Chapter 91 System Judgment
Shen Ying, the Minister of the Ministry of Rites, was not a fool if he could be retained as a "still useful person" during the great purge of the Zhou officialdom. However, no matter how humble he was, he could not prevent his son from holding him back.
The next day, Shen Ying was summoned by Yan Xuanyu, but he did not meet Yan Xuanyu directly. Instead, he met Su An in a side hall.
Nowadays, Su An is not very popular among the officials. It is not because of his personality. Su An always smiles when he meets everyone and seems very easy to talk to.
But everyone knows that seeing Lord Su definitely means something bad is going to happen. Lord Su controls the Jinyiwei and the intelligence agencies, and nothing can be hidden from him.
The Jinyiwei said that they took orders directly from His Majesty. Many people speculated that the Jinyiwei were all trained by Su An, and there might be people with ulterior motives among them!
Logically speaking, such a person should be feared by the emperor, but Su An is extremely trusted by the emperor. Others don't know that the reason why Su An was able to build such a huge intelligence network today is because of Yan Xuanyu's support behind the scenes. They are all looking forward to the day when Su An will be disliked by the emperor and this intelligence network will be removed together.
No matter what people think in private, they are cautious in their expressions.
"Sir Su, do you know why His Majesty summoned you?" Shen Ying asked cautiously.
Su An's face twitched. This time it had nothing to do with him. It was because your good son was making trouble behind your back and was caught by His Majesty.
Everyone can see how much importance Yan Xuanyu attaches to the imperial examination, but it just so happens that there are always those idiots who pop up at this time.
"Chen Lian was instigated by Ye He, a candidate for the imperial examination, to use some means to prevent the top student in the imperial examination from taking the examination." Su An said.
Shen Ying took several steps back after hearing this, "What?!"
Su An observed him carefully and found that he was indeed unaware of the situation.
"My son...my son..." Shen Ying came back to his senses with difficulty, his beard twitching as he tried to defend his son, but how could he defend himself when it came to the imperial examination?
Since Su An brought it up, the evidence must be conclusive.
Su An patted his shoulder gently as if to comfort him and sighed, "His Majesty knows that you are innocent, so he spared some face and only said that the Second Young Master would be given a slight punishment."
Innocent?
Su An didn't think so. No one knows a son better than his father. Shen Ying has already helped Shen Lian with his aftermath countless times, right?
But this time, I'm afraid that even relying on Shen Ying's face will not be enough to deal with the aftermath.
...
Shen Ying entered the palace trembling with fear, and heard the emperor say, "I know you are reluctant to discipline your son, so I will do it for you today."
Shen Ying felt very upset. He wanted to express his gratitude even though his son was going to be beaten.
The reason why Yan Xuanyu magnified this matter was to let others know how much he valued this imperial examination.
It is so important that no one else can do anything.
The case of Mr. Shen Lian is not an isolated case. I wonder how many people are eyeing the students taking the imperial examinations, and not all of them have good intentions.
Although Yan Xuanyu made many preparations after taking power and struck down those who wanted to stand out more than once, there were still people who expressed dissatisfaction with the imperial examination. For hundreds of years, the selection of officials in the Great Zhou Dynasty had always been flowing among the upper class, and some people's ideas had long been fixed.
It's just that what Mr. Shen did was stupid. Yan Xuanyu would not ignore the malicious intent of this group of people just because of the stupidity of this thing.
On that day, only Shen Lian was at a disadvantage. The hired thugs were stopped by the Jinyiwei and left in disappointment. What if they had succeeded?
There are so many students coming to the capital, and no one can guarantee their safety one by one.
That's why Yan Xuanyu wanted to nip any bad things in the bud from the very beginning.
We cannot let these things make people all over the world disappointed in the imperial examination.
...
The examination lasted for three days and two nights.
Students from all over the Great Zhou all had a common feeling, that is, the examinations in various cities were nothing compared to the imperial examination.
Not to mention the time issue, the difficulty of the questions suddenly reached a new level.
In addition, since this was the imperial examination in the capital, one or two students who were already in poor health could not bear the pressure and fainted on the spot. There was a doctor in the examination room who immediately treated the candidates.
Yan Xuanyu was shocked when he heard the news at first. After coming to his senses, he realized that the first imperial examination of the Great Zhou Dynasty would determine the fate of the next few years or even half of his life. It was really a good thing that only one or two of the students fainted among so many of them.
The imperial examination went smoothly due to thorough preparation. At the end of three days, the examiners gathered in Wenyuan Pavilion, sealed their names, and began to mark the test papers.
For several nights in a row, the lights in Wenyuan Pavilion were on, and several teams took turns staying up late. For convenience, they were temporarily given palace badges.
Logically speaking, the imperial examination in Yan Xuanyu's world was also held nearly two months after the joint examination, but it was far less "grand" than the examiners in Wenyuan Pavilion. This was probably because Yan Xuanyu had stipulated that each student's test paper must be approved by at least two examiners and then submitted to a third person for review and confirmation before it could be passed.
The officials who had originally felt regretful for not being selected as examiners were shocked when they saw that their colleagues who went to Wenyuan Pavilion all had big bags under their eyes, and their regrets dissipated a lot.
However, the examiners’ overtime pay is very generous.
It can be said to be a mixture of pain and joy for them. Being chosen as examiners is, on the one hand, the emperor's recognition of their abilities; on the other hand, the rewards are indeed quite a lot, and the "overtime meals" are also delicious... In short, it's a bit tiring!
The imperial examination was now on the right track, and there were fewer things that Yan Xuanyu needed to worry about personally.
Except for the upcoming palace examination.
Yan Xuanyu put forward several ideas about the palace examination and asked Lin Fu, who was standing at the forefront of all the officials, to read them out one by one.
Because of the concern for students' character before, Yan Xuanyu had an idea, which was to hold a banquet after the announcement of the joint examination results and before the palace examination. By observing the students' behavior at the banquet, he would kick out those who were found to have bad behavior at a glance.
This is the first screening.
Then, test their character through some deliberately fabricated things.
This is the second screening.
Lin Fu retreated after he finished speaking. Yan Xuanyu said, "The items I asked Prime Minister Lin to mention are not yet mature. I hope to hear different opinions."
All officials knew that the emperor was not the kind of person who was moody and said one thing and meant another. If he said this, he must have thought so.
As soon as these words were spoken, the court immediately split into two factions.
One group, led by Han Yuan, was less supportive. They believed that this was the official "imperial examination" of the Great Zhou Dynasty. Although it was the first of its kind, the rules had to be followed to ensure its authority.
The most intuitive feeling given by the two ideas proposed by the emperor is that they are a bit "nonsense".
The other faction is the supporters. Their view is that the imperial examination system overturned the previous system of selecting officials and that the rules were created by them.
And because this banquet does not look like a serious exam, it allows students to relax a little and "show their true colors."
It is also necessary to observe the character of students. The imperial examination is to inject new elements into the court. If those with bad character are attracted, they may even muddy the waters.
Both sides have their own opinions and both have their reasons.
Lin Fu pondered for a moment, then stepped out and said, "Your Majesty, the banquet you mentioned is feasible, but have you ever considered that those who suffered losses this time will be more cautious next time, or those who heard rumors from others will also be careful next time."
"Yes, so I was also thinking that this can only be done once." Yan Xuanyu nodded.
However, he couldn't think of a better solution in a short time.
"Then I will leave it to you, my dear ministers, to figure out how to assess the character of the students," said Yan Xuanyu.
ah?
Many people secretly complained, thinking that they had found new troubles after going around in circles?
Yan Xuanyu was quite satisfied. There is strength in numbers. Lin Fu was right. Holding a banquet to observe the students' behavior was only a one-time event at most. More professional methods would be needed in the future.
He did have a vague and unformed idea, but he felt that the officials could definitely come up with it and even perfect the specific regulations.
Sometimes he doesn't have to do everything himself, otherwise so many officials in the court would be useless.
Most of the officials were accustomed to His Majesty's jumping thoughts. This morning during the court session, the Minister of the Ministry of Rites reported on the progress of rice improvement. That's right, in the capital city where potatoes have been rampant in recent times, the Minister of the Ministry of Rites has remained true to his principles, resisted the temptation of potatoes' high yields, and diligently carried out the rice research assigned by His Majesty.
However, there was progress, but it was small. To study rice, one had to wait for it to mature, season after season, and constantly correct their misconceptions. Even if Yan Xuanyu had given them a general direction, they still had to try it themselves.
As expected, the emperor was also very concerned about this matter. We cannot let the whole Zhou Dynasty only eat potatoes just because the potato yield is high.
After the Minister of the Imperial Household left, the Minister of War, Tan Can, stepped forward to report on the distribution of troops, weapons, and food supplies of the Great Zhou Dynasty since the past six months.
Because the Great Zhou Dynasty used to emphasize literature and the law stipulated that the Minister of War should be a scholar, it was only after Yan Xuanyu came to power that he was replaced by a military general recommended by Yuan Kang, Tan Can. Tan Can was originally a subordinate that Yuan Kang trusted very much, but he was unable to go to the battlefield after being seriously injured.
Yan Xuanyu thought about it and felt that Tan Can’s rank was high enough and he had made military achievements, so he was fully capable of serving as the Minister of War.
The Minister of War was supposed to be in charge of military administration. As soon as Tan Can took office, he immediately set about sorting out the number of soldiers in each city of the Great Zhou, counting the food and fodder, and clearing out a group of parasites.
So today he reported this matter.
Why did everyone get used to the emperor's jumpy thinking? Because after Tan Can reported his findings and returned to his seat, the emperor suddenly brought up the issue of trade with the Turks, and after everyone had discussed it for a while, he moved on to other topics.
Yan Xuanyu sometimes wanted to laugh when he saw the expressions of some of them. He seemed to see the confused expressions of students in his previous life who "lowered their heads and looked up again in math class, only to find the originally blank blackboard filled with words."
Originally, many officials who attended court were "slacking off", which caused the morning court to drag on and not finish one task in half a day. This changed after Yan Xuanyu came to court.
Look, today when everyone went to court, they brought another "homework" on "how to evaluate the character of students".
After the court session, the guards from Wenyuan Pavilion came to report that all the examination papers had been marked.
Almost at the same time, the system that had only appeared in Yan Xuanyu's mind for a long time suddenly spoke:
[Ding, after system detection, the host has committed the acts of 'imprisoning multiple people' and 'making them suffer'... Due to the large number of people involved, 500 points will be awarded.]
?
A big question mark appeared above Yan Xuanyu's head.
He said expressionlessly, "If I'm not mistaken... imprisoning multiple people in a closed space, torturing them, and making them suffer. Are you talking about the imperial examination?"
The system beeped a few times and then went silent.
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