Leaving the large meeting room, Fuliang glanced over to Su, a snicker sounding as he passed him by and entered an adjacent meeting room with his own camp.
Puyan Su's brows furrowed deeper and deeper, anger about to flare up. Yet at the final moment, he stopped himself and walked away, his thoughts unknown.
The meeting room they entered was smaller, yet it was still quite good.
Besides Assistant Minister Ying, there was only one director, Director Li Yan.
Yunyin had seen two directors following behind Assistant Minister Puyan, so he was surprised at this sight. Turning to look at the other officials, he saw that there were three custodians and 10 managers. Of those lower than the sixth rank, there were only two who stood out, the others either old or quiet.
"Li Yan, you heard it already. The solution I found has been presented by the new official, Jie Yunyin." Fuliang didn't hide it and directly pointed at Yunyin, who was sitting rather conspicuously alone. Yunyin cupped his hands in greeting.
The director was slightly surprised, his attention drawn to him, cupping his hands in greeting and praising him, "A new official and yet with an idea liked by the Assistant Minister, Official Jie is a young talent indeed!"
"Director Li is praising me too much, I am but a simple official!" Yunyin's persona of a stoic man naturally wouldn't talk too much nor act arrogant or too humble.
Fuliang couldn't help but internally chuckle, seeing this official who was so casual in his courtyard yesterday act so serious in court again.
"Some details were changed, some approaches made different. In the end, the solution we have should have a 70-80% chance of having a satisfactory result. What I want to discuss with you is the budget.
Based on the calculations, and based on this solution, we won't need to pay as much as expected. There is no need to pay for the local labor, and we also only need to pay the price to transport the outside labor. In addition, we will pay material costs and everything else.
A rough calculation is that the budget we will require will only be 5.000 gold taels per 100.000 workers. This is nearly half less than what we planned, so there is no need to discuss the budget with other ministries of revenue and consider the budget required for autumn and winter this month.
I want you to work out the calculations again, but the key is that this budget has to be suppressed to at most 7.000 gold taels! While the emperor gave the order that this budget will be for us to decide, the Ministry of Lands will inevitably try to gain an advantage by using budgets to have a large move of force.
We also don't know the situation with the Ministry of Works, so you will also have to be wary about it.
The people who present it in court will be you and Yunyin." Fuliang finished his own decision.
Li Yan looked like he wanted to interject, having his own ideas… but Fuliang simply glanced at him, telling him to quiet down.
Those who present and discuss the matters in court will inevitably gain the attention of the emperor, so this is a kind of benefit.
Since Yunyin was the one who proposed the framework of the solution, naturally he had to be rewarded. The matters of honors were customary, this reward was a way the assistant minister used to convey his appreciation for talent.
Although there were many officials present, in fact, this was still the capital. Whether they would come with him to the Yueling Province after leaving, whether they would stay here, whether they would leave officialdom… it was all up to their own ideas.
This led to people being assigned to ministries over time and being in certain camps, but their participation being low, all having their own ideas.
Li Yan was different from them and a core member, so when he saw Fuliang reward Yunyin so generously, he knew that this person was likely going to be a new core member.
Rather than pushing his own people, helping the people chosen by the Assistant Minister was also good, so he didn't insist on using his own people, his small act merely that, an act to appease the people dependent on him.
In the end, power wasn't eternal, and loyalty was paramount. He had to consider many things before making a choice.
Everything seemed to have been completed, so the Assistant Minister told them to leave, "I will leave the capital right away today. When I come back in two weeks to report the situation, I hope that everything will have been solved. If you don't know how to solve an issue, don't hesitate to ask Assistant Minister Puyan. We are still members of the same ministry, and he won't intentionally cause our province to fail."
After saying this, he looked at Yunyin, his mind conveying the message that he should stay.
Everyone else left, only glancing at Yunyin for a moment as they did so, marking in their minds that a new core member appeared in the Assistant Minister's circle.
No one questioned whether Yunyin had truly joined the circle or not.
Yunyin himself didn't know either – his goal was always the path of a general official, not one assigned to a ministry. Now he was here… should he join or leave? Or maybe just wait and decide later?
"Hehe, I can see your thoughts on your face," Fuliang chuckled as he looked at the stoic, contemplative face of Yunyin.
"I apologize for my indecency," Yunyin apologized seriously.
"Even in private, you are so serious?" Fuliang asked with slight curiosity.
"Clothes make a man, wearing an official's robe, I will only ever be an official."
Fuliang raised an eyebrow, his thoughts winding, yet he didn't say anything about this.
A robe was all it took to distinguish positions, such a statement would evoke laughter everywhere else…