An Elder's Revolution - The Art of Sect Politics

When Elder Shi had first asked her to help her organize a thorough reorganization of the Enforcement Hall, including dismissal of nearly ten percent of its members, Qingge had been genuinely terrified that she might come to regret the decision not to follow Elder Wei almost immediately after making it.

Even without losing that many people, she had already been busy enough with endless floods of paperwork, complaints and internal disputes. If she was assigned even more work, she would have to decide between giving up any personal life she had left and giving up on her cultivation completely.

As it turned out though, none of her fears materialized. Not only did Elder Shi involve herself quite directly with the process, Qingge also quickly learned that the woman seemed to little regard for things like seniority, status and legacy.

Pretty much everyone associated with a pillar family was unceremoniously given the boot, alongside a host of other incompetent, corrupt or otherwise unsuited high-ranking personal. The complicated and impractical report structures were done away with in favor of a far more efficient command chain.

Gone were the days of highly independent departments, utterly lacking internal oversight and complicated rules of whose actions to persecute and whose to turn a blind eye to. No longer did every action require a long chain of seeking permission of one’s superior.

Much of what was changed actually came from the input that Qingge gave herself, as Elder Si was impressively receptive towards suggestions from her.

All in all, it was almost scary how much more efficient this new Enforcement Hall was compared to before. The required paperwork overall was more than cut in half even while the hall’s overall operations were sped up. It would take some time for everyone to get used to these new regulations, but when that was done, Qingge estimated that the hall would be at least twice as efficient as before, even after the staff loss.

The reason she had done these estimations was another change the reorganizations had brought, though one that Qingge had most certainly not planned herself. Namely the fact, that she had found herself nearly at the top of this newly implemented hierarchy.

Her promotion to general hall manager by Elder Wei had already been quite a quick raise for someone her age, even though the hall’s central administration that she was in charge of due to that had been doing little more than documenting, organizing and relaying information to the divisions.

Now though, it had been set up to act as a central hub which all divisions had to report to. This provided oversight and simultaneously prevented them from constantly butting their heads over their responsibilities with no one but the elder to resolve their disagreements. Creating a central division like this had been Qingge’s idea, she just hadn’t anticipated it being her division.

Qingge let herself fall back into her chair and took a few deep breaths. In a few minutes, she would need to host the first full meeting of division heads since the reorganization had been completed.

She still didn’t know how to feel about being the one to do this. On the one hand, she knew that she should be happy to be in this position, as it was one that many would envy her over. On the other, it still felt wrong to order anyone around, especially since she didn’t really feel like she had earned any of it. She couldn’t show herself as a weak and indecisive leader though, since that would defeat the purpose of the halls receiving oversight in the first place. It was all quite overwhelming to say the least.

The door burst open to reveal Daiyu, donning an overly serious expression.

“The division heads have arrived, miss general manager!”

Qingge pouted.

“Quit teasing me about it. I didn’t choose this.”

Daiyu’s face visibly tensed as she struggled to keep her expression from morphing into a smile.

“Yeah sure, miss clueless reorganization planner.”

“I’m telling the truth, damn it!”

“I know, but do you seriously expect me to shut up about it?”

Qingge let out a resigned groan.

“Anyway, I wasn’t kidding. You need to come if you don’t want to be late. Or wait, maybe having them wait for you would suit your new position.”

“By the ancestors…”

…

Liu Wei stood before the assembly of all old and new instructors of the Training Hall. On top of the previous thirty instructors, ninety new ones had been selected and hired.

“Hello everyone, I am Liu Wei, leader of this hall. As all of you know, this hall is undergoing a major reorganization at the moment. Today, I’ll brief all of you on the arrangements going forward.

Let us start with the financial aspect. Your individual payments have of course already been discussed with you on the basis of your experience and skill.”

They were all being paid a rather average amount for their skill. Liu Wei didn’t want to underpay them, but had he also wanted to make sure not to attract the people who were only interested in their payment. A good teacher had to care about their students.

The selection process had been quite thorough to ensure that he was hiring the right applicants, but even so additional safeguards were always something good to put in place.

“What I want to talk about is our new policy of disciple funding. For every disciple, the Training Hall will from now on put forward five rank two spirit stones per month. The instructors will be in charge of these funds.

"You are free to decide how to utilize them to benefit the disciples. Whether you use them to acquire additional training equipment, buy pills or something else, you are free to do what you think will benefit your them the most.

"There are only two rules: For one, these resources need to be distributed fairly on all students. Rewarding someone for a particularly great effort is fine, as is helping someone catch up when they have fallen behind for reasons out of their control. But I don’t want to see you picking favorites. If you are caught doing so, you will be punished.

"The second rule is something which I wish I wouldn’t even have to mention, but seeing the recent case of former chief instructor Mei Feng, it seems like I do. These resources are handed to you to the benefit of your disciples. If you have any thought of misappropriating them for your own benefit, I strongly advise you to let them go this instant. Your usage of them will be tracked, documented and investigated for irregularities. If anyone is caught using them for anything but helping to advance their students development, they will be let go immediately and formerly charged with embezzlement by the enforcement hall.”

Liu Wei scanned the faces before him for their reactions. Most seemed accepting or even satisfied with this, which strengthened his confidence in having picked the right people for this, though some, especially from the instructors that had already worked here prior to his arrival seemed like they had been caught thinking exactly of that.

Liu Wei didn’t concern himself with it too much though. He had already made an example out of the most corrupt members of the hall, including Mei Feng, so he had confidence that the thread of investigation would be enough to keep most of them in check. At some point, some of them would try either way, but he would make put enough measures in place that all of them would be caught.

“Now, let’s move on to your actual work. For the coming months, every new instructor will join one of the already existing groups of disciples. You will learn from the instructors already with those groups and assist them in the training they give. I want you to focus on properly learning how to teach and refresh your knowledge of cultivation in this time. After that, the disciples will be divided into smaller groups that you will be assigned to over a longer time.”

In truth, Liu Wei was using this arrangement to buy time until the next council meeting. While most of the instructors would be assigned to train disciples, some of them, ones with experience in actual battle or in cultivation theory, had also been specifically picked to be the first ones to work in his training program for members.

The plan was to have a hundred instructors work with disciples, while the remaining twenty would work with members. This would put the instructors and disciples on a comfortable one-to-ten ratio. Not nearly the quality of education that inner disciples were getting, but enough that individual attention could be paid to all of them. If his other plans for the training hall worked, he could work to slowly increase the quality of education further from there.

Twenty instructors for his new program were enough to test the waters, without being so many that it would be hard to reintegrate them with the others, should it fail. There were already enough risky factors in his calculations, so he was playing it rather safe in this case.

“From here, I’ll let my assistant Chao take over. He has prepared a full list of who will be assigned to which group.”

Liu Wei took a step back to make room. Chao, list in hand, stepped forward and began reading out the names. The man wasn’t quite the public speaking talent, his voice so monotone that Liu Wei could feel his thoughts immediately drifting somewhere else.

With the recruitment done for now, all pieces were put in their place for the next council. All that was left to do for now was to supervise the creation of his internal investigation unit and the progress of his new instructors.

Going silent like that for a few months would hopefully also direct the attention of the pillar families to something else. Namely the Enforcement Hall, which planned to be all but silent in the following months. Lan Shi had already finished internally restructuring it to his knowledge and would undoubtedly start cracking down on the families “less official” dealings. How effective this diversion would be would only show on the council.

Until then, he could only bide his time. Before his breakthrough, he would have appreciated something like this, as he would have had time to cultivate. Now though, he couldn’t help but feel impatient for the next steps in his plan. It was a truly strange feeling, but he vowed to appreciate it a little. After the next council, he doubted he would have this much free time again in a long while.