Welcome mathematics to join the family of science examinations

Yan Linghui did not say this casually.

She had seriously thought about why the six arts for gentlemen only restored "mathematics" instead of copying it completely.

——This time when she ran away from home, she saw a lot of things in the three thousand miles that she had never seen in the princess's mansion before.

The common people were very poor, and the gentry were very rich. And the poor people, just to support their family members to study, have already spent all their property and energy. They don't have extra money to buy horses, buy cars, learn music, learn archery...

Once all six arts are taken, the children of the common people will have no chance to compete with the children of the gentry and the rich.

*

The words were finished, but the scene also fell into a strange silence.

When the prince consort Yan Chun heard his daughter say this, he could no longer stand still and wanted to step out to rescue her.

'Silly girl! The officials in the Manchu court are not fools. Guess why no one has stood up to ask His Majesty to reform the imperial examinations and reopen several subjects in the past month or two. '

How could the prince bear to see his brother-in-law step on a landmine? Mainly, he had just been in his father's book because he sold his father's anxiety. If he went out again, wouldn't he be directly in his father's crossbow? He

immediately stepped out and went to his father's side and said, "Your Majesty! I think the method this kid said is feasible. And I also think that adding one or more subjects will not hinder ordinary students from learning the Four Books and Five Classics."

Yan Linghui was stunned.

She is indeed a gifted person, but she is too young to make up for the worldly wisdom. At this moment, she can only vaguely feel that the prince's words are full of meaning, as if he is helping her clean up the mess, but she still can't figure out where her proposal is wrong.

But it doesn't matter.

Yan Linghui's face is frank.

She has a father! She can go back and ask her father!

However, the female emperor Yan Chun retracted her steps, lowered her eyes, and hid the gratitude in her pupils.

The daughter is still young and doesn't understand, but she understands what is going on.

——The fact that the six arts of a gentleman are no longer tested in the imperial examinations is actually a development tacitly approved by emperors of many dynasties.

The emperor has never been afraid of the large number of private academies, or in other words, they are actually the people in the world who most hope that all the people can read and learn to read. Because they have a complete set of brainwashing steps, all hidden in the classics.

The more books you read, the easier it is to be indoctrinated with the idea of ​​loyalty to the emperor and patriotism.

On the contrary, people who have read little or no books at all will shout "Are kings, princes, generals and ministers of different races" when they encounter injustice, oppression, and tyrants. Most educated people will think that "the emperor is good, it's all because of the treacherous ministers who deceived him. If the treacherous ministers are removed, the country will prosper." The emperor

is eager for the people to read more.

But the premise is that they only read books, not that they have time to learn the six arts of a gentleman. There are only twelve hours in a day. Excluding daily life, there is not much time left for reading. If you have to divide part of it to learn the six arts of a gentleman, the brainwashing effect will be greatly reduced. It is absolutely not possible!

- This is the strategy of fooling the people in the eyes of the emperor.

Yan Linghui's proposal to reopen the mathematics subject in the imperial examination was like pulling hair from a tiger's butt.

Fortunately, the prince, a strong and mature tiger, expressed his support for this.

"Your Majesty, I have done such a math problem before."

The prince's expression was relaxed, and the corners of his lips were raised. It was because of his posture that everyone present could feel his confidence.

- He was confident that even if the students had less time to cultivate the idea of ​​loyalty to the emperor and patriotism, he could still suppress it.

"After the flood in Jiangxi, farmland was destroyed, including 4,000 mu of land owned by owners and 1,000 mu of land newly silted up."

"The government sold these lands at a price of 5 guan per mu of land owned by owners and 10 guan per mu of land newly silted up, and stated that before the levee was completed, the land redemption price could be reduced by 10%, and after the levee was completed, the land could only be purchased at the original redemption price."

- The old emperor knew that when a natural disaster occurred, the people would inevitably sell their own land in order to survive. Therefore, he introduced a policy: during the famine, the government would buy the people's land, and within a certain period of time, the sellers were allowed to redeem the land at the original price. Or the government would sell the land at a low price. This is the "land redemption money".

"Therefore, as the governor of Jiangxi, when the price of rice in neighboring provinces is as high as 40 yuan per bushel, how much land redemption money do you need to provide enough food for the 5,476,259 disaster victims in this province?" "

Among them, there are 4,056,812 males, 1,014,204 females, and 405,243 elderly and infirm people. Each male will receive half a liter of grain every day, which will provide relief for four months. The amount of grain received by the elderly and children will be reduced by half every day, which will provide relief for five months."

"The construction of the levee will take at least three months and at most five months. Let's count it as five months."

The prince stood straight and did it in one go.

Of course, it had to be done in one go.

In the twelfth year of Tiantong, Jiangxi had heavy rains from spring to summer, and the Ganjiang River flooded. Ganzhou, Ji'an, Linjiang, Ruizhou, Guangxin, Fuzhou, Nanchang, Jiujiang, and Nankang suffered the worst flood in decades, and thousands of miles became an ocean.

Crown Prince Gao Xian went to provide disaster relief in person.

Before the flood, the population of Jiangxi was more than 9.12 million. After the disaster, more than 3.65 million people were drowned, and more than 5 million people were victims.

The numbers he mentioned came from the disaster that year.

What he hated the most and could not forget the most was:

"Your Majesty, Zeng Baocheng, the governor of Jiangxi in the 12th year of Tiantong, was weak in mathematics. Although he cared about the people, he personally checked the amount of grain and the number of victims during the disaster. The number of households in the disaster area, the number of acres of land and houses damaged, and the number of people drowned were all obtained through his field investigation."

"But he did not know how to count and only looked at the final number. How to purchase and distribute the disaster relief grain was all done by his petty officials."

"The grain was indeed distributed to every disaster victim under the strict review of Governor Zeng, without corruption."

"However, when buying food, the amount of money used to buy food did not match the amount of food, so there was not enough food to share. When they went to buy again, the price of food had risen again, and it became 80 yuan per dou, and the food from the court had not yet arrived."

"As a result, 16 or 17 people died of starvation."

Those disaster victims did not die in the flood, nor did they encounter officials who ate their corpses without doing anything. Instead, because the highest official in the province did not understand mathematics, he did not calculate how much disaster relief food should be prepared for each disaster victim, and he did not find that the petty officials under him embezzled money, resulting in the first batch of food purchased seriously not matching the number of people, so they starved to death.

How could there be such a ridiculous thing in the world!

How could there be such an absurd and ridiculous thing, as if God is playing a joke on us!

"Who is to blame for this?"

"Is it the governor who was not good at math and did not calculate the food needed for the disaster victims in advance? Or is it the officials who took advantage of the public funds for their own benefit? Or is it the court that did not pay attention to math and relied on the officials' self-consciousness?!"

The prince had always thought that he had forgotten about this matter, but today he realized that some things are just buried deep in the heart, waiting to break out of the ground.

The suddenly raised voice almost pierced the sky, enough to make people's hair stand on end.

*

Eastern Palace.

In the prince's study, the fifth grandson Gao Yao was rummaging around: "Strange, I remember that the travel book Dad read before should be here."

After searching everywhere he could reach with his height, the little grandson of the same age as Bing Yan moved the ladder in the study, placed it in front of the bookshelf, and climbed up vigorously.

The ladder creaked and the bottom knocked.

"Found it!"

The little prince quickly put the travel notes he wanted in his arms, thought about it, and took a few books next to him, intending to read them together.

He held the book with one arm and grabbed the ladder with the other hand, and walked down carefully.

"Hey!"

"Hey hey hey hey!"

The child on the ladder slipped and the book in his hand fell down immediately. He was waving his hands on the ladder and trying to grab it randomly. Fortunately, he grabbed the crossbar in time and his feet were stable again. The ladder bounced outwards slightly and then pressed back onto the bookshelf with a "bang".

"Bang——"

It seemed like something hit the ground.

Gao Yao looked down and saw a box. He remembered that he had knocked something off when he was swinging his arms.

The lock of the box was broken open, and the white paper and ink words flew up and fell to the ground.

Outside the door, the palace servants shouted anxiously: "Did the young man fall?!"

"It's okay! Don't come in!"

The little grandson shouted, and after making sure there was no movement outside, he stepped down the ladder. When there were only two or three horizontal bars left, he jumped down and jumped directly to the floor. He patted the dust that was not sure whether it existed on the corner of his clothes, and bent down to pick up the papers with writing.

"Eh..."

Gao Yao's attention was subconsciously attracted by the content above: "My father wrote... How to help and guide the people?"

He picked up another one: "Reform of the Imperial Examination System?"

He picked up another one: "How to get meat from the mouths of the powerful without getting into trouble?"

"And..."

Since Gao Yao could remember, he had never seen his father care about state affairs. He even went to court only once every ten days or half a month. Sometimes when it was cold, his father could not go to court for two months in a row.

He heard the palace people say privately that his father was too careless and did not look like a prince who could take on the responsibility of the country. He

also saw his father complaining that his grandfather was too strict and complained that he was caught to review memorials today and could not leave the palace to see the excitement.

He also accidentally saw his father persuading his grandfather to appoint another prince.

His father was sincere. It also seemed that he really didn't want to be the crown prince.

But why did his father write these things?

Gao Yao sat down with his legs crossed, and read them one by one. He was stunned after reading them, until his legs became numb, then he reacted, stood up slowly, walked slowly, and continued to sit down with his legs crossed to read. After reading, he was stunned again, over and over again, and he didn't know how many times he had been through this cycle. He

only vaguely felt that his father seemed to be leaving the court soon, so he quickly cleaned up the room, restored it to its original state, and left in a hurry.

*

The crown prince said what he wanted to say, and then he didn't say anything.

The other ministers didn't say anything, the candidates for the child prodigy exam didn't say anything, and Princess Yan, who proposed adding mathematics to the imperial examination, didn't say anything.

The old emperor said calmly: "Regarding the reform of the imperial examination, the prince, please write a memorial and present it."

The prince bowed his hands and said, "As ordered."

Then, the old emperor listened to the other prodigies' ideas about the rigid imperial examination system and picked out a few who could be used. Although the rest were not selected, they were also recorded in the Ministry of Personnel and would be summoned to the court to serve as officials when they came of age.

"Dismiss the court!"

The female consort saw at a glance that her daughter seemed to be uninterested. After walking to a secluded place, she picked up the concubine and asked her, "What's wrong? Are you not very happy?"

Yan Linghui hugged the female consort's arm, rested her head on her arm, and said sullenly, "I lost this time."

"Huh?" The princess consort was very puzzled after hearing this: "When did you lose? Didn't His Majesty accept your suggestion and allow you to enter the Imperial Academy?"

Yan Linghui: "That's different. He made a suggestion and he could enter the Imperial Academy without anyone's help. I made a suggestion and my uncle came out to speak for me, so I lost!"

The princess consort rubbed her head and couldn't help laughing: "How can there be any winning or losing? His Majesty asked you what suggestion you had. Is your suggestion too much? Adding arithmetic can make people's minds more flexible, but you don't know that this statement violates taboos. Your uncle is indeed protecting you, but it is also because your suggestions are really useful. He regrets that these suggestions may be shelved due to taboos. When you become an official, you will know that any policy proposed, as long as someone thinks it is feasible, will definitely stand up to prove its practicality for you and find out the gaps for you. Officials are never lone rangers. "

Yan Linghui's head drooped and she said nothing.

Adults have their own reasons, but children also have their own reasons. She felt that she had lost in this way.

But...

I just need to win next time!

Yan Linghui pushed the female prince consort's arm and said, "Dad! Put me down. I won't leave the palace for now! I want to go

to the library in the palace to read." The little girl jumped to the ground and ran to the royal library. When she arrived, she saw her opponent, who she had won twice and lost once, carrying a box full of books, pens, ink, paper, and an abacus, and entered the room before her. He found a desk far from the door and close to the window and started practicing mathematics.

"Damn it!"

Yan Linghui's eyes were sharp, and she quickly picked the arithmetic book she wanted to read, and ran to another seat, half angry and half praising -

this person was actually so hard-working, no, she had to work harder!

She had already understood the square root (to find the positive root of a quadratic equation), the cube root (to find the positive root of a cubic equation), the square root of a circle (to find the circumference of a circle given its area), the cube root of a circle (to find the diameter of a sphere given its area), and the square root of the numerator (to find the square root of the numerator). Today, she would not go home unless she thoroughly understood the method of taking the root of the recursive triple multiplication (a quartic equation), the method of taking the sum of a high-order arithmetic series, and the method of taking the circle (to find the length of an arc)!

*

On the other side, the female consort did not know that the concubine had already made up her mind. On the way out of the palace, snow fell from the sky, lighter than catkins and heavier than frost. The

female consort walked slowly across the ground, thinking that by noon, the snow-covered ground would make a rustling sound when stepped on.

Suddenly she heard a noise in front of her. She turned the corner and saw a maid on tiptoe putting a warm and fluffy fox fur coat over the prince's red robe with a golden dragon pattern.

Another maid put a hand warmer in the prince's arms.

The prince was holding a bowl of medicine soup that had just been poured out of a small pottery jar and gulping it down. As he drank, he began to cough. The

maid quickly handed him a handkerchief, and the prince took it as if it was nothing unusual. He covered his mouth and coughed several times, then continued to drink the black and bitter medicine without blinking.

The female consort suddenly remembered that the princess had told her before

that her brother was born with a deficiency and had a cold stomach, which was worse in winter. He would dump out the residue from the decoction of medicine in a winnowing basket.