Tian Tong Xiao Xiao Le (VIII)

Ninety-nine percent of people will think "not that serious, really not that serious" until the situation really develops to a certain point.

In the eyes of most people, it would be great if the emperor killed tens of thousands of people. If more were to happen, wouldn't there be a river of blood?

So Diwu Ang and Xu Jingxing looked at each other and attacked brazenly.

Xu Jingxing spoke first, and before he spoke, he glanced at Diwu Ang, indicating that he didn't want to squat behind and then send him to death.

"Your Majesty, I used to be a deputy county magistrate in Shaanxi." The

old emperor looked at this man who was obviously like a mouse seeing a cat, his hands were still shaking, and when he stood in front of him, he still had to put on an enthusiastic look. So he just gave him a chance: "You say."

Facing the sharp gaze, Xu Jingxing's heart rose, he gritted his teeth, and went all out: "In order to supply military rations for the troops stationed in the Hexi Corridor, the court allowed merchants to purchase rice and transport it to Ganzhou. The court paid the price of rice and transportation costs. Your Majesty, someone will use this to defraud the court of money." The

old emperor sneered, not surprised: "Who?"

Xu Jingxing: "Officials in various counties and cities in Shaanxi will do it, and so will I! There are people in the prince's palace and the prince consort's palace! And officials in the central court..."

The old emperor: "..."

[Wow! Xu Yanmo was surprised: [No wonder he jumped out, stealing... or cheating? Anyway, he took the old emperor's money, and he was afraid of being found out.]

Diwu Ang suddenly said: "Your Majesty, do you know why there are so many people who fail the Tongsheng exam?"

Diwu Ang: "Nothing else, just money."

Diwu Ang: "Boys don't need to memorize the Four Books and Five Classics, they only need to memorize a few Chengwen and write 200 to 300 words, and they can be admitted." Diwu Ang:

"As long as the rich and powerful give money, the first place in the case can also be decided."

Just these two people, just these few sentences, directly pushed this prime minister fishing game to a height that even Prime Minister Dou could not expect.

One is to poke the money that the old emperor cares about most.

The other is to point directly to the root of the imperial examination.

Some sweat oozed from the forehead of the Minister of Rites: "Crazy... All crazy..."

Are they afraid that there won't be enough people buried with the dead?

Today was a calm day with no wind or rain, and the sky was full of moonlight.

The old emperor looked at the two men, his expression and tone very calm: "I know. Speak one by one - Xu Jingxing, you first." Diwu Ang

saluted and stepped aside.

Xu Jingxing cleared his throat: "The court has set up a whole anti-fraud line for this grain transportation..."

The old emperor waved his hand: "I know this better than you, just tell me how they cheated."

Xu Jingxing said: "Merchants transported grain across the Yellow River, and officials inspected it at the ferry. After the inspection, they sealed it in bags, marked the weight of the bag with the sample, and issued a certificate to the merchant."

Xu Jingxing "Then, the officials would cut off the seals again, use sheepskin rafts to smuggle the rice back to the other side of the Yellow River, and then cross the river again, repeatedly cheating on the seals and the permits. They would cross the river as many times as they wanted to cheat, and finally take the empty bags to the Ganzhou warehouse, and report the rice price and freight with the seals and permits."

Xu Yanmiao summarized: [In other words, even if the grain was not given, they could still get something from the court. ]

[There were also merchants... I guess in addition to the real merchants, there were also people pretending to be merchants. ]

[This is military rations! ]

[Who secretly attacked the military rations before and was chopped off... Oh! The adopted son of Marquis Yongchang! 】

Marquis Yongchang, who had been pretending to be sitting still and not jumping around, looked at Xu Yanmiao with despair and wailed in his heart:

'Can you please let me go? I know I was wrong! I will never take in so many adopted sons again! Let's make a deal, can we not mention this matter anymore?'

'Even if we have to mention it, can you not mention the adopted son of Marquis Yongchang all the time, but just say his real name! There's no need to mention mine every time!'

'Don't you know his name? I'll tell you! His real name, I'll even tell you that when he was playing house, he liked to call himself the invincible general of the universe!'

Marquis Yongchang tried to squeeze his height, which was like a brown bear, into the chair under the sympathetic gazes of the crowd.

The old emperor was too lazy to pay attention to the Marquis of Yongchang. He sat behind the table and propped up his chin with his hands: "Tell me, who are they?"

Xu Jingxing poured out all the information like a bamboo tube bean - he really knew everything about this, because he was the deputy magistrate of Xi'an, Ganzhou!

The old emperor had only one word for this: "Check!"

The commander of the Jinyiwei held the book and wrote down the names one by one. If any of them were mentioned by Xu Yanmiao in his heart, he would circle or cross under those names.

After asking this, the old emperor looked at Diwu Ang again: "What about the boy's test?"

Diwu Ang had already prepared a draft: "Your Majesty, do you remember the eight-part essay?"

The old emperor said "hmm" lightly.

That was the middle and late period of the previous dynasty. It has been a thousand years since the imperial examination was first established. The system has evolved from a crude system to a mature one. The promotion channels have indeed been completely opened up, but the questions that should be asked in the imperial examination have also been almost exhausted .

——The Four Books and Five Classics only have so much content. It can be said that every word has been repeatedly tested over the past thousand years.

Under such circumstances, in order to win the favor of the examiners when answering questions, the candidates' quotations are running wildly in the direction of being innovative.

From history books to the Six Masters, from Buddhist scriptures to Taoist scriptures, and even more radically, they directly make up a famous saying and say that it was said by someone... Of course, this is limited to people who read a lot on weekdays. Most people only read the Four Books and Five Classics from childhood to adulthood, and don't even look at anything else, because "they won't be tested in the exam."

In the middle and late period of the previous dynasty, the imperial examination families had already summed up a set of learning plans:

read "Xingli Zixun" before entering school at the age of eight. After the age of eight: first read "Xiaoxue", then "Daxue", then "Analects of Confucius", "Mencius", "Doctrine of the Mean", "Xiaojing Kaner", followed by "Yi", "Shu", "Shi", "Yili", "Liji", "Zhouli", "Spring and Autumn" and "Three Commentaries"; after the age of fifteen, read "Four Books Annotation", "Analects Annotation", "Mencius Annotation" and so on.

As long as you learn and recite these from childhood to adulthood, you don't have to be afraid of exams.

- Except for poor students.

But this kind of examination has a very serious consequence...

Fifth Ang: "Since Emperor Wen of the previous dynasty, the eight-legged essay has been popular. Candidates do not know the 'Three Tongs', do not read the 'Four Histories', and do not even know which dynasty the Liang Zu and Chu Zong belonged to."

——In a parallel world, most of the candidates do not know the ancestors of the Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty.

Xu Yanmiao: [Oh! Got it. "This part will not be tested, we will skip it."]

Diwu Ang: "Also, when writing articles, you must use classics and idioms, classics must be rare, idioms must be... If you can use rare characters, don't use common characters. If you can use ancient characters, don't use vulgar characters. If you can use pigs and pigs, never use boars and sows."

Xu Yanmiao: [Yeah! Got it. "When writing English essays, try to use advanced vocabulary and long and difficult sentences."]

As he said this, Diwu Ang wrote a line of characters: 蠖略蕤綏，漓虖幓纚.

The old emperor: "What do you mean?"

Diwu Ang: "To boast about the emperor's carriage, which is like a dragon, and the beauty of the carriage decorations."

Xu Yanmo: [Implication that the emperor was born a peasant and doesn't know rare characters?]

The old emperor: "..."

Gao Tiezhu made a blank judgment: "Bullshit."

[Yes, yes!] There is also an unlearned person who is waving the flag and shouting wildly: [Can't you exaggerate it to be simple and easy to understand, so that even old peasants can understand it! What are you showing off!]

Gao Tiezhu nodded wildly in his heart.

The senior officials who worked hard with Gao Tiezhu from the bottom also nodded wildly in their hearts.

God knows how badly they translated the words "鬯、爨、鱻、麤、鑿、篪、黼、巇、袠、囮、茝..." one by one when they were fighting for the throne. Even

if you ask scholars, many of them can only read them stammeringly and don't know many words.

[Fortunately, I didn't see any unfamiliar words when I was looking at the papers in this imperial examination? Otherwise, I would be embarrassed.]

The prime minister and the six ministers smiled at each other.

The old emperor coughed, twirled his beard, and said triumphantly: "Then why is there no such situation in this dynasty?"

Wu Ang could tell at a glance that His Majesty wanted him to praise his virtues... The key is that it is really the credit of these idiots to set things right and clean up the popular trend of crooked style and style.

"Of course it's because of your Majesty, the Prime Minister, and all the ministers..."

Fifth Ang: "It is forbidden to use eight-legged essays and literati to show off their literary talents in memorials. During the imperial examination, any article with unfamiliar words will not be accepted."

How simple does it need to be? In the fifth year of Tiantong, when the imperial examination was held for the first time in Daxia, the Prime Minister personally invigilated the examination. At that time, some candidates wrote "Heaven and earth roll together, all things thrive, and saints grow". They were directly criticized as using strange and jerky words and brushed it off.

Not only did the old emperor not stop him, he also commented: "When you learn to write 'The world was first divided, all things grew, and the saint was born', then you can take the imperial examination again."

This is the current standard of wording in the Daxia officialdom. If it is deeper than this, you will be impeached.

- Of course, this also makes it easier for the people to understand the policy.

- By the way, three years later, the candidate came again. He even changed his name from the original "Liu Yu" to "Liu Yu", and his writing style and words were particularly simple. This time he passed the exam and won the first place.

When Diwu Ang cited the imperial examination in the fifth year of Tiantong as an example, the old emperor said "Oh?": "You are very knowledgeable and still remember such a long time ago."

Diwu Ang smiled and accepted the compliment.

However, the beast was already exposing his past.

[Hahahahahaha! ]

[Because he passed the exam in that exam! ]

[After hearing about Liu Yu's story, he wrote down his essay overnight, repeatedly pondered over it, and looked for any word or sentence that seemed strange and odd. He felt that he couldn't sleep well for a few days, so he resolutely decided not to participate in the palace examination and directly took the official position to be the magistrate of Lishui County. ]

[Fortunately, it was not long after the founding of the country, and the official position was vacant, so he could directly appoint officials. ]

[...Huh? ]

Xu Yanmiao thought: [Speaking of which, it seems that it is always like this. When a position in the officialdom is vacant, the candidates for the imperial examination are thrown over to become officials. So...if too many officials are killed, then this can also be done, right? ]

[If there are not enough candidates in one period, can an imperial examination be held? ]

[So...the old emperor is not afraid of killing too many people? ! ]

The old emperor laughed.

Otherwise?

Moreover, they can keep some officials in their positions with shackles until the next batch is trained.

As for whether these officials will cause trouble? You don’t want your wife and children... um, that or something, right?

[Hiss——]

[Let’s hide for a while! ]

The old emperor: “???”

Seeing Xu Yanmiao lying on the table again, making the familiar gesture of crossing his arms and burying his face under his arms, he could no longer bear it——

“Xu Yanmiao! Get over here!”