They walked steadily with sad expressions, and bursts of tears came out as they walked.

“Wow…”

The miserable cries made the nearby streets desolate.

Along with them came countless onlookers.

The people had never seen such a scene before, and they followed them towards the examination room.

The entire team was pitch black, with no end in sight.

The soldiers standing guard around the examination room treated them as if they were facing a great enemy and raised their weapons at the crowd.

"Don't do it! Don't do it!"

Li Zhichun and Wu Linwei looked at each other and immediately ran forward to stand between the soldiers and the examinees.

If a candidate dies in the examination room, it has nothing to do with the examiner, but if he dies outside the examination room, they will be held responsible.

Only after he got closer did Li Zhichun see clearly the words on the tablet: The Shrine of the Great Sage Confucius.

(Before the 9th year of Jiajing, the words on Confucius' tablet read: The Great Sage, the Great Sage, the King of Literature and the King of Confucius. In the 9th year of Jiajing, it was changed to The Great Sage, the First Teacher, the God of Confucius.)

The other officials present also saw the words on the tablet clearly at this time.

Ruan Dacheng, a military official, exclaimed, "It's the tablet of our great teacher Confucius! Everyone, kneel down!"

"Yes, yes, kneel down now."

A strange and funny scene appeared.

The twenty or thirty officials present actually knelt down in front of a group of scholars waiting for the exam.

Li Zhichun and Wu Linwei were both stunned.

They didn't expect that this group of scholars would actually move Confucius' tablet out of the temple.

The candidates holding the tablets raised them high above their heads, and everyone stopped crying.

He shouted to Li Zhichun and Wu Linwei, "The tablet of Confucius is here, how dare you not kneel down?"

Li Zhichun and Wu Linwei were forced to kneel down in front of the tablet.

In that era, Confucius' status in the eyes of scholars was more important than that of all their ancestors, so Li Zhichun and Wu Linwei dared not not kneel.

The examinee holding the tablet shouted to the people watching: "Fellow villagers, we are all examinees waiting to take the exam."

"Today is the day of the autumn imperial examination, but the current Prime Minister Li Banghua has ordered corrupt officials to exploit the people in the name of collecting taxes. The people have to pay silver at the least, sell their land and houses at the worst, and some have even been arrested by the government and are nowhere to be found."

"Some even have their families destroyed!"

"I, Lü Gong, hereby petition the court on behalf of the 3,319 candidates from Nanzhili, requesting that the cabinet chief Li Banghua be removed from office and that his crime be handed over to the three judicial departments for trial and conviction."

"As long as the court does not dismiss Li Banghua, we will not take the exam."