I want to be emperor

Chapter 345
The heads of four different intelligence agencies in Jinling City gathered together, which is naturally unlikely to happen in normal times.

After all, these four intelligence departments usually work in their own way, and at the same time, some conflicts will erupt due to business overlap.

For example, the conflict between the Military Intelligence Department and the Hanwu Branch is not small. The Military Intelligence Department has always believed that the Hanwu Branch can just stay in the control area inside the empire and play counter-espionage. It has to go to the Ming court control area to make troubles. This is clearly over the line.

When these four intelligence departments were in Jinling City, although there was some cooperation to some extent, most of them were handled by the people below.

But today is different!
Now the vanguard troops of the Great Chu King Division have reached the outside of Jinling City, and the main force of the King Division is only tens of kilometers away, and it will take only a few days to reach the outside of Jinling City.

The Great Chu Empire's attack on Jinling City is imminent, and at this time, their intelligence departments also need to cooperate with the military to make their own contributions to the capture of Jinling City.

After the person in charge of the Military Intelligence Department also entered the room, the meeting did not start immediately. Instead, after waiting for about half an hour, I saw another 27-year-old man dressed as a scholar come in outside.

After the man came in, the people from the Military Intelligence Division stood up first, clasped their fists and saluted slightly, and said, "My next official, Zhao Xi, the Station Chief of the Military Intelligence Division Jinling Station, has seen Mr. Wang."

Immediately afterwards, the other three also got up one after another to pay their respects.

Wang Qi looked around, then nodded slightly and said: "Well, for the sake of safety, the official went to the city, so I delayed a little time and made you wait for a long time."

Zhao Xi said: "My lord is serious. As a secretary of the secretariat, my lord is worth a lot of money. It is very admirable to venture into the city at this critical moment. I wait for a while, it's nothing!"

Wang Qi glanced at Zhao Xi, then nodded slightly, but secretly despised him in his heart.

This Zhao Xi is a man from the Jinyiwei of the Ming court, and he is very familiar with officialdom and favors. No wonder some people say that Zhao Xi was able to sit as the station chief of the Jinling Station of the Military Intelligence Department, not because of his real skills in intelligence affairs, but because of The one who flatters the superior.

Wang Qi has always disliked this kind of people who rely on flattery to get to the top.

Thinking of him, Wang Qi, who studied hard for [-] years in the cold window, successively passed the examinations of Ming court students, and promoted people. Last year, he was first a magistrate after being promoted to a magistrate, and was finally transferred to the Imperial Academy as an attendant. Since then, it has been a whole year entered the ranks of high-ranking imperial officials.

Although the rank and authority of the imperial court servants in the Great Chu Empire are different from those in the Ming Dynasty, they are still important positions.

The Hanlin Academy of the Great Chu Empire, although the name of this institution is the same as that of the Ming Dynasty, it also has titles such as the head of the Hanlin Academy, the bachelor of the lecturer, the bachelor of the attendant, the lecturer, and the read.

But their grades and powers are completely different.

The Hanlin Academy of the Ming Dynasty is a traditional Hanlin Academy, and its own powers are actually small. The main reason is that officials from the Hanlin Academy are more likely to be promoted, and they have the hope of joining the cabinet.

After going up step by step in the Hanlin Academy, and reaching the level of a bachelor's degree, he often went directly to the six ministers or even the six ministers, and then joined the cabinet.

However, the officials of the Hanlin Academy do not have much actual power before they are promoted, so Ming Hanlin is an institution that belongs to the noble and noble, and the Hanlin within it must either ascend to the sky in one step or die...

The Hanlin Academy of the Great Chu Empire is different. Chu Hanlin is neither noble nor favored, but an institution that actually handles affairs.

The Hanlin Academy of the Great Chu Empire was reformed from the counselor's office of the General's Mansion in the early days. It was originally a pure Luo Zhixue private secretarial institution, and it was no exception after being reformed into the Imperial Academy.

There are sixteen divisions under the Chu Imperial Academy, corresponding to the various military and political ministries, and there are also a lot of staff. The entire Imperial Academy currently has nearly 300 staff members to assist Luo Zhixue in handling various military and political affairs.

There is one person who is in charge of the academy, the second grade, the same level as the ministers of the ministries, and directly participates in government affairs, and is also the coordinating minister of affairs.

Under the Imperial Academy, there is a Bachelor of Attendance and a Bachelor of Attendance, who assist the head of the Academy in handling many affairs of the Imperial Academy.

Down there is a group of nine departments, among which the secretariat is quite special.

The director of the secretariat is actually concurrently held by the Bachelor of Attendance.

In addition, there are four attendants and four attendants each. These eight persons are collectively called lectures, which are the four positive grades.

The main job of these lectures and readings is to follow the imperial court in shifts so that they can receive inquiries from the emperor at any time, and generally do not participate in other affairs.

In modern terms, they are Luo Zhixue's secretary.

Under lectures and readings, they are ordinary clerks, with different grades, but the highest grade is no more than seven grades.

As for each subject, the chief of each subject is generally awarded the fifth rank, and the deputy chiefs are awarded the fifth rank.

There are staff members in each department, and the highest grade is no more than seven grades.

And these officials of the Hanlin Academy, especially those above the deputy section chief, all need to have the experience of being in charge of the administration.

In addition, the Hanlin Academy does not have the two levels of the sixth rank and the lower rank, which means that the internal promotion channel from the section member to the deputy section chief is actually faulty.

Therefore, it is impossible for an ordinary section member Hanlin to make it through the Hanlin Academy directly, because the deputy section chief is stuck at the level.

In addition, the chiefs of each department are only the fifth rank, and the lecturers who go up are the fourth rank. Here, there is another gap from the fourth rank, so the section chiefs cannot be directly promoted to lecturers.

The reason why there was a fault was that Luo Zhixue wanted to maintain the circulation of officials in the Hanlin Academy, so as to avoid the promotion of seniority, and the Hanlin Academy became a stagnant pool.

This is not just the case with the Imperial Academy. In fact, most of the other institutions in Gyeonggi and even the provincial institutions in the Great Chu Empire are the same. There will be gaps in the setting of job levels, making it impossible for officials to keep climbing in the same institution. .

Luo Zhixue hopes that officials will transfer between local and provincial or Gyeonggi agencies when they are in office, so as to accumulate more governance experience, and can also select talents through this transfer.

And Wang Qi, as one of the attendants of the Imperial Academy Secretariat, is a close minister of the emperor, and will follow Luo Zhixue on duty every once in a while.

According to common sense, it is impossible for an attendant like Wang Qi who often follows Luo Zhixue to appear in an enemy-occupied area like Jinling City.

But this has something to do with Luo Zhixue's style of handling affairs. Luo Zhixue often directly orders the lecturers to carry imperial edicts to deal with a specific matter.

Before Luo Zhixue named the Wang family as queen, he sent an attendant to Xiangyang with a secret decree to beat the Wang family, telling them to crawl honestly and not cause trouble.

This time, Wang Qi ventured into Jinling City, also following Luo Zhixue's order.

He entered the city to see Li Yuankui!
Not only to meet Li Yuankui, but also to meet other senior civil and military officials of the Ming court in the city who are willing to surrender to the Great Chu Empire. On the one hand, it is to finalize the detailed plan of the Ming army in the city anyway, and on the other hand, it is also to represent Luo Zhixue and feed them The next reassurance, such as making a promise of official rank and so on.

The reason why Luo Zhixue made such troubles was because he didn't want Jinling City to suffer too much damage from the war.

Luo Zhixue also counted on the capture of Jinling City and made this city the official capital of the Great Chu Empire. He also counted on that after the capital was moved, he would be able to live directly in the residences of the Dukes in the city. Suitable office location.

If the attack is too violent and directly destroys the city on a large scale, even if someone sets fire to it, then what Luo Zhixue accepts will be ruins.

And Luo Zhixue didn't plan to build a new capital, and he didn't even have the money to build a new capital. He didn't even plan to build the imperial palace, otherwise he wouldn't have paid attention to the mansions of the dukes' mansions in the city.

As for the Nanjing Imperial Palace of the Ming Dynasty... Although it is still there, it has long been uninhabitable.

However, in order to avoid damage to buildings in the city, that is actually secondary.

The most important thing is that it's about to snow. Luo Zhixue doesn't want his army to attack Jinling City on a snowy day. It will inevitably lead to abnormal attacks and increased casualties. This is unacceptable to Luo Zhixue .

At the same time, he is not willing to wait for a period of time, and then fight after the weather improves. Once it is delayed for a long time, because in this case, the gentry and dignitaries in the city will continue to flee northward through the Yangtze River, and take away a large number of people who will soon belong to the Great Chu Empire. Money and food were taken away.

That is even more unacceptable.

That's all his money!

How to take Jinling City quickly while controlling casualties became a problem that Luo Zhixue needed to consider.

And this issue cannot be considered from a purely military perspective.

Instead, other aspects need to be taken into consideration, such as the high-ranking civil and military officials of the Ming court in Jinling City.

At this time, when Luo Zhixue heard that Li Yuankui was preparing to have trouble with the Military Intelligence Department, he immediately became interested. After asking in detail, he attached great importance to this matter.

In his opinion, if this matter is done well, then the Battle of Nanchang can be repeated.

In the previous battle of Nanchang, the military intelligence department collude with the garrison in the city. Some of the rebellious Ming troops in the city directly opened the city gate to welcome the main force of the Chu army into the city, and the Nanchang city defense was instantly reduced to nothing.

This time to attack Jinling City, if Li Yuankui and others were the internal response, and then opened the city gate and even led the way, then the subsequent siege operations would be much easier.

Therefore, he sent his personal secretary, attendant Wang Qi, into Jinling City to be in charge of contacting and coordinating the forces in the city to cooperate with the army to attack the city.

In this regard, Wang Qi himself also attaches great importance to it.

If he did well this time, in the Battle of Jinling City, he would be able to make military achievements that were difficult for ordinary generals to achieve in the Battle of Jinling City, which would be of great benefit to his future career.

Being a servant of the fourth grade is definitely not the end of his official career!
Wang Qi is still counting on going further, even becoming a minister or even joining the cabinet.

(End of this chapter)