Munitions Empire

Civil servants were something Nangong Hong didn't know about. Nevertheless, he eventually understood that if one wanted to become an aide or an official here, one had to take an exam.

The Great Tang Group carefully designed the questions, provided test papers for all participants, and then selected officials based on their accuracy in answering those questions.

The questions covered a wide range of topics, from psychological tests to elevated policy-making issues. Of course, the majority were basic questions, aimed at assessing the test-takers' fundamental logic and their methods for handling administrative affairs.

The test papers were all produced by Tang Mo, then sealed and sent to the currency printing press to be printed and distributed to various exam sites. They were escorted all the way by the security forces of the Great Tang Group to ensure there would be no leaks.

In fact, these test papers were Tang Mo's plagiarism of the civil service exams from later generations. As Brunas became more modernized, there was less and less need to modify the content of these papers.

To outsiders, this was seen as Tang Mo's commitment to valuing talent, as only someone who truly cared would personally undertake the effort of designing exam questions in the talent selection process.

Even more extravagant was the fact that because the questions were practical and many were extremely sensitive, each civil service exam became a hot topic of discussion. Betting on the exam topics also became an amusement, a game for many incumbent officials to test their sensitivity to current affairs.

This set of rules was completely different from those in Zheng Country and Dahua, or rather, almost completely different from the rules everywhere else in the world.

However, when Nangong Hong listened to the officer explain the general pattern of the civil service exam, his eyes shone even brighter.

He was a strategist, a traditional strategist, and his life's learning was aimed at assisting a truly worthy master in achieving great undertakings.

What sort of person is worthy of assistance? Surely, it would be one with the bearing of a king, the stature of an emperor!

At that moment, Nangong Hong felt... he might have truly found a ruler worthy of his loyalty.

From the design of the exam alone, Nangong Hong could tell that the person behind it was a ruthless character capable of achieving great things.

No joke, exams... from a certain perspective, are the fairest and most effective method of selecting talent.

In his time, Emperor Taizong of Tang reformed the imperial examination and, with immense pride, remarked that with the reform completed, all the heroes of the world would be within his grasp.

What does that mean? It means, all the talents of the world, hurry into my... cough, serve under my command.

Compared to the chaotic systems of hereditary nobility, nobility recommendation, self-recommendation of talents, and the recruitment of explorers, akin to a kindergarten's way of selecting talent, exams were undoubtedly revolutionary.

As long as the content of the exam was reasonable, this talent selection mechanism could speedily identify qualified officials and immediately put them to work for the entire organization.

It's no exaggeration to say, such selection is incredibly efficient; at least at the "official" level, it can be considered the optimal solution.

"Brilliant... the exam... why didn't I think of such a reform..." Clenching one hand into a fist and thumping it into the palm of the other, Nangong Hong appeared to have an epiphany.

He had always been seeking reforms in talent selection and never imagined that here in Brunas, there was already such a comprehensive official selection plan.

Officials, with "officers" and "clerks" being inseparable existences; as long as capable clerks were selected, promoting officials from among them became easy and convenient.

He wasn't yet aware of the strictness with which the Great Tang Group selected its officials; in comparison to other places, it could almost be described as climbing to heaven.

Firstly, most senior officials in the Great Tang Group were academically trained, and these young officials, as well as some who received further training in their later years, without exception, graduated from various institutes of Great Tang.

Most of the senior officials graduated from night school, almost all of whom Tang Mo had personally taught. They self-identified as the Night Party, holding the majority of official positions within the Great Tang Group.

Most of them were former veteran officials transferred from Brunas and Northern Ridge, who had risen along with the Great Tang Group, and now could be said to hold high power.

This faction, represented by Roger, Cui Xi, and the former Brunas city official and others, was quite complex in composition and average in ability, but most had ridden the rising tide of the Great Tang Group and therefore now held high status.

Another part of the Great Tang Group's officials, self-identified as the Light Party, were the exact opposite of the Night Party. They were formally trained by the Great Tang Group after its rise, all of them academic achievers.

They were true exam-takers through and through, with relevant professional backgrounds, and many were top students personally taught by Tang Mo.

Compared to the Night Party, hastily trained through night school, the officials of the Light Party were generally very young, with matching expertise, outstanding abilities, and assured loyalty.

However, due to their shorter service time, they typically held lower positions, primarily responsible for practical tasks, and thus, the Light Party had virtually no influence over the Great Tang Group's decision-making.

Although the two factions had no significant disputes in political views, there was indeed a significant difference in their backgrounds.

They represented different interest groups and had different social networks and circles of friends, hence the clear delineation between them.

The most direct conflict of interest currently between the two factions lay in the appointment of officials— the Night Party believed that age, prudence, and rich experience were primary considerations for appointing officials, while the Light Party thought that individuals with solid theoretical knowledge and wide learning should be appointed first, reasoning that experience could be accumulated over time.

Anyway, both sides had their points, and the methods they used were all aboveboard, so Tang Mo didn't bother with this kind of healthy competition.

He didn't mind employing academy scholars nor did he oppose unconventional talents, as long as they could catch a rat, a black cat or a white cat were both good cats.

Any discerning person could already see that the Great Tang Group relied on graduates from Brunas University and Dragon City University in administration, and clearly, in the future, graduates from these two universities would have a meteoric rise in the political arena.

At the same time, the Great Tang Group's military foundation was built with the support of the Great Tang Military Academy, so naturally, the graduates of this military academy would become the backbone of the Great Tang Group's military power.

However, they still didn't fully understand that these institutions of the Great Tang Group had already undergone a series of subtle changes.

First, without realizing it, the Great Tang Military Academy had completed a preliminary division into four separate colleges.

These four colleges were namely the Great Tang Military Academy, Great Tang Army Academy, Great Tang Aviation Technology College, and Great Tang Naval University.

As their names indicated, the four colleges that had spun off strengthened their specializations, divided according to future branches of the military, in a scientific and rational manner.

Meanwhile, Brunas University spun off Weigang University, effectively expanding its scale of education—both universities were comprehensive with no distinctive features, and the talents they cultivated were more or less similar.

After all, the world was short of qualified talent now, and students who had studied in these schools were certainly not worried about finding jobs.

In fact, students who had the opportunity to study here were already targeted by major powers, with their futures reserved even before graduation.

"My lord... I'm hungry..." The Attendant Student, kept outside the door, looked pitifully at his master and spoke, dealing Nangong Hong yet another devastating blow.

Nangong Hong was even more irritated.

This place was even more perfect than he had anticipated, so perfect that it was somewhat despairing—he was a strategist, and if the other side had a more professional advisory team, then what use would there be for an outsider like him?

If you say your expertise is to give advice to others, but if the other party already had a foolproof plan, of what use could you be?

During his journey, Nangong Hong had observed many details about Brunas, which shocked him no less than a war.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Even, he felt that not even ten or a hundred battles could compare to the changes this city had brought to the world!

A brand-new, more efficient bureaucratic system; superior infrastructure that had undergone a complete transformation; a technological revolution that surpassed everything; and the powerful military capability to ensure all of this would not be violated!

The person who possessed all of this could indeed be called the Chosen One, the one most likely to establish an enduring empire.

What annoyed Nangong Hong was that such a person was right before him, yet he had no chance to meet him, no opportunity to recommend himself, no chance to assist such a monarch, and no opportunity to help him achieve unparalleled feats.

"You better leave here quickly! If it weren't for the expo, a foreigner like you without even a temporary visiting pass would have been arrested a long time ago," said the gatekeeper as he waived his hand and ended the conversation.

Nangong Hong, as if he had lost his soul, wandered half a street before he began to recover a little. He sighed and suddenly felt even hungrier.

Rubbing his stomach, he looked at the tall buildings in the distance, enshrouded in smoke and fog, and mustered some spirit again.

Thinking that the leader of the Great Tang Group, who possessed such amazing technology and an invincible army, had yet to establish his own country, it seemed that the strategists and officials around him were nothing more than mediocre.

With this thought, Nangong Hong felt he could still make a difference here. He pinched the few copper coins left in his hand, preparing to find a food stall to see if he could buy something cheap to eat…

The two figures, one large and one small, walked along the street towards the distance; as they walked, the Attendant Student kept complaining that his master had even had a drink along the way, without thinking to save enough for food, and now they had no money for a meal.

Meanwhile, Nangong Hong, who was walking ahead, kept boasting that he was a prodigy and that one day, when he left home, he would surely ride in those exquisite cars.

And so, the two of them argued and walked far away, disappearing at the end of the road.