Chapter 4 Staff Officer

  "When there were difficult official matters that others could not understand, only Mr. Tan was able to handle them with ease and clarity, and his arrangements were always appropriate and reasonable." — Shen Jing, "The Past Years", Qiang Xue Book Society, 1932 publication.

  Tan Zhonglin had been a governor for many years, and his long-time staff also numbered over thirty. Tan Zhonglin's political inclination was very conservative, otherwise he would not have gained the trust of Empress Dowager Cixi. His staff team was no different from those of other high-ranking officials in the imperial court, all following the imperial system and divided into departments such as administration, justice, finance, rites, military, and public works. Tan Zhonglin had already become a man with one foot in the grave, having lost his original ambitious spirit. He treated his staff relatively well, just to maintain good relations from start to finish. His long-time staff generally received at least thirty taels of silver per month, with some even reaching fifty taels or more, which was significantly higher than the average income of twenty taels for staff members.

  In this era, the income of a seventh-rank county magistrate was only about 45 taels. If there were no unexpected events within a year, there would be an additional 1,000 taels in allowances at the end of the year, averaging around 90 taels or so. However, the county magistrate still had to pay bribes to their superiors and take care of their family members, making life extremely difficult if they were not corrupt officials. As for a private tutor's income, it was only about 5-6 taels per month. The fate of scholars who could not become officials was either to become private tutors or work as clerks under Tan Zhonglin, where one could easily earn half the income of a county magistrate, equivalent to that of five or six private tutors - what an enviable profession!

  After Tan Yanqian entered the Mufang Hall, the long-time followers of Tan Zhonglin's staff were also very clear that the master was very strict in managing his household. Two young masters had previously entered the Mufang Hall to learn official business, but they couldn't bear it and Tan Zhonglin thought it wasn't effective, so he withdrew them. As for how long this third young master could last, it depended on heaven's will. In the past, Tan Yanqian would only enter the Mufang Hall once every one or two days, but compared to his two older brothers, he was much more diligent. However, since he passed the Xiucai exam and returned to Fuzhou, he had to spend at least half a day in the Mufang Hall every day, and if Tan Ming San didn't have classes, he would stay there all day.

  Because Tan Zhonglin was exercising Tan Yanxin's ability to handle government affairs, he did not assign him to handle a certain aspect of government affairs, but rather let him follow his interests. As a result, Tan Yanxin became familiar with almost all six departments' affairs and handled the inherited official business at will. This was also because he had an extraordinary memory that allowed him to remember everything after reading it once, which greatly improved his work efficiency, far surpassing those colleagues who followed Tan Zhonglin's example of doing nothing but waiting for death.

  However, in just three months, Tan Yanxin had already become the de facto "chief of staff" for Tan Zhonglin, except for some things that he was not very familiar with. All thirty or so officials at the Mufang Tang were deeply impressed by Tan Yanxin's ability to handle official duties, and Tan Zhonglin was overjoyed. Although his son was still relatively young, in Tan Zhonglin's eyes, he was far more capable than the sons of other governors. Tan Zhonglin also thought it was very interesting that Tan Yanxin handled official duties so effectively, so he specially gave him a salary as an official, which was sixty taels due to his position at Mufang Tang. This was not a small income at the time, and it was also Tan Yanxin's first income outside of his fixed monthly allowance of ten taels.

  Min-Zhe Governor, formally known as the Governor of Min-Zhe and other places, is one of the nine highest-ranking territorial officials in the Qing dynasty, responsible for the military and civilian affairs of Fujian and Zhejiang. In this era, there was no Northeast China Governor, which was a later development, and among these nine territorial officials, only the Zhili Governor was a first-class official, while the others were second-class officials, making the Zhili Governor the highest-ranking governor in the country. The Min-Zhe Governor ranked relatively well among the governors of the country, although it was slightly inferior to the Zhili Governor. However, due to Zhejiang's rapid development along the coast, it was considered to be on par with the Huguang, Liangguang, and Liangjiang Governors. In fact, the Liangjiang Governor owed its prominence to the emergence of Zeng Guofan; otherwise, it would not have been able to surpass the Min-Zhe Governor in terms of geographical advantage. Nevertheless, this was far superior to the Yungui and Shaan-Gan Governors.

  It is precisely because of the extensive contact with political affairs in the past three months that Tan Yankai has gained a certain understanding of the society he currently faces, and this era is indeed one of the darkest eras in Chinese history. The various phenomena he encountered were truly shocking - the few lines on the history books cannot represent this period!

  Tan Yanqing, relying on his excellent work ability and special relationship with Tan Zhonglin, not only established his core position in the Mu You Tang, but also because of Tan Zhonglin's old age and inability to handle all government affairs, Tan Yanqing has actually become half of the Fujian-Zhejiang Governor up to now. Except for very major issues, he can make decisions on his own.

  Tan Zhonglin was very supportive of Tan Yanqian's involvement in government affairs, but after Tan Yanqian took control of the Mu You Tang, he became increasingly dissatisfied with its work efficiency. Except for three or four new recruits from Min and Zhejiang, the rest were just following in their father's footsteps. Tan Zhonglin was already old, but still young at heart. Although he didn't have high hopes for his own future, he felt compelled to do something for this land before deciding whether to stay or leave. To achieve anything substantial, it was imperative to inject new blood into the Mu You Tang.

  It's also puzzling to Tan Yankai that the governor-general of Fujian and Zhejiang is in charge of these two provinces. Although Fujian's terrain is not as good as Zhejiang, and its wealth cannot compare with Zhejiang, the governor-general's office is actually located in Fuzhou rather than Hangzhou, which he finds quite strange. However, to find the staff that Tan Yankai needs now, it is necessary to have people familiar with local conditions in both Zhejiang and Fujian, and even go to Guangzhou and Shanghai to search for talent.

  Tan Zhonglin was a conservative, and naturally could not touch his bottom line in recruiting staff. In fact, Tan Yanqing highly appreciated Li Hongzhang and Zhang Zhidong, whose subordinates had many talents who were proficient in both Chinese and Western studies and foreign affairs. As Zhang Zhidong had an open "Foreign Affairs Department" in his own government office, this flag could not appear in the Fujian-Zhejiang Governor's Office where Tan Zhonglin was stationed. Therefore, the main talent recruited by Tan Yanqing's recruitment notice was translation talent proficient in foreign languages, and he wanted to set up a Translation Department in the Muyou Hall.

  Tan Zhonglin did not oppose Tan Yanxin's recruitment and expansion of the Mufang Tang, although he did not allow Tan Yanxin to socialize with idle people, fearing that he would get into trouble. However, as the son of the governor-general, Tan Yanxin inevitably had to interact with all sorts of people in order to hone his academic skills and gain social experience. For Tan Zhonglin, this transformation of Tan Yanxin was still within his tolerance range, and by giving Tan Yanxin such great power, he also hoped that Tan Yanxin would become more capable in the future.

  It was the spring of 1892, and after the Lunar New Year, a special examination was being held in the Mufu Hall of the Fujian-Zhejiang Governor's Office. The examination was presided over by Tan Yanxian himself, and other officials were quite curious, so those who didn't have much business to attend to were all gathered in the Mufu Hall to watch. Tan Zhonglin also came to the Mufu Hall with great interest, wanting to see how his son would recruit clerks. In fact, it was not that Tan Zhonglin wanted to see how his son recruited clerks, but rather he came to see his son's foreign language performance - after Tan Yanxian returned to Fuzhou, Tan Zhonglin knew that his son was learning a foreign language, which made him very curious. However, considering that Tan Yanxian had excellent grades in all subjects, he did not stop him. He already knew the content of today's examination, and Tan Yanxian would use a foreign language to directly question the candidates, and finally decide who to keep - these people would become members of the Translation Department of the Fujian-Zhejiang Governor's Office Mufu Hall, with a monthly salary of 45 taels of silver, and possibly an additional 10 taels of silver as a reward based on their work performance. This was not a small amount at that time.

  Tan Zhonglin didn't care about money. In fact, his staff was relatively small compared to others in the same position as governor-general. Zhang Zhidong had a staff of over 60 people, and Li Hongzhang, who was still at the height of his power as governor-general of Zhili and minister of Beiyang, had an even more unimaginable scale of staff. If Zhang Zhidong and Li Hongzhang could afford to support such a large number of staff, Tan Zhonglin could too - not to mention that he received a monthly salary, and the various government offices in Fujian and Zhejiang would send 6,000 taels of "expenses" to the governor-general's office every quarter. Additionally, there were also gifts from subordinates during holidays and festivals, which added up to around 30,000-40,000 taels per year. He could afford to pay these staff members, but the key was whether it was worth paying them.

  Due to the very generous treatment, many people came to take the test, almost 40 or so, which also greatly exceeded Tan Yanqing's expectations. Two days ago, he had already come up with a test paper - all in English, with 100 questions, and the test-taker was required to write a resume in English or their own proficient foreign language. The test time was two hours, and the content covered everything, all about Western science, customs, humanities, etc. In Tan Yanqing's eyes, this test paper was not difficult, but the exam content was very broad, such as "Who is the first president of the United States?", "Who discovered the law of universal gravitation?", "Who do you think is the greatest writer in the West and why?" and so on. The real difficulty was the foreign language resume at the back, but for someone who is proficient in a foreign language, it shouldn't be a problem.

  In his previous life, Feng Wenyu was over 30 years old and still unmarried. However, he had achieved great success in his career - from a rural family in Chaling, he had been exceptionally intelligent since childhood and had managed to get into Peking University, one of the most prestigious universities in China with an admission rate of less than two digits. After completing his master's and doctoral studies, he began his journey as a visiting scholar, having stayed in the US, UK, France, and Germany, where he also made great efforts to learn German and French.

  But that's the kind of test paper, only three people scored more than 60 points, and five people passed 40 points. The rest of the scores were terrible, and six of them even got zero points. This result obviously made Tan Yan very disappointed, but he still hoped to find his most needed translation talents in the following interview process.

  After this written test, a total of thirteen people were selected to participate in the interview. When the first interviewee walked into the hall, Tang Yanqi began his questioning in French: "What is your name?"

  The young man replied fluently in French: "My name is Shen Jing, style Wen Yuan, from Shanghai. In my early years, I followed my father to France and Britain..."

  The result of the interview was beyond Tan Yanqing's expectations - out of 13 candidates, 9 were able to pass this round. Of course, there were two people he couldn't "identify", who were fluent in Russian and Italian. He had temporarily hired two foreigners as examiners, who asked questions according to his requirements, with very satisfactory results. The two guys who scored zero in the written test but submitted resumes written in Italian and Russian were surprisingly able to chat fluently with the two foreigners, leaving Tan Yanqing somewhat surprised - it seemed that the 50 taels of silver spent on hiring these two foreigners was not wasted.

  The original recruitment plan for the Translation Department of Mufang Tang was to recruit five people, but unexpectedly, nine people passed the test. However, Tan Zhonglin generously agreed to let Tan Yanqing keep the candidates he liked, which made him somewhat relieved. Before recruiting his staff, Tan Zhonglin had a conversation with Tan Yanqing, and it was during this conversation that he learned why his father had agreed to establish the Translation Department - Zhang Zhidong's Mufang Tang had a translation department, and among them was "the treasure of the town" Gu Hongming, who was proficient in ten languages.

  Tan Zhonglin and Zhang Zhidong's relationship was not very good, they only knew each other. The most important thing is that both of them knew Wang Xianqin. Wang Xianqin and Zhang Zhidong's chief aide, Sang Zhiping, had both served as Western officials in the Su Shunwang Palace. This friendship also made Zhang Zhidong and Wang Xianqin have a very deep relationship. Wang Xianqin's evaluation of Zhang Zhidong made Tan Zhonglin have a good impression of him. Unfortunately, he was already old and only wanted to spend his remaining years in peace. Zhang Zhidong had the ambition to become the number one governor-general in the country, and the talents he recruited were probably unmatched except for Li Hongzhang. Although Tan Zhonglin was old, he still had a son, and he placed more hope on Tan Yankai.

  These nine candidates, together with Tang Yanqun, were proficient in only five languages: English, French, German, Russian, and Italian. Compared to Gu Hongming, who was said to be proficient in ten languages under Zhang Zhidong's leadership, Tang Yanqun felt somewhat disappointed. However, he was pleased that he had finally gathered some talented individuals with a foundation in foreign languages, which would allow him to slowly expand his network. These five languages were already the most powerful in the world at that time - they were backed by six top-tier powers and stood at the top of the global food chain. Of course, Japan would eventually join them, but it was not yet 1894, and the Russo-Japanese War had not occurred, so Japan was still not considered a major power, even in Asia, where it was superficially suppressed by the Qing dynasty. Gu Hongming's proficiency in ten languages seemed somewhat useless to him.

  Feng Wengu, who possessed Tan Yankai's body, liked to play the Three Kingdoms game in his previous life, but at this time he didn't have a hobby of collecting talents. This was also because he wasn't confident enough about being able to dominate and rule in this chaotic world. Gu Hongming was also someone who left his mark on history, unfortunately Tan Yankai didn't know much about him either. If he had the intention to recruit him, it would have to wait until Zhang Zhidong retired from office. What kind of situation would that be? Even Tan Yankai himself couldn't guarantee whether he would still be in the country at that time!

  With these nine foreign language talents, the translation department of the Fujian-Zhejiang Governor's Office was finally established. Among them, Tan Yankai thought most highly of Shen Jing, Chen Fei and Kou Qing. Shen Jing and Kou Qing were both from merchant families, but Shen Jing's family was a large business family, while Kou Qing and his father were high-ranking employees of foreign firms in the Shanghai concession. As for Chen Fei, he was even more unusual - he was a xiucai (a scholar who had passed the imperial examination), but after repeatedly failing to pass the next level, he was forced to make a living and found a job at a foreign firm in Shanghai. Unexpectedly, he turned out to be a language genius, mastering English and German. Later, after his life stabilized, he gained experience in the Shanghai concession and felt that the path of imperial examination was not suitable for him, so he simply continued working at the foreign firm. If it weren't for Tan Yankai's recruitment notice offering high pay and a glimpse of hope for becoming an official, Chen Fei would probably still be working at the foreign firm. The other people in the translation department included four haigui (returned overseas Chinese), plus Shen Jing, who was half-haigui, making it roughly 50-50, which also made Tan Yankai somewhat amused.