Chapter 96: Announcement

It was still dark outside, and a group of young students gathered outside the palace gate.

Today is the palace examination, and it is also the day when they will be named on the list of successful candidates.

Everyone couldn’t control the excitement on their faces. They had studied so hard for so many years just for this moment.

The first place in the imperial examination is Huang Shi'an, who is from Suzhou. His father is the president of Jiangnan Bailu Academy and a great writer and calligrapher of the time. He was able to get the first place in the imperial examination because of his overwhelming strength. Both his essays and his opinions are much better than others. If nothing unexpected happens, he should be the top scholar this year.

The second was the man who debated with Li Jie in the teahouse that day. His name was Su Xu, with the courtesy name Qihui. He was also from Suzhou. Both of them were not very old, and had outstanding looks, with a graceful demeanor that made others envious.

Compared to them, Li Qingtai, who ranked in the top 20, seemed a little inconspicuous. He couldn't be compared with them in terms of appearance or talent. He had dark skin and a thin figure. If the previous dynasty valued appearance, he would probably be demoted to the top three in the palace examination.

The weather was very cold, so everyone gathered together to keep warm. At three quarters past three in the morning, the palace gates opened and many eunuchs came out of the palace. Leading them was the chief eunuch Li Dehai. He was ordered to take these students to the front hall to learn the etiquette of entering the palace.

Although it is said to be learning etiquette, in fact, there is nothing to teach. It is nothing more than reminding these people not to say wrong words and violate taboos when they enter the palace for the first time.

Those who passed the imperial examination were not fools. No matter how curious they were, they dared not act wildly in the palace. None of the three hundred people whispered or made any noise, and even their footsteps were silent.

Li Jie walked in the crowd, with his head down and not daring to look around. He could only feel his heart pounding as if it was going to burst out of his chest.

Finally arriving at the front hall, Li Dehai said, "All candidates please enter the hall and take a short rest. Later, the etiquette officer will teach you the etiquette of meeting the emperor. The palace examination will begin at noon."

"Thank you, sir." Everyone said in unison.

Li Dehai bowed to them, and the tribute scholars bowed in return. Both sides knew that they could not afford to offend the other side. One was a close attendant to the emperor, while the others might become successful and hold the position of prime minister tomorrow.

In the bedroom, Song Yuzhu had already stood up and Zhao Xiao was helping him tie his belt.

"The palace examination is today?"

"Yeah." Song Yuzhu adjusted her crown in front of the mirror.

"Have you thought of the questions for the palace examination?"

"I've chosen a few. Would it be appropriate for you to help me with some advice?"

Zhao Xiao moved a stool over and sat down to listen to him.

"The first question is, what is the relationship between the people and the officials? What is the relationship between the officials and the people?"

Zhao Xiao thought for a moment and said, "How do you want them to tell you how to be an official?"

Song Yuzhu nodded: "Yes and no, being an official is one thing, but how to treat the people is the most important thing."

"If nothing unexpected happens, most of these people will be sent to various parts of the country to take up posts. Their official positions will not be too high, and most of them will be county magistrates or county magistrates."

"These grassroots officials are close to the people. If they fail to do practical things for the people, the people will suffer."

Zhao Xiao said: "This question is fine, what about the second question?"

"The second question is, what can women do?"

What can a woman do? This question is very sensitive. Zhao Xiao's eyes widened: "Are you planning to pave the way for Tongtong?"

"It's not entirely for Tongtong. I want to hear what these scholars think of women." Of course, there is also a selfish motive here. If women are belittled, Song Yuzhu will naturally not be able to promote her. After all, when Yutong is named the Crown Princess in the future, these people will become the biggest obstacle.

"The third question is how to deal with the relationship between Daqi and Jin."

Zhao Xiao was very interested in this question: "If it were up to me, we should just send troops to bombard Jin Dadu with short cannons and capture Wanyan Hong, and they would obey us."

Song Yuzhu said: "We have captured Wanyan Hong, Wanyan Zhen, Wanyan Tieda... Even if we capture all the people in the Wanyan family, there are still other Jin people."

"Then kill them all!"

Song Yuzhu looked at him and said, "Are you sure you can kill them all?"

Zhao Xiao paused and said, "Well... even if we don't kill them all, we can still make them afraid."

"Fear is not a long-term solution. In the past, the Qi people were also afraid of the Jin people. Now we have invented cannons and defeated them."

Zhao Xiao was silent for a moment and said, "Yuzhu, I understand what you said, but the Jin people and the Qi people have been enemies since ancient times. How can we coexist peacefully?"

“This is also the answer I want to find, so I’ll leave it to today’s students to answer.”

The time was almost up, and Li Dehai was already waiting at the door and said, "Your Majesty, the tribute scholars have entered the palace."

"Let's go now." Song Yuzhu opened the door and walked towards the main hall with a group of attendants.

Three hundred tables had been set up in the hall, and the tribute scholars sat down one by one according to their ranking. When the emperor walked in, everyone stood up and knelt, shouting, "Long live the emperor."

"Everyone, please sit down."

The emperor's voice was youthful and carried an irresistible majesty.

They all knew that the emperor had just turned 20 this year, and that he had overthrown an entire dynasty with just an uprising army. Who would dare to look down on such a man?

Because Li Jie was ranked high, he sat in the third row, which was relatively close to the emperor. However, even if he sat in the first row, no one dared to look up to see what the emperor looked like, for fear of offending the emperor and ruining their career.

Song Yuzhu asked his questions one by one. The students only had one hour to answer them. There was an hourglass next to them. When the time was up, no matter how they answered, they had to hand in the test paper.

The students began to ponder.

The first question is not bad. The relationship between officials and the people is not about people's livelihood and the way of being an official. As long as you are not mentally ill, you will not be able to answer it wrongly. It is very easy to write a gorgeous article by quoting classics.

The second question puzzled many candidates. What could the woman do?

Give birth to children, serve men, and take charge of the harem? This answer is too simple. The emperor certainly cannot ask such a simple question, but what can women do?

On this issue, the candidates were divided into two camps, one believed that women were useless, and the other believed that women could do many things.

When it came to the third question, Su Xu, who was sitting in the front, was delighted. Wasn't this the same topic as the one he debated a few days ago? It was just right for him to write down his thoughts, saving a lot of time.

Li Jie was also stunned when he heard the topic. He didn't expect that the topic of the debate that day was the same as the topic of the palace examination. It's just that his ideas are different from those of ordinary people. If he causes the emperor's disgust...

Li Jie hesitated for a while, and finally closed his eyes, resigned himself to picking up the pen to write down his views. The article was more detailed than the oral narration, and filled in all the content that was missed last time.

Song Yuzhu looked at the candidates below and couldn't help but curl up the corners of her mouth. She really wanted to see Li Qingtai's expression when he saw her.

An hour passed quickly, and many people had not finished answering the questions.

The eunuch came to collect the papers, and no one was allowed to make revisions.

After the papers were collected, the candidates retreated to a side hall to wait for the Hanlin Academy scholars to review them on the spot, and Qin Fengtu was among them.

Each paper was reviewed by four university scholars at the same time. A circle indicated a pass, while a cross indicated a rejection.

All the successful papers were handed over to the emperor for review, about ten in total, and the emperor personally selected the top three.

Soon all ten successful papers were selected, and Qin Fengtu presented the test papers to Song Yuzhu.

Song Yuzhu looked through it and saw that Li Jie's paper was not among them: "Bring the paper of Li Jie from Zhongzhou to me."

Li Jie's paper was handed in, with only two circles on it and the remaining two were crosses, which seemed to be very controversial.

Song Yuzhu took a look at the contents of the test paper. His answer to the first question was average. Although there was nothing outstanding, there were many practical policies that benefited the people, so he should not have received two crosses.

When it came to the second question, Li Jie's answer was a bit bold. He actually said that what men can do, women can do as well, but what women can do, men may not be able to do.

They also cited classics, such as the female general Fu Hao who went into battle to kill the enemies, the female prime minister Jiang Wan'er who was good at governing the country, etc. Although men could go into battle to kill the enemies, they did not have the reproductive ability of women when governing the country, nor did they have the meticulousness and tenacity of women.

So there are a lot of things women can do, but they just lack opportunities.

Song Yuzhu's eyes lit up when she saw this answer, and she secretly gave a thumbs up in her heart. It turned out that the person she had chosen had unique ideas.

There is almost no need to look at the third question. The two of them had discussed this issue that day, and Qingtai's views were exactly the same as Song Yuzhu's.

He put Li Jie's paper aside and looked at other people's papers.

When Song Yuzhu saw Su Xu's paper, he frowned. Although this man was radical in the way he treated the Jin people, he was also patriotic.

But when it comes to treating women, their thinking is very conservative and derogatory.

He compared women to shoes, saying that he was tolerant of women on the surface, but secretly he trampled on women under his feet. This kind of stinking male chauvinism made Song Yuzhu unhappy.

Reading further, he actually said that a woman's virtue lies in doing nothing, and that a woman does not have to do anything to be a virtuous person. Song Yuzhu directly took out his paper and put it on the other side.

The remaining papers were all remarkable. Song Yuzhu selected Huang Shi'an from Suzhou as the top scorer, the second place was Cao Rufei from Luzhou, and the third place was Ye Chen from Xuzhou.

Li Jie's paper was placed behind the first class, and he was immediately announced as the first in the second class.

The rankings were arranged and the announcer was responsible for reading them out. Li Jie sat in a side hall with his hands in his pockets, in a daze. He decided that he had not performed well in the palace examination and would definitely not be in the first class this time. It would be difficult to get into the second class too. He might even get into the third class and become a fellow Jinshi.

It's not bad to be a fellow Jinshi. Maybe I can go back to my hometown and be a county magistrate, and I can also take care of my teacher.

After a while, a eunuch came over and informed him that the emperor had summoned him.

The other students looked at him in surprise, and Li Jie was also startled. His heart skipped a beat. Did the article he wrote anger the emperor? Would it implicate his family?

His face turned from red to white, he stumbled to his feet, and followed the eunuch out.

When they reached the entrance of the main hall, Li Dehai whispered, "Congratulations in advance to Li Chuanlu."

Li Jie's ears buzzed, and he was completely stunned. He was ranked first in the second class. The emperor summoned him for the ranking of the song! He never dreamed that he could get this rank!

After entering the hall, Li Jie knelt on the ground. Suddenly, a familiar voice came from above his head: "Qingtai, we meet again."

Li Jie suddenly raised his head and looked at Song Yuzhu in disbelief, muttering, "Song San, Sanlang."

The eunuch said sternly: "Don't be rude!"

Li Jie was so frightened that he kowtowed and begged for mercy.

Song Yuzhu walked up to him, stretched out her hand and helped him up: "I said that you and I will meet if we are destined to."

Li Jie's eyes turned red, and after a while he found his voice and said, "The student was rude that day."

Song Yuzhu smiled and patted his shoulder and said, "Don't be abrupt. What you said the other day was right. I have high hopes for you. Do a good job!"

The eunuch handed him the prepared list. Li Jie took it with both hands, kowtowed again to express his gratitude, and walked towards the door with firm steps.

No one could have imagined that this thin and unremarkable man would later be appointed as the Right Prime Minister and assist two generations of emperors.

(End of this chapter)