Balem's appointment was exactly what Charman had expected. After all, he was a Saint Realm Mage, and mage cultivation depended heavily on talent. Reaching the Saint Realm was even more difficult, so it was impossible to simply leave him idle.
The focus now was on how the emperor before him would arrange his own position.
His advantage lay in his outstanding governing ability. At the same time, he possessed an advantage ordinary officials did not: he had once been an emperor.
To a certain extent, that was indeed an advantage.
When dealing with a matter, an emperor's way of thinking was not necessarily the same as that of the ministers beneath him.
Take project teams and research funding, for example.
Everyone felt that their own research project was the most important. They thought it was utterly unreasonable for their project to be cut or their research funds reduced, and that the reviewing officials must have been blind.
At the same time, when applying for funding, the various project teams obviously would not consider fiscal problems. That was something for the finance minister to worry about. They only needed to submit their applications.
To make the funding for their own project team more ample, they would even apply for as much money as possible—more was always better!
Under these circumstances, the finance minister naturally ended up opposing those departments.
The Finance Ministry's task was to ensure that every coin was used where it mattered most, while allocating funds among all the government departments above and below. They had to make sure the departments had enough money to operate without allowing funds to be wasted, and ensure that every account balanced.
That was why everyone saw things from different angles and basically only worried about their own affairs.
Only the emperor had