"Students bow to our teacher, Confucius!"
Outside the examination room, led by officials, thousands of candidates knelt down in front of the tablet of Confucius next to Li Banghua.
Not only them, but even the onlookers blindly followed suit and knelt down.
There was a brief silence outside the noisy examination room.
After kneeling down to pay homage to Confucius, candidate Lü Gong raised the tablet in his hand and questioned Li Banghua: "I also have a tablet of Confucius in my hand, so shouldn't Mr. Li kneel down?"
Li Banghua smiled slightly, pointed to the tablet beside him and said, "I will only worship this tablet. What's more, the tablet in your hand is a fake one, so there is no need to worship it."
Lu Gong was speechless.
The tablet in his hand was indeed made temporarily and strictly speaking it was not a real tablet.
On the other hand, the tablet in Li Banghua's hand was better than his in terms of both style and exquisiteness. If nothing unexpected happened, it should have been brought out from the Confucius Temple in Nanjing.
Seeing that Lü Gong stopped talking, Li Banghua put his hands behind his back and asked the examinees nearby: "Why did you boycott the exam?"
It would have been fine if you didn't ask, but once you asked it caused public outrage.
The students shouted at him in a flurry.
"Silence!" Zhang Bojing, the assistant minister of the Ministry of War, roared with all his strength, "Choose a few representatives and come forward one by one to speak."
"Okay, let's choose now." A candidate agreed.
"Wait, don't leave."
Most of these students were just joining in the fun and had little idea of the truth.
After a brief discussion among the candidates, more than 20 representatives were selected to come to Li Banghua.
Li Banghua did not ask their names, but went straight to the point: "Tell me, why are you boycotting the exam?"
"Because you persecute scholars!"
"Yes, you use corrupt officials to bully and oppress scholars, why don't we boycott the exam?"
The candidates said excitedly.
Li Banghua laughed: "Who did I use to persecute scholars? How did I persecute them? You should tell me the names of the persecuted people and their experiences, right?"
"Okay, I'll speak first!" Lu Gong stepped forward and said, "I'm from Changzhou Prefecture in Nanzhili. For the past half month, the Changzhou government has been exploiting the local wealthy families in the name of collecting tax arrears."
"Most of these wealthy families are from scholarly and righteous families. They are unable to cope with the exploitation of corrupt officials and can only pay the money to settle the matter."
"They paid hundreds of taels of silver, or even tens of thousands of taels. There was even a scholar named Zhang who was arrested and tortured to death in the government jail because he had no money to bribe officials."
"You instigated officials to commit such evil acts, shouldn't you be dismissed from office?"
"Yes, dismissal!"
"Dismiss his office!" The candidates nearby shouted again.
The soldiers around were all on high alert, fearing that these students might do something illegal.
Li Banghua nodded and asked, "Are all these people you mentioned from Changzhou Prefecture?"
"right."
"Where is Changzhou Prefecture?"
"The Changzhou Prefecture government office is located in Wujin County." Lu Gong held his head high and chest out, showing a fearless attitude.
"Tell me their names."
"Just say it," Lü Gong took a half step forward and said loudly, "The gentry who were persecuted in Changzhou Prefecture are Chen Boyu, Zhang Delin, Li Shen, and another Zhang Houxin."
"The murderer is none other than the new Changzhou prefect Shi Hongsheng, who was recommended by Lord Li!"
The scene first returned to silence, and then erupted into fierce shouts: "Dismiss and hold him accountable! Dismiss and hold him accountable!"
Especially those candidates who were causing the commotion, after knowing this information, became more convinced that Li Banghua was a corrupt official.
They want to use this opportunity to defeat Li Banghua and make it impossible for him to stand up again.
Led by these people, there was a lot of shouting near the examination room.
The Nanjing nobles and officials hiding behind all lowered their heads and smiled with satisfaction.
The candidates are now becoming more and more excited, and when the emotions reach a certain level, they will change from talking to taking action.
By then, the situation will be completely out of control.
If a few more people are killed or injured, Li Banghua will be in trouble.
Li Banghua put away the smile on his face and said to the official behind him: "Did you write down their names?"
"Replying to the Lord, I've made a note of it."
"Move the Changzhou Prefecture's information here right now and investigate on the spot! We will know the whole story once we investigate."
"Yes, I will check it out right away."
The official saluted, turned around and walked back, then came to a carriage.
Under the gaze of thousands of people, he ordered his men to lift the curtain of the carriage.
Then more than a dozen officials rushed forward and took down the piles of books from the carriage.
Every time a pile was moved down, the person involved would shout out a sentence.
"The people from Xuzhou Prefecture have moved down."
"The people from Huai'an Prefecture have moved down."
"The one from Yangzhou Prefecture has also been moved down, but the information is incomplete. The prefect Zhang Huangyan will send the information over in the near future."
"Zhenjiang Prefecture..."
"Found it. The information about Changzhou Prefecture is here." A clerk came to Li Banghua holding a book in his hand.
Amid the puzzled looks of the crowd, Li Banghua continued to instruct, "Find the tax payment records of those people."
"Yes, sir."
A dozen officials gathered around the pile of books and started searching on the spot.
Soon an official stood up and came to Li Banghua with an open booklet.
The scholars are listed in separate volumes, so it is easy to find their names.
"Lord, I found Chen Boyu's information."
"read."
"Yes." The official read aloud: "Chen Boyu, a native of Changzhou Prefecture in Nanzhili, was born in the 28th year of the Wanli reign. He passed the imperial examination in the 45th year of the Wanli reign, but failed in the subsequent examinations."
The official paused, turned a page, and continued reading, "It is written in the tax book that the Chen family has nearly 500 acres of good farmland, but since the second year of my reign, he has not paid a penny of tax to the court."
"The land tax he owed was 532 taels of silver, and the corvée he owed was 84 taels of silver, totaling 616 taels of silver."
Before Li Banghua could continue asking, another official found out Zhang Delin's information.
Not surprisingly, he also owed taxes.
Although it’s not much, it’s also not a small amount.
After waiting for a while, the information about Zhang Houxin, the gentry who was persecuted to death by yamen officials as mentioned by Lu Gong, was found.
The official holding the book read slowly under the gaze of the crowd: "Zhang Houxin's family owns 2,000 acres of good farmland. Since the 42nd year of the Wanli reign, he has not paid a penny of tax to the court. The total amount of tax he owes is as high as more than 6,000 taels!"
"Impossible, absolutely impossible!" Candidate Lu Gong shook his head vigorously after hearing the news. "I have a close relationship with the Zhang family. He is a friendly person and would never do something like not paying taxes!"
The official handed the book forward and said, "It's all written in black and white. If you don't believe it, you can check it yourself."
"Just take a look!" Lu Gong took the booklet and read it carefully.
As he flipped through the book faster, his expression became more and more unsightly.
He didn't expect that the person he was protecting was actually a villain who evaded taxes!
"Brother Lu, could this booklet be forged?" a candidate nearby reminded.
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