The first thousand three hundred and eighth chapters
When the task force dispatched by the Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Supervisory Council went to Jiangbei to conduct a detailed investigation, outsiders, including Liu Bagou, had no idea that Li Xuan was already preparing to launch a large-scale anti-corruption storm.
Li Xuan's plan for this anti-corruption storm is to have a good deterrent effect and a small negative impact.
To achieve a good deterrent effect, it is necessary to catch a group of high-ranking corrupt officials, and the scale cannot be small. In addition to high-level heavyweight corrupt officials, middle- and low-level officials are also key targets.
The general steps are for the Central Supervisory Office to take action first, in the manner of catching the thief before the king, by first arresting the top-level intended targets, and then quickly cooperating with the provincial supervisory offices to arrest local fourth- and third-grade corrupt officials.
Officials finally urged local supervisory offices to arrest mid-level and low-level officials on their own.
What's interesting is that all the mid-level and high-level targets were actually prepared in advance. Li Xuan had already drawn up a general scope based on Hantong's top-secret report. Except for some special core high-level officials who needed Li Xuan's personal orders,
The investigation and arrest of other high-ranking officials is left to the Inspectorate.
The reason why they did not arrest people directly but had to conduct further investigations is because Hantong's investigation methods are basically invisible to the public, and Hantong's investigation reports are often not very detailed.
Basically, they report directly that a certain official has committed corruption, estimating the amount and by what method. However, Hantong generally does not conduct targeted investigations into the detailed time of corruption, because this is not their task, and
Hantong's funds and manpower are also limited. They have more and more important tasks, and it is impossible to spend too much energy on corruption investigations.
These investigations are often incidental to Hantong's daily investigations.
According to these reports, it is not easy to arrest people directly. After all, evidence is required. It is impossible to say that he is corrupt just because you say he is corrupt. You have to provide conclusive evidence.
Nowadays, the job of the Inspectorate is to conduct in-depth investigations on each target and obtain the evidence based on the list provided by Hantong!
Therefore, when the Supervisory Office sent a task force to Jiangbei, it actually started a large-scale secret investigation, which was not limited to the Central Supervisory Office, but also required the cooperation of the provincial Supervisory Offices.
But at present, even within the Supervisory Office, few people know the scale of this anti-corruption investigation. The only ones who know clearly are Shi Wuyan and Anti-Corruption Bureau Director Cai Siqi.
Shi Wuyan was the censor of Zuodu of the Supervisory Yuan and the minister on duty in the imperial study room. Li Xuan also gave him personal responsibility for the anti-corruption matter.
As for Cai Siqi, this person is still not from the Supervisory Yuan system. In fact, he is not an ordinary administrative official. He was born in the Hanlin Academy, before being transferred to the Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Supervisory Yuan as the second-grade director.
He is the deputy director of the Secretariat of the Hanlin Academy and one of the many accompanying secretaries of the Holy Emperor Li Xuan. What is an accompanying secretary? Well, it is basically the kind that follows Li Xuan all day long, carrying tea and carrying bags.
When Li Xuan goes out, he walks at the front, accompanied by Liu Bagou or other core senior officials, and behind Li Xuan, they are the accompanying secretaries.
As for other senior officials, they are on the outer level.
Of course, in the Hanlin Academy, whether it is a division chief, a deputy division chief, a section chief, a traveling secretary, a first secretary, a second secretary, or a third secretary, these are actually dispatches, and these positions themselves
There is no grade.
His official title is a bachelor's degree in the Hanlin Academy, deputy director of the academy, from the third rank.
To quickly go from a third-grade official to a second-grade official was naturally a rare thing in the official system of the Tang Empire, but it was not a rare thing for officials serving in the Hanlin Academy.
There have been several examples before. For example, the Minister of Finance was transferred from the Hanlin Academy. At that time, his rank was even lower. He did not become a high-ranking official of the second rank with just one click.
Of course, there is a process for being promoted quickly, and there will be a transitional period in the middle. During this transitional period, Li Xuan usually assigns them frequent false jobs, and then uses them to improve their level.
Cai Siqi's promotion path is no exception. As a rising political star who has served in the Hanlin Academy three times, his career path is much smoother than that of Chen Lifu and others.
He is a typical example of the new generation of officials in the empire. What is a new generation of officials, that is, officials who passed the imperial examination and entered the officialdom after the establishment of the empire.
He entered the officialdom not too early. He first served as a county magistrate in the local area. He was promoted to a full-time official and magistrate of the county within half a year. At the end of his term, he was transferred back to the Hanlin Academy to serve because of his outstanding political performance. Later, he was sent out to serve as the magistrate because of his outstanding work. However, he soon became the magistrate of the county.
He was transferred back to the Hanlin Academy, this time he entered the secretariat as a first secretary, and finally became Li Xuan's accompanying secretary.
After his three-year term as accompanying secretary expired, he was sent to work in the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and then transferred to Hangzhou as the prefect. But obviously, this was another gilded road. He worked in the Ministry of Civil Affairs for three months, and served in Hangzhou for half a year and most of the year.
Later, he was recalled to the Hanlin Academy by an edict from Li Xuan. After serving in the Hanlin Academy for the third time, he still served as Li Xuan's accompanying secretary.
Last year, he was officially promoted to deputy director of the Secretariat, and was awarded the bachelor's degree of deputy director of the Hanlin Academy, with a rank of Congsanpin.
Well, every transfer of his was arranged by Li Xuan!
In other words, this person is actually a young official whom Li Xuan focuses on training. If he had always followed the path of an ordinary administrative official, he would have been a high-ranking official of second grade or above. However, Li Xuan felt that this person was available and he was in the imperial officialdom.
It is rare to find a relatively honest official, and with many years of contact, Li Xuan knew this person relatively well, so he always kept him working in the Hanlin Academy.
Before Li Xuan established judicial independence, he had already been assigned to various false positions. First, he was assigned to serve as the leader of the judicial reform inspection team to inspect Jiangnan Province. On the way, he was given the false title of the third rank of the censor of Youqiandu.
, and then after he came back, he was given the false title of Censor of Zuo Qiandu. The false title was still the third rank, but this third rank was half a level higher than the third rank of Censor of Right Qiandu.
According to the tradition of the imperial official system, the left is more noble than the right. For example, the ministers of various ministries, the left minister and the right minister are both from the second rank, but if the right minister is changed to the left minister, it is regarded as a promotion, and vice versa, it is demoted. Correspondingly,
Real power is also different.
A few days later, Li Xuan officially dismissed him from his position as deputy director of the Secretariat, but he was still retained as an accompanying secretary, and asked him to temporarily supervise the reorganization of the Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Inspectorate. At that time,
Being in charge of the work of the Anti-Corruption Bureau with the official title of Zhengsanpin is actually a high ranking, because at that time the Anti-Corruption Bureau was just an ordinary department-level agency under various central ministries. The director and ordinary department heads were at the same level as the Congsanpin. I thought he was just here for gold plating.
of.
Many people didn't understand it at the time, but after the judicial independence reform was successful, Li Xuan removed Cai Siqi from being the "accompanying secretary" and completely separated him from the Hanlin Academy, and then officially appointed him as the reformed Supervisor of the Academy.
Director of the Corruption Bureau.
At the same time, his own officer was also promoted to the right deputy governor of the capital, and his rank was the second rank.
It took him less than a month to upgrade from the third level to the second level, two levels in a row.
However, many high-ranking officials know that this rapid promotion is a matter of course.
Even though his rank was low before, he was only a third-rank junior, but you have to know that after he entered the official career, he actually worked in the secretariat most of the time, and served as Li Xuan's accompanying secretary for seven years.
In front of Li Xuan, the weight of his words was not much lighter than that of those ministers!
In addition, during the pre-Ming Dynasty, it was common for Hanlin Academy members to rise to the top and become ministers of various ministries, ministers and even cabinet ministers. Today, the Hanlin Academy in the Tang Empire actually has this effect.
Therefore, it is not surprising that this person was promoted to two levels in a row. Of course, there are still very few Hanlins in the Hanlin Academy who are promoted quickly and then go on to become senior officials in the ministry.
Only a few people can have this opportunity!
Most of these few people have a common characteristic, which is that they have entered the Hanlin Academy many times.
This person who has entered the Hanlin Academy many times and served has basically blocked more than 99% of the Hanlin Academy.
Because the number of officials serving in the Hanlin Academy has remained at more than 300 people all year round, and because there are no rigid rules for promotion within the Hanlin Academy, at least hundreds of people are sent out every year, and then new people are selected from local areas.
Work at the Hanlin Academy.
It's just that after ordinary officials are basically released, they basically have no hope of returning to the Hanlin Academy. Being able to enter the Hanlin Academy to be gilded is basically the biggest opportunity in their lives, and it is also the envy of countless officials.
object.
However, a very small number of people can get the opportunity to return to the Hanlin Academy, and an even smaller number of people can return to the Hanlin Academy for the third or fourth time.
And these very few officials who were able to return to serve in the Hanlin Academy were all sons of genius, and they were all officials on Li Xuan's training list.
As a person who was able to return to the Hanlin Academy three times to serve in the Hanlin Academy, and finally worked all the way to the position of Vice-President of the Academy, Cai Siqi was already a candidate for cabinet ministers in the eyes of others.
No one is surprised to be promoted to the second rank, but what everyone is surprised about is why he holds the important position of director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau.
You know, this person has never done any supervision work before, will he catch corrupt officials?
The answer is, Zeiss Qi really doesn’t know how!
Catching corrupt officials is not his strong point. What is his strong point?
He will unswervingly carry out Li Xuan's orders, and since he was born in the Hanlin Academy, he is actually from a different system from ordinary cabinet civil servants, and he even has no interest in people within the Inspectorate.
More importantly, he actually came on behalf of Li Xuan!
He only needs to complete this task on behalf of Li Xuan by suppressing the officials of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, and then it will be a success!
To use a person, it doesn’t actually need to know what he knows, but what kind of role he plays, and Zeiss Qi sits in the Anti-Corruption Bureau, even if he doesn’t know anything about anti-corruption, but he only needs to know that he can fully
Just carry out Li Xuan's will.
To catch corrupt officials, there are many people in the Anti-Corruption Bureau who know how to catch corrupt officials. What Cai Siqi needs to do is to use the people in the Anti-Corruption Bureau.
Having served in the Hanlin Academy for many years, he is not good at catching corrupt officials, but he is still very confident when it comes to matters such as employing people, power tactics, conspiracies, intrigues and other intrigues.
Without this ability, he would have been killed in the fiercely competitive Hanlin Academy. How could he have climbed all the way to the position of deputy director of the academy!
The first thing Cai Siqi did after taking office was to dispatch the Jiangbei Task Force and then conduct an internal investigation of the Anti-Corruption Bureau in order to gain control of the Anti-Corruption Bureau's real power as soon as possible.
As for the corrupt officials outside, as far as Cai Siqi is concerned, there is no rush!
As a professional politician who has been tested in political struggles for a long time, he is very clear about the necessity of dealing with foreign affairs before settling at home.
If we want to complete the tasks assigned by His Majesty, we must first clean up the Anti-Corruption Bureau!