After the meeting, He Rui kept Wu Youping and Zhao Tianlin behind. Wu Youping spoke first, "Minister Zhao, the Committee has discussed and wants to establish three Vice Premiers. I wonder how Minister Zhao evaluates himself?"

Zhao Tianlin calculated his views on selecting officials to supervise the four fields of science, education, culture, and health. Only then did he ask Wu Youping, "Premier Wu, which people do you think can serve as the person in charge of science, education, culture, and health work? Does Minister Xu have any candidates?"

Wu Youping looked calm, but in his heart, he understood Zhao Tianlin's dilemma somewhat. Zhao Tianlin had absolutely no intention of forming cliques and naturally only wanted to promote the most suitable persons in charge of various ministries of science, education, culture, and health. The policies of various departments at present were to be responsible for 480 million Chinese people, not the original 40 million people in the Northeast. Every department was important, but how could the most outstanding talents be found so easily?

So after Wu Youping discussed with Standing Committee members like He Rui and Xu Jia, they all agreed to select three Vice Premiers as soon as possible. The candidates had basically been circled, and Zhao Tianlin was the least controversial one among them.

Since Zhao Tianlin was still a bit hesitant, Wu Youping had to push this matter forward. "Minister Zhao, the candidates for science, education, culture, and health are all under observation, but the comrades all feel that Minister Zhao can shoulder such responsibility. I want to hear Minister Zhao's evaluation of his own work."

Zhao Tianlin thought for a moment and replied somewhat helplessly, "I agree very much with the current comrades, but putting them in these positions, I personally think they still have many flaws. I have to complain to Chairman He about this matter. Brother He, your ability to teach students needs to be improved."

He Rui didn't expect to become the object of complaint and was helpless for a moment. But Zhao Tianlin's complaint was not a simple complaint. He Rui nodded, "Don't worry, I will spend a lot of time on Party School education in the future."

Wu Youping respected Zhao Tianlin very much, and also respected He Rui very much. Seeing these two mentors so troubled, he felt quite helpless in his heart. Wu Youping understood Zhao Tianlin's feelings. For a big country like China, every minister needed to have both political integrity and ability. If ability was slightly insufficient, it was not a problem; the most important thing was 'integrity,' that is, the Three Views: Worldview, View of Life, and Values.

Wu Youping regarded himself as a student of scholars like He Rui and Zhao Tianlin, and what he learned from the teachers was the Three Views. With correct Three Views, the strategic ability, which is the most important in the field of talent, will naturally be greatly improved. To use an ancient philosophical saying, strategic ability is undoubtedly the ability to solve 'Who am I, where do I come from, and where am I going.'

No one knows what specifically will happen on the road ahead. As long as one can recognize the correct path and persist in walking on the correct path, one will naturally realize that 'the future is bright, but the road is tortuous.'

Even for a big country like China with a population of 480 million, it was just impossible to find dozens of satisfactory people at this stage. This made Wu Youping and Zhao Tianlin very uncomfortable. Zhao Tianlin also knew that this problem would be naturally solved in 20 years, and being anxious now was useless. Talent cultivation, especially the echelon cultivation of political talents, is a long-term job.

Going through various candidate lists in his mind again, Zhao Tianlin said, "Regarding my evaluation of my own work, in knowledge system cultivation and knowledge structure cultivation, our education has a tendency towards elite cultivation. This is a problem that cannot be overcome at this stage. At present, the cultivation of knowledge structure has reached the limit that the current education system can achieve, and to a certain extent, it has organized students who can discover their endogenous motivation. In the Northeast, the coverage rate was about 5%, and the current nationwide coverage rate is below 1%. At this stage, we can only select through exam-oriented education starting from primary school education. In adult education, although the cultivation of demand hierarchy has also been added, it can only let adult re-educators know the existence of such a system. Its popularization at the practical level exceeds the current level of economic development..."

Wu Youping had already taken out his notebook and started recording. He could understand part of Zhao Tianlin's content and couldn't understand part of it. Comparatively speaking, the incomprehensible parts were the majority, and the comprehensible parts were the minority, but Wu Youping could still feel Zhao Tianlin's vision as an educator.

Teaching students in accordance with their aptitude is the ideal of all educators, but limited by the technical conditions of social development, it is truly difficult to realize. However, from the Premier's perspective, Zhao Tianlin's vision far exceeded others. Being able to lead the future direction, as for social development and technological development, that was the duty of Wu Youping as the Premier. This was also the reason for establishing three Vice Premiers. The work of the three Vice Premiers was to supervise various departments based on vision. If leaders at the Premier level had no vision, don't expect leaders at the ministry level to have a clear direction.

He Rui was also listening quietly. Zhao Tianlin's cognition was also raised to today's level through continuous learning and exchange. For example, Maslow's five levels of needs were learned by Zhao Tianlin from He Rui. But He Rui never posed as a mentor to the comrades, because without endogenous demand, the comrades would never choose to accept the pain brought by progress gladly.

If comrades expanded their knowledge structure through learning and exchange and acquiring new knowledge, it must be because comrades had endogenous demand. In terms of knowledge radiation, 1925 could not compare with 2025 at all. But the cognition of the world by those true scholars in 1925 far exceeded that of ordinary people in 2025. There was only one reason, that is, scholars had a strong demand to improve their knowledge structure through learning. As long as there was an opportunity, they would learn and transform themselves.

As long as there is no such endogenous motivation, let alone comparing academic cognition in sociology with scholars in 1925, ordinary people in 2025 would probably be far inferior to scholars in 2025 BC.

According to archaeology, Chinese wizards (scholars) in 2025 BC had already begun to formulate calendars, create writing and symbols, and try to build knowledge systems. Yu, Xia, Shang, Zhou—let alone the Yu Dynasty—in the Xia and Shang eras, the *Book of Documents* introduced social management at that time. In that era when Chinese civilization was still colonizing with arms, there were already too many system constructions, ideological theories, and historical records.

In 4050 years, the development of the human brain has had quantitative changes, but far from qualitative changes. Humans 4050 years ago had no reason not to understand human knowledge 4050 years later. But whether there is a learning environment, whether one wants to learn and accept knowledge after getting a learning environment, and whether one has mastered the ability to learn and accept new knowledge, are the biggest problems in 4050 years.

After Zhao Tianlin narrated his self-assessment, both He Rui and Wu Youping felt that Zhao Tianlin was fine. However, the views of the two could not make a decision; this matter must be decided by the Central Committee. This is also the principle of democratic centralism. Any resolution not passed by the Central Committee does not count.

The Party and government are responsible for personnel, the administration is responsible for execution, and the law judges order. He Rui had read the works of Enlightenment thinkers before the French Revolution. After reading, he discovered that the separation of powers was completely not the conception of state construction by thinkers at that time, but it was taken by Europe and America as the basis for theoretical construction, which is truly funny.

Judging from the books He Rui had read, the state model that the thinkers of the Enlightenment attempted to construct might not have reached the conception of the era when Chinese civilization reached its peak. At least in the construction of French Enlightenment thinkers, it was somehow the 'each performing its own functions' that Chinese culture had long recognized, while the separation of powers was just a simplified and simplified castrated version of a castrated version.

After completing the inquiry of Zhao Tianlin, one of the three Vice Premier candidates was basically determined. He Rui asked the secretary to hand over the record to the Organization Department tomorrow, and was about to adjourn the meeting. Zhao Tianlin said, "It's already this time; it doesn't matter if we chat a little longer."

Wu Youping took his leave immediately, "I have a meeting tomorrow."

After Wu Youping left, He Rui poured a glass of wine for Zhao Tianlin. "Brother Zhao, this is a retreat; speak freely."

Zhao Tianlin originally wanted to speak freely. He picked up the alcoholic fruit juice beverage brewed in the Northeast, took a sip, and asked, "Is the Chairman dissatisfied with the circle of scholars?"

"I have no desires or demands for them anymore." After He Rui finished speaking, he also took a sip of the low-alcohol fruit juice.

"If they are selected, there should be talents." Zhao Tianlin still held some expectations.

"Those scholars have only one problem: they cherish their feathers [reputation] and refuse to take responsibility. If they can understand where the responsibility lies, they will naturally choose to become responsible people. If they still want to be scholars, let them be. I don't oppose having scholars in society; this is good. At least it is also a factor that makes society active."

"Hmm... true." Zhao Tianlin accepted He Rui's view.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is based on motivation theory in psychology. Put simply, it targets those who can obtain positive motivational pleasure from satisfying the five levels of needs, and then demand the cause of pleasure.

After understanding these more and more, Zhao Tianlin also accumulated a lot of doubts. "Chairman, I think you describe Nietzsche's philosophical thought as squeezing joy; isn't it a bit mean?"

"If Nietzsche hadn't been so mean, he wouldn't have gone mad." He Rui laughed. He Rui liked Nietzsche's endogenous passion very much and could understand the reason why Nietzsche had to squeeze joy to fight against pain. He Rui himself had the same feeling in another space-time. Seemingly saying Nietzsche squeezed joy, if He Rui hadn't experienced it personally, how could he understand how painful and helpless the reason for having to squeeze joy was?

Of course, if one had studied the theory of brain neural receptors, one could better understand the huge difference between squeezing joy by improving one's ability and cognition, and those 'chemical bliss' people.

People who squeeze joy at least have the courage to face pain. People who choose 'chemical bliss' don't even have the courage to endure pain, let alone identify with pain.

But this kind of thing could only be communicated with scholars like Zhao Tianlin. If others heard it, there was a high probability that they would misunderstand the true meaning of the words used in the conversation between the two.

Taking another sip of low-alcohol beverage, He Rui said, "Those scholars are happy to accept social recognition but refuse to bear their social responsibilities. The pressure of bearing social responsibilities exceeds their ability range. I have given up on this group of masters in this regard."

Zhao Tianlin had advanced step by step from a scholar to a leader bearing responsibility to reach today. Although he had a natural identification with the old scholar class, he had to accept He Rui's view. One must take responsibility for problems; this was the thing old scholars could least accept.

This responsibility is by no means bowing and stepping down, but being responsible to the end. For example, if there is a problem in Zhao Tianlin's work, what Zhao Tianlin should do is not to bow and step down, but to analyze the problem clearly and find the problems in the policies and regulations formulated by Zhao Tianlin. This first requires negating yesterday's Zhao Tianlin, and then completing the process of negation of the negation.

The level that the vast majority of old Chinese scholars can reach is only 'I am right or I am wrong.' Having the magnanimity to bow and step down and let people scold when wrong is already the best among scholars. Asking them to negate themselves and then make adjustments and changes is harder than killing them.

As for those scholars who can absolutely not 'use today's success to cover up yesterday's failure,' they are as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns. Such people ran to the Northeast to join He Rui long ago and wouldn't still be 'scholars' in society until now.

Thinking of this, Zhao Tianlin still didn't give up and probed with the last ray of hope, "Brother He, are there really no such scholars?"

"Brother Zhao, I have already given them a chance. Scholars who can understand the strategic considerations I left behind will definitely apply to join the government. Brother Zhao might as well screen these people. What do you think, Brother Zhao?"

Hearing He Rui say this, Zhao Tianlin drained the wine in his glass and stood up, saying, "Brother He, I take my leave."

He Rui stood up to see him off. Zhao Tianlin waved his hand, "Brother He probably still has official duties. If there are no official duties, you might as well rest early. No need to be polite." After speaking, Zhao Tianlin left leisurely.

He Rui indeed had official duties. Which departments demanded the 4 million tons of steel? Since the Ministry of Industry gave the statistics, He Rui had to finish reading it to sleep. This kind of data was too important, and with previous data for comparison, the anomalies could be understood by comparing.

The Chairman is responsible for policy work. But at this stage, He Rui also had to inspect the work of government departments. By reading documents and analyzing data, the process and results of policy implementation could be seen in the general direction.

Of course, the premise is that these statistical data are true. If the statistical data is not true, He Rui can only investigate the government departments and then purge them. If power is fully used for national construction, as a national leader, one must have such ability.

While He Rui was reading the report, Li Dazhao and his students were also preparing to stay up all night. Li Dazhao summoned his trusted students, preparing to analyze He Rui's strategy. Without figuring out the strategic arrangement, Li Dazhao felt he really couldn't sleep at night.