The disgraced official I took care of was actually Zhu Houcong's childhood friend.

Chapter 207

In reality, Tang Bohu didn't have many relatives or friends. Apart from some close relatives, he only had longtime friends like Wen Zhengming and Zhu Zhishan who could tolerate his temper.

Most of Tang Bohu's relatives were dissatisfied with his sudden adoption of a son, especially those from his own family.

Originally, they thought that once Tang Bohu died, the Tang family and everything Tang Bohu owned would be theirs. Some even suggested that Tang Bohu should adopt a son.

Tang Bohu knew exactly what these people were up to, and naturally he wouldn't agree.

Now that Tang Bohu suddenly wants to adopt an outsider as his son, how can they accept this?

When they learned that the source of all this was one of Tang Bohu's disciples, a commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, they showed Zhou Chu even less kindness.

After all, Zhou Chu had not been in Suzhou for long. Previously, the Embroidered Uniform Guard had little authority in Suzhou, and in a short period of time, it did not hold much weight in the hearts of the people of Suzhou.

In their view, it was an insult to scholarship for Tang Bohu to accept a mere Jinyiwei centurion as his disciple.

"Sir, aren't you being a busybody, meddling in other people's business? Since when did it become the business of an outsider to decide the affairs of the Tang family?"

A member of the Tang family approached Zhou Chu and spoke in a sarcastic tone.

"Of course I can't make that decision; the teacher agreed to it."

On this joyous day, Zhou Chu didn't want to cause any unpleasantness. Besides, these people were simply not worthy of his attention. Why should he lower himself to their level? They weren't even worth it.

Just as the Tang family was about to continue their attack on Zhou Chu, an announcement silenced them.

"Lord Wang, the governor of Southern Zhili, has come to offer his congratulations."

Upon hearing this, Tang Bohu's relatives were all shocked.

In their view, Tang Bohu was just a down-on-his-luck scholar, how could he possibly have established a relationship with such a high-ranking official?

Not only were they surprised, but Tang Bohu was also very surprised.

Tang Bohu was surprised because he knew that Wang Yangming was now a high-ranking official. Although Tang Bohu knew that Wang Yangming would never distance himself from him because of his status, as the governor of a province, especially the governor of Southern Zhili, he was in a very high position and had great power.

There are countless official duties to attend to every day. The bureaucratic system and bureaucratic style of the Ming Dynasty have become so serious that the documents are piled up like mountains. Many things will simply be left unresolved if they are delayed even slightly.

Because new documents, if not processed immediately, will be buried in the vast amount of documents and forgotten. As this continues layer by layer, the local governments' ability to implement the court's policies, and even specific timelines, has weakened to an appalling degree.

This is why Yang Yiqing and others wanted to delay Cui Wenkui's matter. If they could delay it even a little, the matter would be postponed indefinitely and eventually come to nothing.

But Wang Yangming was different. With Zhou Chu's advice and Jiajing's approval, he had already begun to try out the performance evaluation system in Southern Zhili. Although it was only the beginning of the trial, and although the officials in Southern Zhili were full of complaints and resentment towards Wang Yangming, they could not stop him.

The performance evaluation system is divided into three parts.

The first part is the establishment of a ledger system.

The so-called ledger system is not complicated. After receiving a specific task document, each department and each official must roughly estimate how long the task will take and then give their superiors a specific and detailed deadline.

At the end of each month, a special check and cancellation process is required. If a task that was promised to be completed within the month has not been completed, the official in charge of that task will be in trouble. All tasks handled by the official will be registered and made into three copies of the official document book.