Ming Dynasty and New Rome and Infinite Magic Machine

Chapter 1447 Holiday Classes
The entrance to the Imperial College was bustling again after a long absence. It was the winter vacation and all the new students were coming here.

The Imperial Academy is both an institution of higher learning and a government department, so there are many things to do outside of the curriculum - ordinary schools don't hold such pre-semester classes so frequently, but the Imperial Academy's practice is very old-fashioned. This is because it was done many years ago when public transportation was not so developed.

Because at that time, most students regarded studying as an extremely important stage in their lives, completely isolated from their original social circles. At that time, there were no telephones, no telegraphs, and no trains that ran on time according to schedules. A round trip to school might take half a year. So in those days, students of the Imperial College often did not go home halfway and would stay in the capital for five or six years.

Given such a long time span, it is common sense for students to arrive at school a month in advance.

Although all universities have this rule, they usually require students to arrive a few days before the start of the semester and complete the orientation and physical examination in a few days before the start of the semester. It is not like the Imperial College, which still takes more than a month.

It's not a big problem for those who live in Yingtian, and those who live in the suburbs can take the tram. But if you live far away, you can only come to school a month in advance.

However, the dormitories of the Imperial College—other places are dormitories, but this place is a dormitories—are also open during holidays. And you can move in directly when you arrive, without having to wait until school starts.

Although it sounds like a prison, and it was indeed managed like a prison in the old days, the conditions here are pretty good nowadays.

"I didn't expect that I would have a cell too."

[Why does it sound like you are going to go to jail? ]

"Well, if you have to live on campus, it's almost like being in prison."

Phaethon took him to his own cell - the Imperial College was a bit rigid in this regard. Regardless of whether you lived in the school or not, everyone had a cell. Every student had his own room, this was the rule of the Imperial College.

In principle, all students must live on campus, but in reality, there are many exceptions. As long as there is written approval from parents, it is also possible to live outside.

[To some extent, this is a reflection of your court. Although the rules in many places are very old-fashioned, they can be adjusted according to the actual situation. When they are conservative, they are very conservative, and when they are open, they feel that they are too open.]

"Well, it's like Liaodong Dusi is under the jurisdiction of Shandong Province. It has been like this since the Hongwu and Yongle years."

Although the current Liaodong is completely different from the Liaodong of the past - the Liaodong of the past was only a prefecture, and the current Liaodong has several million square kilometers, it is still managed in this way. This is actually a historical problem in the past, because when the country was founded, the Liaoxi Corridor outside Shanhaiguan had not been completely pacified, and the lifeline was compressed by the Northern Yuan Dynasty to only a dozen kilometers wide, and Liaodong Prefecture was like an enclave. At this time, it is much more convenient to go by water than by land.

Later records of this were "At the beginning of the state's establishment, Liaodong was affiliated to Shandong only by sea."

This could have been changed later, but it was never changed. Before the Northern Yuan Dynasty was pacified, Liaodong had set up a branch administrative agency, so there was no need to cross the sea for everything. After the Northern Yuan Dynasty was pacified, there was no rush to change it. Later, when it was time to change it again, the provinces began to become virtual and the governors began to become real. Shandong and Liaodong were included in two different governors' districts, so there was no need to change it.

Then it is now. The main discussion was during the "Yongqing Restoration", and in the end it was decided not to change it, but the reason was particularly confusing. The part discussed at that time was not just Liaodong, but whether to add more provinces in addition to the two capitals and 13 provinces.

The final result is no increase. Written explanation: In terms of history, literature, and law, there are a lot of expressions like "two capitals and thirteen provinces" in existing written materials. If the expression is increased to two capitals, twenty-three provinces, or thirty-three provinces, there will be differences in expression from existing historical documents, which is not conducive to maintaining the continuity of history - especially the continuity of literary creation.

In layman's terms, the two capitals and thirteen provinces sound good. "The two capitals and thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty are carried on my shoulders" is a sentence that rings loud and clear, full of domineering power.

Anyway, in reality, the provincial level has become empty, replaced by the governor. Then the North and South Zhili expanded significantly in modern times. Although it has spanned several provinces administratively, the provincial shell has always been there.

"Don't mention it. I always feel like everything here is like this."

The same is true for the future of the censors. Their future has been compressed unprecedentedly. The censors, who originally occupied one-third of the provincial institutions, have become an honorary title without subordinates, and are only given to senior censors to improve their rank and salary.

【Do you want to improve the treatment of your classmates? 】

"Beating drums and selling candy, everyone does their own thing. Today is my day off, so I don't care about anything else."

He sat on his bed in the dormitory.

This dormitory is his own, and there is a shared living room outside, which is next to another dormitory.

"Who's next door?"

"Me. As a teaching assistant, I also have my own dormitory, which is placed here."

"Wait, there's no gender distinction here?"

"Aha." Phaethon covered his forehead, "You know why I said that your conservative places are particularly conservative, and your open places are particularly open - yes, the dormitory is not divided by gender, anyone can live there."

“Why is there no distinction here?”

"I asked, and the reason is this - in the early modern period, there were no female students in the Imperial College, so there were no female dormitories. Later, with the process of modernization, female students were also allowed to enter the Imperial College, but due to the shortage of land, the Imperial College could not build new dormitories. Also, because the Imperial College required all students to have dormitories, and the gender ratio of male and female students changed every year in the early days, there was no need to adaptively divide the areas. So from the beginning, the dormitories in the Imperial College were not divided by gender. Of course -"

She pointed to the one in front of her: "Although the cells are not divided into male and female cells, the cell numbers are divided into male and female numbers. Within a cell, whether it is two or three rooms, in principle, they must be divided into male and female numbers."

"What about me? Am I not a man? Or do you treat me as a woman on principle?"

"I'm a teaching assistant, so in principle I can arrange a dormitory. That's why I arranged for you to come here. Anyway, you don't live here, and neither do I. We don't want anyone else to enter our room, right? We can just use this as a lounge. If you want to come to school, this is a good place to take a nap."

"You are really thoughtful."

"Because if neither of us is thoughtful, life will be a mess. So, take a break and have lunch."

"Isn't pork elbow for lunch today?"

"We don't eat pork elbows every day in the Imperial College. They are quite expensive. Today is a normal lunch, let's go eat."

In the cafeteria of the Imperial College, Shangluo felt a sense of familiarity——

"Hmm, this" the food in front of me looked quite familiar.

Radish soup, rice, braised pork, scrambled eggs with tomatoes, and stir-fried cabbage. Not only were the dishes the same, but even the menu was the same as the cafeteria in his previous middle school.

"I said, is our canteen chef employed again at the Imperial College?"

"No, the meals are provided by the same company."

"Which one?"

"The Imperial College is right. Because the Imperial College is also a government department, the public middle schools in Yingtian Inner City basically all have set meals provided by the Imperial College, so the food tastes exactly the same."

"I was wondering why the pork elbows looked so similar when I first came here. It turns out they are from the same restaurant."

"Oh, by the way, have you met your classmates?"

"Well, I'm not very familiar with them."

Shangluo did attend the pre-class lectures in the morning. Since most of the school regulations had been covered, the morning session was mainly about cooperative courses, that is, the cooperative projects between the History Department and the Censorate.

Even as Shangluo knew, the History Department of the Imperial College could save nearly a year on the road to becoming a Censor.

In particular, parts like the judicial examination have a fixed pass rate. Even if you take the exam, you may not pass it. However, the cooperative courses of the Imperial College can replace the judicial examination when registering for the Censorate, which is already a big relief.

Phaethon asked, "By the way, is the Censorate so short of people? I don't know much about these cooperative courses."

"It seems that we really need someone to explain it to us. There was a censor who was also our senior. He was very enthusiastic, very, very enthusiastic, and he almost told us to 'come!' But to be honest, the treatment for this path is indeed not that satisfactory."

After joining the company, you will either be a censor or a judge. The censor is already very busy, and the judge is even busier than the censor. Because no matter how busy the censor is, he has a special car, but the journey is tiring. The judge is the person who drives the censor, provides information and plans when the censor takes the car, and is responsible for arranging the entire journey before the censor arrives at the local area. There may be more than a dozen judges under a censor, and the trainee judge with the least experience in the team has to do these things.

"But you're right. I'm really interested."

"Hmm? Can you arrange better treatment for your classmates?"

"It's not that it's better treatment - the Heavenly Court will need people to go out on field missions in the future. In principle, the ones who go out on field missions should be the Thunder Department."

Since the work is the same, it would be natural to transfer the Censorate to the Ministry of Thunder, which is perfect.

However, at present, because of the existence of "provincial governors", all governors have to take up a quota in the Censorate, which makes the Censorate have a lot of unnecessary administrative work. Although those governors are not evaluated by the Censorate at all, but are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Rites, they have to keep files in the Censorate since they hold the title of censor.

If Shangluo wants to transfer the censors in the Censorate to the Ministry of Thunder, then this part of the governor who was conventionally assigned to him will have to be separated.

But he couldn't do it alone. To make changes to the court, it would be convenient to have a cabinet minister here.
"Hmm? Elder Wen?" He suddenly saw Wen Zhong queuing up for food. Just like last time, Wen Zhong was also eating in the cafeteria. Everyone called him "Principal" when they saw him.

As if he noticed the gaze behind him, Wen Zhong also saw Shangluo. He pointed upstairs to Shangluo and asked him to meet him upstairs.

"Hey, why did Shang Tianjun come to class today?"

"Duty, duty."

"Your duty is not to attend classes, you should focus on your work. I arranged you here so that you can get a good reputation as a student of the Imperial Academy - but it's good for you to be here. There's no harm in attending more classes." Wen Zhong himself said this with some awkwardness. This was also the first time he advised someone not to come to school.

"Speaking of which, Elder Wen, I haven't told him about Wen Yuan yet."

"No rush. We'll talk about it when the time is right. The old man still has a life to live, so there's no need for him to know now."

When Wen Zhong talked to Shang Luo about Wen Yuan, the experiment on Governor Yuan had not yet been carried out. Yesterday, he was at the scene and watched the whole process. After it was over, he took Governor Yuan to the cabinet to report.

"By the way, how is Governor Yuan?"

"It's more normal than I thought. You see, I'm in much better spirits today, because now I know that if anything goes wrong, at least I have a zombie body to fall back on."

Wen Zhong did look much more radiant. But he was usually in good spirits, and it seemed that there was no major change - but if you look closely, the previous mental state seemed to be the meticulousness born out of duty. But now the mental state is relaxed and happy from the inside out.

"So, you have something to talk to me about?" Wen Zhong asked.

Shangluo told him about the Lei Department - including the Night Shift Bureau.

"So," Shang Luo concluded, "we have established a night watch bureau in Germany, but the night watch bureau should only be an extra-official agency of the court. The court still needs a real supervisory agency to deal with the evil spirits that cause trouble in the mortal world."

"You mean to move the Censorate there?"

"I want to move the Censorate's part over there and keep the administrative agency."

"Where did you learn this? I heard that when many listed companies merge, they will split up the core business to resolve equity disputes, leaving only the shell to fend for itself."

"The workload of the Censorate is too big for me to handle."

This is true. In theory, all governors and provincial governors are in the system of the Censorate, including the Grand Governor of Beiting and the Grand Governor of Yangzhou. Shangluo can't take over the management of all of them at once, then he won't have to do anything else.

This part has nothing to do with investigating the case. They just hold the title of censor, but they don't do any investigating.

"Yes." Wen Zhong replied, "After we take care of Governor Yuan's affairs, everyone's future will be guaranteed. Now, no matter what you want to do, I'm afraid there will be no obstacles. You want to transfer the core part of the Censorate - the Supervisory Censors and their judges to the Thunder Department? Yes. But under what name? Logically, the institution that undertakes this function should be: the North Pole Exorcism Institute."

(End of this chapter)