When the Prefectural Yamen asked for someone by name, Magistrate Ding felt a mix of joy and anxiety. He was happy because the Prefect's request was a clear validation of his own administration, yet worried that if the Prefect really poached Zhao An, he would have no one to run the affairs of the county. He didn't want the Prefect to reap all the rewards while he, the initiator of this talent, was left without even a taste of the soup.
To prevent this, Magistrate Ding broke protocol and granted Zhao An an official post as a clerk. This move was intended to secure Zhao An’s loyalty by tying him to the county’s establishment, ensuring that once he arrived at the Prefectural Yamen, he wouldn't get carried away thinking he had climbed a higher branch, only to neglect his duties or disregard the Magistrate.
The number of clerk positions in the Revenue Department was fixed; for someone to be promoted to full status, someone else had to be dismissed or transferred to another department. By rule, Zhao An was supposed to pay the person being transferred a "displacement fee" of one hundred taels. Now, the Magistrate had declared that this fee was unnecessary, which was, without a doubt, a disguised bonus for Zhao An. If one added it up, it seemed fair: the Magistrate had previously rewarded Zhao An with fifty taels for his proposal on the "blank-shot" cannons, and one hundred taels now was reasonable. However, Zhao An hadn't received a single copper from these two rewards, and his "ba…
Chapter 36