Song Zhe furrowed his brow. "What do you mean?"
"Nothing..."
Li Nuo murmured a reply and turned his attention back to Gu Wenhan's evaluation records.
A closer look revealed something amiss.
The Ministry of Personnel assessed officials on numerous criteria: the number of cases in their jurisdiction over the past year, the number of thieves, grain output, marriages, population growth, tax revenue, and so on.
In Gu Wenhan's evaluations from his first six years, his overall rating was mostly Grade A-minus, and some of the individual categories were even rated Grade B.
That seemed reasonable. An official's energy was limited, and different people excelled at different things. No one could manage every aspect perfectly.
But during his three years as Qinghe County Magistrate, every single evaluation was Grade A. At the very least, each category was rated "A"—not a single one was below that.
There was no reason he couldn't do his best when assisting his superiors as a county commandant and county deputy, yet suddenly managed to excel in every category after becoming county magistrate.
Either he truly was a gifted administrator who could oversee everything, or he had falsified the figures.
Li Nuo wasn't an official in the Ministry of Personnel, so he didn't know what it meant for every category to be rated Grade A or higher. He pointed to that section and asked Song Zhe, "Father-in-law, is there really nothing wrong here?"
Song Zhe glanced at Gu Wenhan's evaluation records from his three years as Qinghe County Magistrate, and his gaze flickered.
After placing first in the Imperial examination, he had served in the Ministry of Personnel ever since. Nearly twenty years had passed. His eye was keen enough to spot at a glance that, during those three years, Gu Wenhan had likely paid hefty "travel