to be so outstanding.
Seeing that Zhou Qingfeng came to inspect, Ma Keshi and the others were at a loss. Some bowed, some knelt and kowtowed, and some were in a daze. Even Ma Keshi himself was very embarrassed. Previously, he had shouted in front of Zhou Qingfeng that 'Daming also has loyal officials'. In the end, this loyal official had already defected.
"Are you really studying?" Zhou Qingfeng asked again, "Don't put on a show for me."
"Grand Marshal, I am really studying. I plan to memorize these articles and use my heart to understand them." Ma Keshi bowed and treated Zhou Qingfeng with the same attitude as he treated the emperor.
"Stand up straight." Zhou Qingfeng did not like people kneeling and servile, "In the article I wrote, there is a special explanation of the etiquette of meeting between superiors and subordinates. It is correct to be neither overbearing nor servile, and to treat it calmly. "
He looked around and said in a deep voice, "Everyone, I know that you all originally worked in the Ming Dynasty, and more or less are not used to the 'Revolutionary Army'. But because of this, I hope that you are sincerely learning and changing your way of thinking. If you learn well, I will definitely not hesitate to promote you. If you just want to be an official, you won't be able to stay long. "
Zhou Qingfeng did not inspect for long before he left. Ma Keshi and the others breathed a sigh of relief. The official beside him whispered, "Lord Ma, congratulations!"
"What's there to congratulate? I was also startled by it. It seems that Grand Marshal is still not very assured of us. "
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