Chapter 563 [First Update] 563

Liu Tan shook his head: "This matter is not trivial, and it is not something that I, your son, can explain alone."

Are you kidding? Even if he could say it, he couldn't. This decision affects many people. Those people may not pay much attention to the imperial examination, but they are definitely very concerned about the hermitage positions. Once someone is dissatisfied, just wait for the arguments.

However, his excuse was quite good, so Liu Che did not think he was lying. He just nodded and asked, "So you mean to say that the imperial positions should be established before the imperial examination?"

Liu Tan nodded. "Yes, these are the thresholds for entering officialdom. As for the rest, it all depends on one's own ability. However, in order to prevent the nobles from feeling that their territory is being usurped by the poor, they must be comforted and made aware that their children have a higher starting point than those who passed the imperial examinations."

Of course, this is only a need in the initial stage. Later on, as long as the children in the family work hard and find that the imperial examination can better reflect their talents, these dignitaries will immediately choose to let their children take the imperial examination. Although the imperial examination gives children from poor families an opportunity, fundamentally speaking, most children from poor families cannot compete with children from noble families.

There is no way around it. It is impossible not to take the imperial examination because of this. With the imperial examination, children from poor families at least have a way out. If there is no imperial examination, they can only wait for the court to be short of people, like when Liu Che recruited talents, to have a chance, but this opportunity is hard to come by.

After hearing this, Liu Che seemed to be thinking about something. He simply slammed the table and said, "Write a memorial."

Liu Tan took a breath suddenly. He seemed to hear his boss say to him: Write a paper.

Really, the tone is exactly the same.

The only advantage is that Liu Che probably wouldn't check for plagiarism.

Liu Che looked at Liu Tan's shocked expression and couldn't help laughing: "Why? Don't want to?"

Liu Tan smiled bitterly and said, "It's not that I don't want to, but I'm afraid it will take a long time to write this down. After all, there are too many things involved, and it won't be quick to talk about it."

Liu Che looked mysterious and said, "It seems you have thought about this a long time ago."

Liu Tan shook his head. "I haven't thought about it, but the Northern Territory has experience. We always have to plan ahead. If we magnify the Northern Territory's difficulties, it will basically become Chang'an's difficulties."

Liu Che thought about it and it seemed to be the same. He thought about it a little more. If Liu Tan wrote it, he would be able to think thoroughly while writing, and many words might not be said out loud. All expressions would tend to be conservative, but if it was said on the spot, he would be more bold.

Thinking of this, Liu Che simply said: "Come with me to the Xuanshi Hall."

It doesn't seem right to discuss such a big thing in Sui Yu Palace. When Liu Tan heard this, his face immediately fell.

Seeing his expression, Liu Che wanted to pinch his face. What kind of place is Xuanshi? Many important decisions of the Han Dynasty were made there. Everyone thought that the Xiaochao meeting was the decision-making meeting of the most elite people in the Han Dynasty. In fact, it was not entirely true. Many times, those important decisions were made by Liu Che calling the three ministers to discuss and then decide.

How many ministers dreamed of being able to go to the Xuanshi Hall to make speeches, but only a few could actually step into it. Even among the princes, only the crown prince could enter. The other princes... Oh, Liu Che's sons had a special background. Generally, they would go to their fiefdoms when they grew up, so of course they were not qualified to enter the Xuanshi Hall.

But this can better reflect the importance of Xuanshi.

Chen Ajiao was just quite interested in what they were talking about, the so-called imperial examination, but as she listened, her head started to hurt. She had some understanding of these things, but not enough.

Perhaps many people think that since the Han Dynasty did not prohibit the queen from interfering in politics, why didn’t Chen Ajiao learn from it?

In fact, in history, women with political ambitions either had strong purposes of their own or were forced to do so. Most queens basically did not interfere too much in politics.

Especially when your husband is someone like Liu Che, it is easy to get into trouble if you try too hard.

It’s true that Chen Ajiao wants to be the empress dowager, but she only pays attention to it in extremely rare circumstances. Her husband and son are both capable anyway, so why bother herself?

So Chen Ajiao took the painting away with satisfaction, thinking about where to hang it as she walked.

Liu Che naturally took Liu Tan to the Xuanshi Hall.

Liu Tan had no choice but to run to his father for a dinner.

Of course, dinner can only be eaten after work is completed.

After arriving at Xuanshi, Liu Che did not rush to let Liu Tan start the lecture, but instead sent someone to call two people - Prime Minister Sang Hongyang and Imperial Censor Wang Qing.

When the two came over and saw Liu Tan, they were stunned for a moment. To be honest, if they hadn't seen Liu Tan now, they would have almost forgotten that the King of the North was still in Chang'an.

Logically speaking, most of the people in the court now are on the side of the crown prince - those on the side of other princes have been almost wiped out, and only the King of the Northern Territory directly took away all those who supported him, and there was not a single person left in Chang'an.

Under such circumstances, if the King of the North stayed in Chang'an for too long, no one from the Crown Prince to the lower ranks would be willing to let him stay.

Even if they were not on the prince's side, they would not be happy, because the longer the King of the North stayed in Chang'an, the more unstable the prince's position would become.

Even if they are not die-hard prince party members, they do not want the crown prince to be replaced without any reason. Those of them who are still alive have a good relationship with Liu Ju. If the crown prince is replaced, they will have to get along with each other again, and they may not even get along well.

Therefore, except for those who are too ambitious, generally no one likes to change the crown prince randomly.

As a result, they actually ignored the existence of the King of the North.

If you think about it carefully, it's probably because the King of the Northern Territory has been living in seclusion since he returned to Chang'an. Even if he wasn't living in seclusion, he plunged into the field of researching rouge and powder, and didn't care about any political or military affairs. He retreated when he was most capable of seizing power, which made everyone feel a lot more at ease.

After Liu Che had Sang Hongyang and Wang Qing sit down, he said, "I have mentioned the issue of the imperial examination before. Now it seems the time is ripe. Let's discuss it today."

Sang Hongyang and Wang Qing immediately turned their gazes to Liu Tan. They finally understood why the King of the Northern Territory was here. Wasn't the Imperial Examination System the first thing that was invented by the King of the Northern Territory?

Sang Hongyang's eyes revealed a hint of despair: "Your Highness, didn't you go out to play with rouge and powder? Why are you giving us more work?"

They are still busy with the matter of establishing the Maritime Silk Road that Liu Tan mentioned before. Opening a route is not an easy task. First of all... there must be enough ships.

The reason why Liu Tan was able to build ships so quickly when he went out to sea was that Jiaozhi basically responded to every request. In addition, Jiaozhi had a lot of ships and relatively complete materials. In addition, many small boats were directly requisitioned from Jiaozhi. Otherwise, unless Liu Tan really knew magic, it would be impossible for him to form a fleet within a month.

But now the Han fleet needs to be completely replaced, especially the main ships. In addition, the shipbuilding now is not as good as it was in the past when Liu Tan was willing to spend money and let Xu □□ban work day and night, so the progress is naturally not that fast.

What's more, before the fleet set sail, they also needed to understand the specific situation of the countries west of Jiaozhi.

These matters are very complicated and important. In addition, it is impossible for the officials of the Han Dynasty to devote themselves to these matters. It is also the time of autumn harvest, and the people have to go back to collect grain even if it is corvee labor.

So the progress has been a bit slow until now, which has made Sang Hongyang a little confused. But then he turned around and... Liu Tan came up with the imperial examination again?

Liu Tan looked at Sang Hongyang innocently. This was not what he wanted, right?

In his opinion, the Northern Border Kingdom would have to go through at least three or four rounds of imperial examinations before it could find the rules that best suited the times and then apply them to Chang'an.

But Liu Che didn't seem to be so patient. After all, the imperial examination was held every three years, and three or four rounds would take more than ten years.

Even though Liu Che was searching for immortals every day, hoping to live longer, he actually calculated the age of his parents and felt that he would probably be almost dead in ten years, so he had to settle the imperial examination while he was still in power.

Even if we don't finish it, we have to make a prototype and do a couple of rounds to lay the foundation for the future.

As an extremely far-sighted emperor, he could see the benefits of the imperial examination, otherwise he would not have been so enthusiastic about helping Liu Tan select people and even presided over the palace examination.

It was also because of that palace examination that Liu Che understood more clearly that those who came out of this palace examination were selected by the emperor himself and were naturally more inclined to the emperor.

However, what Liu Che probably didn't think about was that only an extremely strong and capable emperor could win the hearts of the people. Otherwise, if he replaced him with a weaker one, it would give court officials the opportunity to form cliques and pursue personal interests.

Of course, Liu Che could not have imagined this. After all, even a person with a high IQ could not guess how ridiculous things a person with a low IQ would do.

Since Liu Che had this idea, others naturally did not dare to drag their feet, or even if they had other ideas, they could only express them in a tactful way. At present, there are only two kinds of people who dare to oppose such things face to face. To be precise, there are two kinds of people and one person who dare to oppose them. One kind of person is the kind who is not afraid of death, and most of them have already had grass several meters high on their graves. The other kind is the King of the Northern Territory in front of him.

Now that even the King of the North has not raised any objections, they will not take the initiative to express their opposition for the time being. They can only wait for the King of the North to finish explaining the specific matters and then discuss it bit by bit. They cannot oppose it right away, but they can pick out some inappropriate points and then delay it.

A new policy always needs to be discussed and deduced repeatedly before it can be implemented. It cannot be implemented just because someone wants to.

Even if it has been tried in the Northern Border Kingdom, it does not mean that it can be implemented in the entire Han Dynasty. How big is the Northern Border Kingdom? How big is the Han Dynasty?

Furthermore, the Northern Kingdom also holds an imperial examination. Should the Northern Kingdom's imperial examination be held in parallel? If so, will the people of the Northern Kingdom participate in their own imperial examination or in the Han Dynasty's?

This series of problems are all there. Sang Hongyang and Wang Qing looked at each other and were ready to engage in a heated debate with His Royal Highness the King of the Northern Territory.

This is how politics works. When they faced Liu Qumao, they were on the same front, but now they are in different camps.

However, they knew that Liu Che liked such ministers. If they all formed a clique and became too powerful, he would be unhappy.

But the question is, can Liu Tan let them find the problem?