Yunyin paid no more heed to the matter outside. Once in his room, his face slowly fell, the look of a leisure and lazy young master appearing on his face.
"Ah, this is… really stressful," he exhaled a stale breath, a breath he seemed to have held ever since he entered the court.
But while he was exhausted, he wouldn't skip analysing everything important that had happened today –
"Wenyan stopped me in the court, trying to make me waste time. His intentions… he probably wanted to get me to talk and find a weakness of mine. Keeping a cold distance with him should be enough, but I should be prepared of him trying to trip me." As his mind considered this possibility, he also thought of ways to trip him up.
Being in the same ministry and court, there would be no grudge of life and death, and no one would dare form such a grudge with another official. At most they would annoy each other and try to best them, but such competition was just fine, nothing one should be too bothered about.
"The court today was good!" he exclaimed when he thought of how he was able to take the word and explain his own ideas about the budget at the start of the court, "And the emperor's grace was also very good for me.
I heard the emperor would give every new court official a chance to prove themselves. It seems this rumour is partially true – at least if you can gain the attention of the emperor, he won't mind listening to you, even if someone else might have a more refined opinion."
Only because of this rumour did he take such a huge risk, and now it seemed his risk was worth it. The exact rumour was that the emperor would be kind to the new officials in the first cycle, giving them a chance to speak up.
A cycle was the continuous move of the court's focus – every day a different Province was on focus. With thirteen provinces, the cycle was thirteen days long, plus an additional day at the end of the cycle dedicated to the general overview of the empire.
"Because I chose to involve myself into the Yueling Province's issue, I won't be able to focus on the other issues, basically locking myself on this. This gives the other eleven new officials room to get involved into the next issues.
My bet was that the first issue would likely be skipped on by many, for the earthquake had happened a week ago, making three ministries mainly responsible for this issue, which are the Ministry of Revenue, Ministry of Works and Ministry of Land.
The new official of the Ministry of Land seems to have no interest while the Ministry of Work's official didn't get the chance to enter the frey, meaning the ministry had likely internally decided to not work on the front of this issue…"
Every province had its own ministry and minister, while the officials of the court worked directly for the court. Slowly over time these officials choose to align with different ministries and finally leaving their post in the capital to pursue a career internally in other ministries.
It's not that they didn't want to stay, but that the requirements for staying were too high!
"Every official has 60 years of tenure, extended every three stages. After that, no matter what, you will have to leave court with no chance to be reinstated.
In the capital, this 'tenure' has directly been reduced to 30 years – if you don't achieve the next rank in 30 years, you can just give up and leave the capital, taking a career outside. There are still those that don't believe this and try their way through, but 99% of them fail to achieve a higher position after the 30 years mark passed.
Many times the provinces will recruit us talented people and give us a higher position as long as all requirements have been fulfilled…
But besides this common path, there is a special path… the 'General Minister of the Ministry', officials that have a general overview of the whole dynasty, also often called the Vice Grand Ministers, the right hand of the Grand Ministers who control the whole ministry.
In the three thousand years of history, 100% of Prime Ministers rose from Grand Ministers, 70% of Grand Ministers rose from General Ministers, and 90% of General Ministers rose steadily in the capital court, never leaving."
His eyes gleamed with determination as he thought of this –
Instead of joining a ministry of a province and focusing all the power there, wouldn't becoming the General Minister be the best path for a true rise?
Combined with the newly awakened system, he knew that only by having this position could he interfere into all affairs of every province.
While internally the ministries still discuss and make decisions, the real influence is in court, not in hidden chambers.
His focus, from the start, was exactly this special path!
Such high ambitions… maybe his father knew of this, which was why he had put so much effort into sending him into this court, even though there were enough positions in the county.
His mind slowly relaxed, the matter of today's court could be said to have been partially concluded, at least the first step was complete. He couldn't delay the next step, but he still had half an hour he could relax, which he didn't wish to waste.
Dwindling in bed, he thought of hamburgers and hotpot… in this age and time, myriad paths had progressed and there was even a 'Crafting Path' dedicated to crafts, the Crafting Path is said to be the path with most professions even, among which there was the Cooking profession.
Unfortunately, while these cooks' abilities are superb, they haven't reached the 10.000 years of human civilisation as his past life, especially the Era of Information where new things popped up every now and then.
Because of this, the food was extremely good but lacked some variety.
He had thought once about establishing a restaurant chain, but then he realized belatedly that he didn't have the license to do something like this.
Every business required a local license issued by the magistrat. If he started his business in his county and wanted to expand, who knew how many duplicates would've already appeared?
The patent wasn't his so he didn't care about others imitating him, but he was the one who started it, so shouldn't he be the one with the biggest benefit?
After a long time, he realised that pretty much everything required the approval of either the local magistrate, which would be extremely tedious, or the special approval of different ministries handling different matters.
Want to establish a restaurant chain across the country? No problem, get a license from the Ministry of Revenue, and you can do it as you want!
Though the required approval had to come from high entities the more privileges he wanted. The level of prefecture required the approval of third-ranked Assistant Ministers, provinces required second-ranked Ministers, and the country required the approval of the first-ranked Grand Minister…
Before he entered officialdom, he thought he could solve everything after entering it. After entering officialdom, he realised that he needed to be of a high rank to achieve everything.
Fortunately with his position in the Ministry of Revenue, he was closer to the Ministry of Commerce and at least could scheme the approval for prefectures. If he got the approval individually for every prefecture, wouldn't that be the same as getting the approval for the province?
Hogging one province was enough, the income would be great, the cost might also be huge, but in the end he could still get a considerable sum that could help support his official career and his clan behind him.
"Alright, enough fantasizing about creating a restaurant chain!" with a jump he stood up from his bed, looking at the wrinkled robes which he had cared so much for in the early morning.
Taking off the outer robe, he kept the white inner robe and instead looked through his closet, which contained a few robes.
He would only wear his official robe during court or for official duties – since he was going to visit a minister privately, he had to switch his garment.
"Green, blue… no, these ones are too mild, unfit for a new official. Although as a stoic official I want to appear as cold as possible, in private I will have the persona of a more relaxed scholar.
Only when people think you're strict about official business but casual about private business will they consider making friendships with you," Yunyin chuckled at this, a glint of calculation appearing in his eyes for just a moment.
Stoic, casual, calculating.
He was all of them, he simply chose to separate a complex personality into three personas based on the degree of familiarity.
As for his true self?
If a person couldn't even combine all three and see his true self from his superficial persona, then they didn't deserve knowing his 'true self'.