Chapter 83 Chapter 83 Officialdom Under Pressure

The ancients said: the officialdom is difficult.He also said: official career is dangerous.These two sentences mean: It is difficult to be an official, it is extremely difficult, the officialdom is like a battlefield, and colleagues are like enemies, it is easy to hide from the open spear, but it is difficult to guard against the hidden arrow, if you are not careful, you will be smashed into the sand, and you will lose everything. . Speaking of the difficulty of being an official, it seems that even ordinary people have a stomach full of bitterness.Sitting under the stage and looking up, no matter how honest and loyal a minister is, he will inevitably be slandered by villains, and such an insidious treacherous minister will inevitably be stabbed in the end.Even in the Dagu Ci, "court ministers leaking the cold at five o'clock" is regarded as the greatest difficulty in life. The common people are still lying on their backs and snoring in their beds, and the officials have to be well-dressed, braving the wind, frost, rain and snow. I went to Dianmao to report early, and the hard work alone is not something ordinary people can bear.

But there is no common sense in the world, it is difficult for some people to be an official, but it is very easy for someone to be an official.At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there was a minister named Zhang Pengxuan, who was Minister of the Ministry of Punishments during the Ming Dynasty. By the time of the Qing Dynasty, he was over seventy years old, and the emperor had changed, but he was still the Minister of the Ministry of Punishment.One day when he was going to court, he accidentally fell over and rolled down the steps.Emperor Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty was startled, and hurried over, helped the old man up, and helped him to the outside of the palace gate, and sent Zhang Pengxuan away.

Even more ruthless than this Pengxuan, there was Zhang Ruoqi in the Ming Dynasty. This person was not a big official in the Chongzhen Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, and he was just a servant of the Ministry of War.Later, when Li Zicheng invaded the city of Beijing and slaughtered the court officials, he had a high regard for him and entrusted him with a heavy responsibility, making him Minister of the Ministry of War of the Dashun Dynasty.Soon Li Zicheng was beaten away by the Qing Dynasty, and Qing Shizu Shunzhi sat on the dragon chair, and invited Zhang Ruoqi back to continue to reuse him. This Zhang Pengxuan and this Zhang Ruoqi, what is so special about them?Why do they have to be invited to be officials no matter which dynasty it is?

In fact, Zhang Pengxuan and Zhang Ruoqi are just ordinary members of the vast stream of officials.When we read history, we usually focus on tragic heroes. For example, Wen Tianxiang, a national hero in the late Southern Song Dynasty, whose awe-inspiring songs of righteousness still make people excited.However, if we read Wen Tianxiang's history carefully, we will be surprised to find that under Wen Tianxiang's unyielding integrity, there is still a mysterious figure with a prosperous official career hidden. This person's name is Chen Yizhong, and he is the prime minister.When Yuan soldiers went south, Chen Yizhong was having conflicts with his colleagues, so Chen Yizhong wrote to resign, but the court refused to allow it, and the country could not do without Chen Yizhong.Chen Yizhong had no choice but to preside over the peace talks with Yuan Bing, but Yuan Bing asked Chen Yizhong to be a hostage.Old Chen didn't hesitate at all, just ran away and fled.

Next, Wen Tianxiang gathered soldiers and people to fight against the Yuan Dynasty and save the country, while the little emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty fled to Fuzhou, reorganized his leadership team, and the prime minister selected by thousands of people was still Chen Yizhong. This Chen Yizhong, who had a prosperous official career, died of old age happily in a leadership position. He has never sang vigorously and sympathetically like the national hero Wen Tianxiang, so we ignore him.However, we may now understand that people like Chen Yizhong, like Zhang Pengxuan and Zhang Ruoqi in the late Ming Dynasty, may have no other skills, but they have extraordinary geniuses for how to be an official.

From this point of view, being an official should also have knacks.As Li Hongzhang said in the late Qing Dynasty: "The easiest thing in this world is to be an official. If a person can't even be an official, it is really boring." The so-called meeting is not difficult, but difficult. Or not, Li Hongzhang said this because he knew the basic tricks of being an official.No matter what, it is extremely easy for those who know the tricks to do it, but it is extremely difficult for those who don't know the tricks to do it. So, what is this secret secret of being an official? To clarify this issue, we must first start with the boss in the officialdom.

As an official, the most important thing is to deal with your boss. If your boss looks at you high, your room for advancement will be greater.If the boss sees you getting angry, it will be difficult for you as an official. So, how do the bosses in the officialdom view their subordinates? A boss is also a human being, and a human being has a human personality, and human characteristics will bring one's own preferences and personality into one's own management style.As long as you figure out what kind of person your boss is, what you like, and what you dislike, then your behavior will be much easier.

Generally speaking, although the bosses in the officialdom have different appearances, different heights, and great differences in temperament, they all have one thing in common, that is, they are all under tremendous psychological pressure. Regardless of whether you are a high-ranking official or a small official, you have a certain amount of social resources in your hands. The bigger the official, the greater the ability and influence to dispatch resources, and the more people staring at you nervously because of anticipation.As the old saying goes: If you are an official and don’t make decisions with the people, it is better to go home and sell sweet potatoes.The "people" mentioned here are those who stare at you.

The reason why people stare at officials is because people expect justice.But unless you sit in an official position yourself, you won't know what justice means.You must know that the so-called fairness is purely a subjective feeling, just as the clown in "Su Sanqi Jie" said: "You say you are fair, he says he is fair, and whether it is fair or not, only God knows." , is nothing more than the people's self-interpretation of interests. If it is beneficial to me, or a conclusion I agree with, then I think it is fair.On the contrary, if it is unfavorable to me, and it is not a conclusion I agree with, I think it is unreasonable.Therefore, the evaluation that officials get when handling things must be 100% unfair.

Why?Because the allocation of benefits involves multiple parties, some people get more, others get less, and the person who gets more may not think you are fair, because he wants more.The person who gets less will think you are unfair because he gets so little. In ancient times, there were two brothers who separated. They both thought that they got too little and the other got too much, so they went to the government to sue. When the magistrate saw this case, he was immediately dumbfounded.The two brothers, Gein, thought that they got less and the other got more, no matter how they played around, it was impossible to satisfy the two brothers.Is it possible that when encountering such a thing, the magistrate should pay out the silver taels to settle it?

This kind of case can't be solved by anyone, and it is handed over layer by layer, and finally meets an official with a flexible mind.He ordered the two brothers to exchange their share of the property, the older brother gets the younger brother's share, and the younger brother gets the older brother's share. Don't you all think that the other party gets more?That's easy to handle, so go get the extra one.In this way, it was finally settled, otherwise, even if the officials who tried the case were not scolded as corrupt officials, they would inevitably be called confused. The higher the administrative level of an official, the more allocation of interests involved, and the harder it is to satisfy subordinates or the public.It is this kind of "unfair" negative evaluation that constitutes a strong pressure on officials. People are selfish, and even the worst people hope to hear others give themselves a higher evaluation. Evaluation, there will be a huge sense of loss in my heart, and the feeling of pressure will become stronger and stronger. When this kind of pressure exceeds the psychological limit, there will be signs of personality collapse, manifested as self-abandonment, self-indulgence, and completely ignoring the negative evaluation of the outside world.Many tyrants in history were formed in this way, and no matter how hard they worked, they would not be able to succeed, so just let it go.Now that he has gained a notoriety, let's just do the bad things to the end... Once such thoughts appear, the evil side of human nature will quickly gain the upper hand, and people will also be alienated into ferocious man-eating beasts. Personality breakdown is only a relatively extreme situation. Most of the time, when a person is under pressure, his personality will show five changes: one is to become more rational and use wisdom to make up for the real predicament.The second is to become more emotional and gain praise with the advantage of emotional intelligence.The third is to show romantic feelings and resolve specific problems with grand ideas.The fourth is to become full of doubts, thinking that everyone is trying to make life difficult for themselves, and suffering from an incurable paranoia.The fifth is to retreat and escape, and use the specific affairs that you are best at as a safe haven. Basically, your boss in the officialdom will eventually become one of these five types as a result of external pressure on his personality, with few exceptions.