Otherworld Advance Team
Chapter 1552 - 1545: Suture System

Chapter 1552: Chapter 1545: Suture System

"I’ll ask Luo’er," Baiyue pondered.

"Go ahead, it’s a good opportunity to chat with him," Cheng Ziang said, inexplicably raising his eyebrows.

However, when he saw Baiyue turn around and start calling for Tangmo, he couldn’t help but sigh deeply. Indeed, at such serious times, she wasn’t in the mood to discuss these trivial matters with Luo’er.

Hearing Baiyue’s request, Tangmo gently nodded and then turned to enter the carriage. Soon after, she came out again and loudly announced, "The Saint agrees to follow."

Hearing her words, Cheng Ziang turned around and said to Xihe with a bow, "Then we are in your hands to lead the way."

"Alright, this way please," Xihe said, also feeling puzzled and hesitantly asked, "Inside the carriage is..."

"That is our Saint, the spokesperson of God, whose status is noble and who should not show himself in public," Cheng Ziang explained.

"Oh, I understand, I understand. Please follow me," Xihe repeatedly bowed and then mounted his horse, commanding the soldiers around to clear a path for the carriage to enter.

The group got back onto the carriage, and the soldiers brought by Xihe led their horses, following Xihe and his men into the area.

"He seems to be a Civil Official, how is he in charge of military affairs?" Baiyue asked, staring at Xihe’s back.

"Where did you see that he is a Civil Official?" Cheng Ziang asked.

"Look at his scholarly appearance, he has the air of a scholar," Baiyue gestured.

"If Civil Officials don’t handle military affairs, then who will? The military officers?" Cheng Ziang shrugged.

"Isn’t it supposed to be like that?" Baiyue asked curiously.

"You must understand, their military officers are different from the military officers in our history; their military officers are pure Cultivators who are focused on cultivation and too preoccupied to care about anything else. If you make these people military officers, what can they do, show off their Cultivation achievements?" Cheng Ziang said lightly.

"It seems to make sense," Baiyue nodded.

In fact, regarding employment, the Cultivators in Dongsheng Empire have very limited choices in the positions they can select. Especially after the Civil Officials in the Cabinet gained power, there was a significant push to promote literati and select scholars to serve at the Imperial Court.

Many local and Imperial Court officials have attained their positions in this manner. The Civil Official system has indirectly allowed the common class to elevate their social rank. In the Cabinet of the Dongsheng Imperial Court, a considerable portion are from common families.

Although the aristocratic families still control major power within the Cabinet, the strength composed of commoners should not be underestimated.

The system of Civil Officials in Dongsheng Empire is somewhat similar to a combination of the Nine-Rank Zhongzheng System and the Imperial Examination System. It involves local recommendations of talents who are then examined by central Imperial officials, and upon passing, they are appointed as officials.

In other words, the selection at the grassroots level employs the Nine-Rank Zhongzheng System, while the higher-level selection follows the Imperial Examination System. This approach actually has its issues, because it is easiest to manipulate at the grassroots level where people with power and influence can often monopolize the selection of talents.

Thus, the selection system of Dongsheng Empire seems straightforward, but internally, it involves very meticulous screening. It’s not that a person from a noble background can directly ascend to high positions in the Court; commoners are not necessarily excluded either.

Firstly, at the grassroots design, the most direct method apart from family background is through examinations. These are directly set by the Imperial Court, which also appoints officials to supervise and mark them. Those who pass this stage, whether commoners or descendants of aristocratic families, can enter this system to await assignments, somewhat similar to scholars.

The next step is the selection process under the Nine-Rank Zhongzheng System, where local officials rate the candidates based on evaluations. After county-level candidates are rated, they can be promoted to prefecture-level candidates. After prefecture-level candidates are rated, they become state-level candidates.

Once someone becomes a state-level candidate, they are essentially one step away from the final stage, which is the examination. All candidates gather at Shengyuan Qilan for the unified examination and then wait for the Ministry of Personnel to determine their postings based on the exam results.

It should be noted that there is no elimination in the examination; the only distinctions made are in the size of the official positions, with no one being disqualified. In other words, once one takes the examination, they are basically stepping into officialdom.

Descendants of aristocratic families from state clans are often assigned by the Imperial Court to serve in other states, and they seldom stay in their home state. This indirectly strikes at the enthusiasm of these major nobility clans to enter the court through civil selection, which is advantageous for the selection of commoners.

These aristocratic families send their children to the court precisely to establish roots in the Capital City, not to be sent to other states. Being sent to ordinary states might be bearable, but the problem arises when some states have powerful factions that are in conflict with one’s own clan, leading to various complications for a family’s descendants serving there.

Historically, this type of incident has often occurred: two mutually hostile powerful factions, due to a mistake by the Imperial Personnel Department, ended up having their descendants assigned to serve in the rival state, leading to restrictions and even murders.

It should be mentioned, although the Dongsheng Empire is nominally unified, due to the existence of private soldiers, friction often occurs between states, sometimes escalating to interstate war, occasionally requiring the Imperial Court to dispatch troops to quell the conflict.

Though the Imperial Court later adjusted its personnel appointments, the enthusiasm of the great noble clans for entry into civil service has still not seen significant improvement.

From the description above, one can see a major flaw in this hybrid system of the Nine-Rank Zhongzheng System and the Imperial Examination System — that is the rating by local officials.

Whenever decisions are made based on personal discretion rather than objective rules, there’s a high likelihood of corruption, and the rating system is no exception.

The ratings given by local officials to the candidates are often subjective, providing them with significant leeway. For example, local aristocratic families can bribe local officials to promote their progeny sooner. Conversely, commoner candidates, lacking funds for bribes, might remain at the county or prefecture level for decades without being promoted.

But as the saying goes, no system in the world is absolutely perfect. Without the constraints of rules, the depths to which human nature can sink are limitless.

The civil official selection system of the Dongsheng Empire actually breaks these long-standing monopolies on power held by the aristocratic clans, allowing the middle class to seize power.

Moreover, the most crucial point is that the civil official selection system of the Dongsheng Empire offers a path for those unable to engage in cultivation. Life is not solely about cultivation; it includes poetry and distant lands as well. As long as they diligently study, there’s a chance to become an official and elevate one’s social status. Undoubtedly, this aspect is far more appealing to the lower-class populace than cultivation.

From this, one can also discern that the civil official system of the Dongsheng Empire, in fact, aims to eliminate a longstanding malady of Kyushu — the notion that cultivation strength dictates everything. With the rise of the civil official system, the significance of cultivation has relatively declined.

As mentioned before, cultivation is not only time-consuming but also expensive. Typically, only aristocratic families have the financial resources to enable their offspring to engage in cultivation. For a cultivator, talent is significant, but postnatal investment is even more crucial.

This further widens the gap between the nobles and commoners, resulting in the continuous survival of the aristocratic gatekeeper system in the Dongsheng Empire up to this day.

However, for those commoners from humble backgrounds, pursuing education is undoubtedly more cost-effective than cultivation. Granted, studying may not grant immense power, but it can earn recognition from the Imperial Court and integration into its vast machinery. Even just being a small part within it can fundamentally change one’s identity and status.

Understanding this point essentially helps one to comprehend why Xihe, who seemingly is a gentle scholar, became a military officer in Lingyun Province.

This is essentially a dramatic backlash of the civil official system, where the Cabinet almost prefers all officials to be civil ones, verging on overcorrection.

In the Dongsheng Empire, are there cultivators who become military or even civil officials? Indeed, there are.

It is known that not all people can be compared equally; some are born geniuses, capable of reaching the pinnacle of cultivation and also deeply familiar with poetry and the policies of the Imperial Court.

Such individuals, however, are extremely rare. Not nonexistent, but simply few in number. A typical example is Yichuan Long from the Yichuan Clan of Jiangzhou.