Zhao Mingming entered the household department, Fan Lianyin went to the rites department, mainly responsible for education work, and Zu Daozhong went to the constable office to work as a constable.

Generally speaking, the three of them couldn’t work together.

Work that could bring them together was bound to be extremely arduous and prone to problems.

Zhao Mingming didn’t expect that just two months after starting her job, having just familiarized herself with the county town’s territory, she would encounter cross-departmental collaborative official business.

The court issued an order to conduct a national census this year, counting the population, cultivated land acreage, and housing situation.

Simply put, they needed to conduct a nationwide population and cultivated land survey.

Since the founding of the nation, the country of Hua had conducted two such censuses. This was the third.

As a junior clerk in the household department, Zhao Mingming had to go down to the grassroots level to conduct the census. Due to insufficient manpower, the household department transferred personnel from other departments.

Fan Lianyin from the rites department was the first newcomer to be transferred for manual labor, and naturally Zu Daozhong from the constable office wasn’t spared either.

The three returned to the office with a pile of registers, only to find that the boxes they had moved back that morning were empty again.

Even with her good temper, Zhao Mingming couldn’t help but explode. She slammed the registers on the desk with a bang and demanded with her hands on her hips, “Where are the blank registers?”

The veteran clerks buried in their work raised their heads to look at her, casually saying, “Everyone took them.”

Zhao Mingming said, “Those blank registers were ones I moved back.”

The veteran clerk ignored her.

Zhao Mingming was so angry she spun in circles. Fan Lianyin and Zu Daozhong hurried to comfort her.

Zhao Mingming looked at the empty boxes and suddenly laughed.

The clerks in the room heard her laughter and couldn’t help but raise their heads from their desks to look at her. Had this person gone mad from anger?

Zhao Mingming seemed to have thought of something funny and laughed heartily with her hands on her hips, laughing until tears came out.

Now even Fan Lianyin and Zu Daozhong looked at her worriedly. Had the Crown Princess been driven mad?

After Zhao Mingming finished laughing, she exhaled and said to Fan Lianyin and Zu Daozhong, “Come on, let’s go get some more blank registers.”

Blank registers were empty paper booklets, commonly used office supplies, and also the office supplies consumed fastest by every yamen.

Before entering the county yamen household department, Zhao Mingming had no idea that the consumption of blank registers involved so many schemes.

Paper, well, paper was cheap. Not only could tree bark be used to make paper, but straw, wheat straw, bamboo, and sugarcane skin could all be used to make paper. Therefore, paper throughout the realm was now cheap—five wen coins could buy one bundle, one hundred sheets per bundle.

This was ordinary writing paper.

Other papers, such as those differing in size and hardness, had different prices, but office writing paper was only priced affordably, not expensively.

So she didn’t think paper had anything to do with conflicts of interest.

But after entering the household department, she learned that paper had enormous interests within the county yamen.

Not to mention the issue of paper suppliers behind the scenes, just the consumption of blank registers in the household department—every single person who moved a box home probably had enough blank paper for three generations to use for three lifetimes.

All this paper was purchased with the county yamen’s finances.

Zhao Mingming had heard the assistant magistrate and county magistrate complain more than once that the county yamen consumed too much blank paper and the costs were too high.

She had also seen the paper workshop manager come to collect debts in front of the household department more than once. Clearly the county yamen owed the paper workshop money, yet the paper workshop manager had to bow and scrape to collect the debt. In the end, the debtor became the master.

Zhao Mingming went to collect blank registers again. This time she didn’t move them back box by box. She only collected ten registers, distributed three each to Fan Lianyin and Zu Daozhong, kept four for herself, collected writing brushes and ink, and went out.

Because she was somewhat of a troublemaker, the clerks in the household department excluded her and assigned her the most difficult and distant villages.

As newcomers, Fan Lianyin and Zu Daozhong were also assigned to less favorable locations, not far from where she was assigned.

The yamen had regulations that counting population and property required at least two clerks to travel together, otherwise the data would not be considered accurate.

So the three simply agreed to work together.

The three took their newly collected blank registers and went to the countryside. This trip might keep them away for ten days to half a month. The three went back to prepare plenty of dry rations and brought their own grain before leading their horses to the countryside.

The county yamen was indifferent to their departure. Three young troublemakers who had just entered service, self-righteous about justice, not knowing how annoying they were.

They just used a bit more paper, didn’t they?

It wasn’t like they used more money.

Zhao Mingming sat on her horse and said to Fan Lianyin and Zu Daozhong, “I’m so incompetent. I can’t even manage a household department, let alone manage an entire country. No wonder Mother told me to gain grassroots experience.”

Fan Lianyin said, “How can this be blamed on the Crown Princess? It’s a matter of status. You’re not their superior, so naturally they won’t listen to you.”

“Exactly,” Zhao Mingming gripped the reins and said, “So I need to become their superior! However, even though I’m not the household department assistant magistrate now, I still want to stop this unhealthy practice.”

Fan Lianyin nodded repeatedly. “I’ll follow the Crown Princess’s lead!”

Zu Daozhong also nodded.

Zhao Mingming said, “Let’s first handle the task at hand properly, and when we return from the countryside, hmph!”

Her superior was the assistant magistrate. To catch his eye, she first had to do well in the current most important national population and property census work.

Only by walking in front of the assistant magistrate and registering in his mind could she deal with the unhealthy practices in the household department, or even the county yamen.

Of course, she could also bypass the assistant magistrate, county magistrate, commandery governor, and other superiors directly and submit suggestions to the court to rectify official administration, but that would be a top-down approach. What difference would that make from how her mother had rectified official administration in the past?

This time she wanted to try a different method and see how many ways there were to rectify official administration.

It was because she understood this point while in the household department that Zhao Mingming laughed out loud, and the depression from the past few days dissipated completely.

“Let’s go, off to the countryside!” Zhao Mingming cracked her whip and ran ahead.

Fan Lianyin and Zu Daozhong hurried to follow.

When they arrived at their destination, they first had to find the village head, who would lead them into the village.

Some village heads would stay with them the whole time, while others happened to be busy in the fields. Since Zhao Mingming and the others were young and thin-skinned, the village head simply led them into the village and ran off to work in the fields. “If I don’t go, my wife at home will scratch me.”

Zhao Mingming didn’t insist and let him go.

She took the blank registers and went from house to house, but since it was the busy farming season, looking for people during the day, not everyone was home. Those who stayed home were either children or elderly people too old to work, and questions had to be shouted.

Zhao Mingming took one look and simply stopped going door to door. She tucked the blank registers away and ran to the fields to watch people harvest wheat.

She squatted on the side and watched for a while, then chose an elderly-looking old person to help. She pulled out a sickle from somewhere, hitched up her robe, and went down to the field to help harvest wheat.

She followed Zhao Hanzhang to work in the fields every year, so these farm tasks came easily to her. She quickly became one with the farmers.

Fan Lianyin and Zu Daozhong, as her companions, also joined in whenever the emperor encouraged agriculture and set an example by working in the fields, so they knew how to do farm work too.

The three quickly integrated. By evening when work ended and everyone returned home, the entire village knew that people from above had come to count population and land. Because they couldn’t find anyone, they had even spent the whole day harvesting wheat with them in the fields.

That evening, the villagers enthusiastically entertained the three. The three took out grain for three people’s portions from what they had brought and offered it up.

The villagers hurried to refuse. “Now that you’re here, how can we let you provide grain? Isn’t that embarrassing us?”

“Exactly. Times are good now. We have surplus grain at home. We’re not worried about food. We have plenty of grain.”

But Zhao Mingming insisted on giving it, saying, “This is the court’s regulation. Officials going to the countryside must bring their own provisions and must not demand food and money from the common people. If discovered, we will be impeached and held accountable.”

The villagers knew about this regulation, but… officials who came down in the first few years would still observe it. In recent years, everyone had become more relaxed about this.

Seeing the three young people being earnest, with the spirit of officials who came to the countryside in earlier years, the villagers smiled slightly and tolerantly accepted their provisions, not making things difficult for them.

However, one villager went and killed a chicken to add to their meal. To the three wide-eyed youths, he happily said, “Our village hasn’t had anyone come down for several years. We’re happy today. Let’s eat chicken.”

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