Chapter 289 Leisure

In mid-February, the first batch of provincial inspectors departed from the capital and went to various circuits throughout the country.

Carrying Xiao Jue's handwritten order and the Ministry of War's transfer order, they rode swiftly, traveling day and night, to their respective posts.

Upon arriving at each location, the first thing he did was to investigate the local judicial and supervisory archives; the second was to take over the seals and account books of the Provincial Surveillance Commissioner; and the third was to write the first secret report to the imperial court.

The secret report bypassed the local government and was sent directly to the capital, landing on Xiao Jue's desk.

From that day on, local judicial oversight power was formally separated from administrative power, becoming an independent system directly accountable to the central government.

Local officials who still want to deceive their superiors, disregard human life, and engage in corruption and bribery should think twice.

In March, the system of transport commissioners was implemented nationwide.

The Transport Commissioner was in charge of finances, handling everything from tax collection, storage, and transportation to the review and reimbursement of local expenditures. Various surtaxes previously levied, such as "surcharges," "fire surcharges," and "miscellaneous levies," were abolished outright.

Local officials can no longer arbitrarily impose additional taxes and extort money under the guise of "subsidizing office expenses." Those officials who were used to living off these "surcharges" suddenly found themselves in a tighter budget.

Some complained bitterly, some grumbled, and some secretly conspired to petition His Majesty to rescind his decree. But the petition was suppressed as soon as it reached the Office of Transmission, and it didn't even get into the cabinet.

The official from the Office of Transmission spoke very politely: "His Majesty said that there will inevitably be growing pains at the beginning of reforms. Please bear with it, gentlemen, and it will pass."

The officials looked at each other, none of them able to utter a single word in rebuttal. "Endure"—these three words sound easy, but putting them into practice requires peeling off a layer of skin from one's own body.

The implementation of the Grace Decree was more difficult than the division of administrative power because it did not touch the power of individual officials, but rather the inheritance rules that a family had followed for hundreds of years.

The primogeniture system was not established by any one person; it is a customary practice that has been established for thousands of years. It is the cornerstone of patriarchal society and the fundamental guarantee for the continuous existence of aristocratic families and clans.

Now Xiao Jue is going to make changes to the phrase "primogeniture"—not abolish it, but break it up.

The eldest son of the legitimate wife takes one share, the sons of concubines take one share, and the collateral branches take one share. As the distribution continues, the money is eventually scattered.

When the decree reached the ears of the remaining forces of the various aristocratic families, those former family members who had lost everything and were left with only an empty house and a few acres of meager land barely clinging to life did not even have the strength to be angry.

Those once powerful families that owned thousands of acres of fertile land, hundreds of shops, and dozens of estates had split into dozens or even hundreds of unrelated small families by the third or fourth generation.

Each family was allocated only a few dozen acres of land and one or two shops, making them essentially no different from ordinary self-cultivating farmers and small merchants. The distance between aristocratic families and commoners was only a matter of imperial decree.

By the time everything settled down, spring was already more than halfway over.

The case involving the Cui, Lu, Zheng, and Shen families went from a joint trial by the three judicial departments to a formal execution, implicating hundreds of people. The confiscated property filled several newly built warehouses in the Ministry of Revenue. The account books, letters, and name cards piled together were taller than a person, like a silent grave, burying an era that had lasted for hundreds of years.

The imperial edict was issued from the capital to various prefectures and counties. The seals of the transport commissioners were handed over from province to province, and secret reports from the provincial judicial commissioners were sent to the Qianqing Palace one by one. The regulations for the reform of the imperial examination system were implemented one by one. The officials of the Hanlin Academy and the Imperial Academy were so busy that they didn't have time to rest. They even ate dumplings with cold tea in their duty rooms on New Year's Eve.

Then, one day, Zhou Heng suddenly realized that he had nothing to do.

It's not that nothing's wrong—the Hanlin Academy still has documents to review, and the Secretariat still has memorials to draft; those routine paperwork tasks will never be lacking.

But that kind of thing is different from being "busy".

Zhou Heng sat in the Hanlin Academy's duty room for half a day, finishing reviewing the documents on his desk and then flipping through the newly delivered official gazettes. The gazettes were either news of the transfer of officials in some place or reports of rain and sunshine from some prefecture or county. They were dry and uninteresting, without a single word worth circling with a vermilion pen.

He sat there in a daze for a while, then got up and went to take a walk around the cabinet.

The Wenyuan Pavilion in the Grand Secretariat was more lively than the Hanlin Academy. Several scribes were huddled together copying and writing. Upon seeing him, they all stood up and bowed. He waved his hand, telling them to continue with their work, and then leaned over to glance at what they were copying—

It was a copy of the approval document for the site selection of new schools in several prefectures in Jiangnan. The handwriting was neat, the format was standard, and there was nothing wrong with the content. He glanced at it, found it uninteresting, and left.

The sunlight under the eaves was lovely. The April sun was already quite warm, its rays neither too hot nor too cold, making it the most comfortable time of year.

The crabapple trees outside the corridor were in full bloom, their pink and white petals densely adorning the branches. A gust of wind would cause them to fall softly, landing on the blue brick floor, on his shoulder, and on the cover of the book he had laid out on his lap.

He glanced down at the book—a newly compiled mathematics textbook written by a few newly arrived probationary scholars from the Hanlin Academy. He flipped through it and thought it was alright, though a few places could be revised.

He folded the corner of the page, closed the book, leaned against the pillar, and squinted at the fluttering petals.