Just as Chen Yunfu was curious about everything about the Procuratorate, the Secretary of State Shi Pu was also curious about Chen Yunfu.

This one is probably too young.

Can there be someone fifteen or six years old?

How close is this person to Shao Yushide that he could be sent to the Metropolitan Procuratorate at such a young age?

Although he is just a low-level official with a low-level status, isn't there a saying that he is called a seventh-grade official in front of the prime minister's door?

They are both officials. How can the officials in the Metropolitan Procuratorate and the officials in the local county government be on the same level?

As one of the central organs of the Ming Dynasty, the Metropolitan Procuratorate was responsible for the impeachment, prosecution, and audit of officials all over the world. It exercised the power of inspection together with the Ministry of Civil Affairs. It was a veritable organ of national power, but it only had more than two hundred officials.

This is completely different from Liubu and Dali Temple.

The most relaxed of the six departments, the Ministry of Rites, has thousands of officials.

After all, the Cleaning Department is the department that needs the most manpower.

Shi Pu did not take the initiative to inquire about Chen Yunfu's background. He was just a ninth-grade secretary. In the capital, there was no difference between ordinary people. There were countless aristocratic families at the emperor's feet, and no young master from any family could afford to offend him.

In short, all he had to do was remember that Chen Yunfu was someone he could not afford to offend.

Anyway, more than half of the more than 200 petty officials in the Metropolitan Procuratorate are related households, not less than one or two.

"We are here at the Metropolitan Procuratorate. The place is big but there are few things to do. You don't have to worry when you arrive. If you really don't understand something, just ask Shao Yushi."

Shi Pu took Chen Yunfu to have a brief introduction to the layout of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and then visited the inner courtyard, which is the dormitory area.

"If you are tired on weekdays, you can rest here. However, except when we are working on cases in the Procuratorate, there is basically no one living in this inner courtyard."

Shi Pu smiled and said: "After all, we are all from the capital. It's better to sleep comfortably at home when we are off duty."

After reciting this sentence, Shi Pu asked Chen Yunfu casually: "Where does Yunfu live?"

"No. 3, Liren Street North."

Shi Pu twitched the corner of his mouth and laughed twice: "Good terrain, good terrain."

The Shao Yushi family lived in No. 3 A on the north side of Liren Street. There seemed to be no house smaller than the fourth rank in the house from east to west.

With his mind running wildly, Shi Pu thought of several dignitaries named Chen in Beijing.

"Shi Wu, where should I go to report?"

What Chen Yunfu said was a bit awkward. He didn't quite understand how to express the meaning of the word "report" in the Ming Dynasty, so he simply used it directly.

"No need to go anywhere."

Shi Pu understood clearly and gave a direct reply: "Usually, the Experience Department is the busiest, and the Zhaomo Department is the least busy. However, the subordinate officials in our Procuratorate are different from other places. The specific work we do is

In fact, it’s not much, the main thing is to be on standby.”

"Stand by, whose life are you waiting for?" Chen Yunfu blinked, confused for a moment.

"It's the fate of the Censor Hall officials."

Shi Puyan said: "But to put it this way, basically you will not encounter it a few times. How can the censors have the time to come to our place to issue orders? Even though the censors are the superiors of our capital procuratorate, in fact

They don't come to this place very often.

If anything really happened, it was Ge Qingcheng who brought the files to the palace to report. I have been working here for more than ten years, and I have met the censor of the capital once. Now we have the censor of the Zuodu, Zhan Huigong, and I have not even seen him.

I’ve seen it before.”

The Metropolitan Procuratorate, are you so free?

Chen Yunfu blinked, somewhat incredulous.

If you put it this way, wouldn't this Metropolitan Procuratorate become a Qingshui Yamen?

No, to be precise, the Qingshui Yamen is the Ducha'waiyuan.

The inner court of the Imperial Palace is not a Qingshui Yamen, but a real authority.

Only then did Chen Yunfu realize that he had misunderstood the Metropolitan Procuratorate.

Subconsciously, Chen Yunfu always associated the Metropolitan Procuratorate with later procuratorates, thinking that the Metropolitan Procuratorate had many practical responsibilities. But now it seems that the only duty performed by the Metropolitan Procuratorate is not to supervise officials all over the world.

, but simply as a weapon in party struggle.

This outer court accepted impeachment reports from various provinces and localities, and then the Experience Department collected these impeachments and sent them to the inner court located in the palace, and handed them over to the hands of a group of high-ranking supervisory censors.

As for how these censors will report to the leaders of the larger parties behind them after they get it, or how they will carry out criticism and battles between the same party and those who are different, it has nothing to do with their outer court.

Because the Metropolitan Procuratorate itself does not have the power to investigate cases.

What the Metropolitan Procuratorate can get can only be called clues, and clues can only be called evidence after investigation and fact verification. The power of verification lies with the Ministry of Criminal Justice.

The imperial censors were making excuses, the criminal officials broke their legs, and the court was in chaos. The emperor profited from it, balancing all parties while stabilizing the ruling structure.

This is probably the only value of the existence of the Metropolitan Procuratorate itself.

Thinking of this, Chen Yunfu's fighting spirit retreated slightly. He came here with great interest, thinking that he could participate in the upcoming Guo Huan case, but now it seems that the Guo Huan case has nothing to do with him.

Unless, the Metropolitan Procuratorate has independent investigative power and its own investigation team!

But this kind of thing can only be thought about, and Chen Yunfu himself shook his head.

It was useless to talk to Shao Zhi about this matter, let alone Shao Zhi, even if he talked to Zhan Hui, the unmasked Zuodu censor of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, it would not be possible.

Except Zhu Yuanzhang.

Chen Yunfu is not that ungrateful.

Just do your job honestly.

Even though the Metropolitan Procuratorate is crazy about idleness, its salary is not low.

"The annual salary is twenty taels, of which ten taels are given in cash, and the remaining ten taels are redeemable in kind."

Upon hearing this value, Chen Yunfu once thought that he had heard it wrong.

"So many?"

The salary situation of officials in the Ming Dynasty has been criticized by later generations because they felt that it was too little.

For example, the lowest ninth-grade official can only receive five stones of rice per month or choose an annual salary of twenty-eight taels.

But is it really low?

Let’s not talk about the price of things in the beginning. Let’s talk about the monthly salary of five shi meters.

Once the Ming Dynasty was about 94.4 kilograms, five stones would weigh 940 kilograms.

If this ninth grade official has a family of five, can he eat two hundred kilograms of rice every month? Even if he can, the remaining seven hundred kilograms can be fully realized in the market.

This can be sold for more than two taels of silver.

Feng Menglong wrote a scene in "The Scholars" where Fan Jin's father-in-law, Hu, a butcher, could sell a pig a day and earn a penny.

A pig weighs about a hundred pounds, which is only enough for the butcher Hu to earn one penny.

How much does this pig cost?

According to records in "Wanshu Miscellaneous Notes", a pig only costs one or two six cents of silver.

The total price is one to two six cents, butcher Hu only makes one cent, so he can be considered a very conscientious merchant.

Of course this is not the point.

The point is that a pig only costs one or two or six cents.

A ninth-grade official's family of five eats two kilograms of meat a day, and they don't finish a pig in a month!

In other words, every meal has meat.

The price of beef and mutton is 30% cheaper than pork!

Because the sanitary environment in the Ming Dynasty was not ideal, it was difficult to raise pigs, but not cattle and sheep. One was to have its own pasture (Monanwei) in the early Ming Dynasty, and the other was to trade with grasslands.

A ninth-level official can live a comfortable life with only his legal salary.

In addition, the prices of cloth and silk are not high.

A piece of cloth costs only three qian, and a piece of silk costs only five taels.

Officials had two sets of clothing for each of the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. Both official and casual clothes were purchased by the court.

Then it would be enough for the officials to buy clothes for their families.

The only reason why the salary of the Ming Dynasty gives people an extremely low illusion is because we have converted prices across time and space.

We calculated that one stone of grain would be sold to future generations for only more than three hundred yuan.

The monthly salary of five shi of grain is only about one thousand seventy-eight.

How to live?

How much are the expenses related to favor exchanges and festivals?

Shouldn't officials keep a few side houses?

Why don't you learn a foreign language once in a while?
To be continued...