A few days before the marking begins, the examiners in each room are mainly considering and deciding which papers to recommend and which papers to keep as alternatives.

How can we evaluate the good and bad and rank the papers without going through all the papers in hand?

So until the 22nd, the two examiners sat there all day, feeling drowsy.

After finally waiting until dark, Li Chunfang yawned and stood up, saying to the examiners, "You have worked hard again today."

After hearing these words, the examiners all put down their pens, stacked their papers neatly, saluted to the two chief examiners and the supervising official, and filed out to Jianheng Hall.

Li Chunfang, Yin Shidan, and the two censors who served as supervisory officers counted the red scrolls together. After confirming that there were neither too many nor too few, they locked the Jianheng Hall with three locks.

~~

After dinner, Li Chunfang returned to his official residence to rest. His long-time servant Li Mao, who came in with him to serve him, brought the master foot-washing water and silently put a small piece of paper into his hand.

No need to ask, this must have been secretly transmitted from the outer curtain.

Li Chunfang sighed secretly, what was supposed to happen finally happened. No matter how strict the system is, as long as people are in charge of it, there will always be loopholes.

Although the examiners were kept under close watch, the followers they brought in did nothing all day and communicated and colluded privately, which made people very unhappy and helpless.

"It's always been a rut, why can't I get out of it until now..."

Li Chunfang silently repeated a sentence in his mind, not knowing where he had heard it from. He then took the piece of paper in his palm, glanced at it, and then burned it directly.

With just that one glance, Li Chunfang had memorized the five-sentence eight-part essay that had no beginning or end and no connection.

How can you become the top scholar without the ability of photographic memory?

Then, the master and servant continued to do their business as if nothing had happened.

But that night, the second assistant suffered from insomnia...

~~

The next day, when he appeared outside Jianheng Hall with dark circles under his eyes, everyone was waiting for him early.

Today is the day to divide the spoils, and all the examiners are extremely excited...

"Duke Xinghua didn't sleep well last night." Yin Shidan was just one step away from entering the cabinet, and the two were of the same age, so he was the only one who was qualified to joke with Li Chunfang.

"I have an important responsibility and I dare not slack off day or night." Li Chunfang took out the key with a smile, unlocked the door and said to Master Yin with a smile: "Actually, I was disturbed by the snoring next door last night."

"Hahaha, it turns out it's my fault..." Yin Shidan also unlocked the door and said with a smile, "It seems like I have to move my official residence farther away tonight."

"Forget it, just move in a noisier one." With Li Chunfang's deliberate warmth, the relationship between the two has become much closer in the past half month.

After the supervisor opened the lock, everyone went into Jianheng Hall and started a new day of marking papers.

Starting from this day, the examiners began to recommend the papers that they valued.

The first one to come up was the first housing examiner Shen Shixing.

After paying his respects to the two examiners, he presented the thirty finalists and ten alternatives he had selected, then stood solemnly at the table, waiting for the two examiners' decision.

"Rumo, sit down." Li Chunfang asked the soldiers to bring him a chair. Why should the top scholar make things difficult for the top scholar?

He and Yin Shidan quickly scanned the papers and wrote concise comments on them, which were almost the same as Shen Shixing's. Then they selected 28 papers from the main selection and 2 from the reserve selection, making a total of 30 places for Shen Shixing.

A hint of joy unconsciously appeared on Shen Shixing's calm face.

The other examiners were naturally jealous.

You have to know that those who take part in the imperial examination are all successful candidates who have emerged from thousands of opponents, and each of them has real talent and knowledge.

After being carefully selected by the examiners, their levels are actually very similar, and the examiner will not make any principled mistakes in accepting or rejecting certain candidates.

However, the number of admission places is limited, and it is impossible to accept as many people as you recommend.

In this way, the room with more people selected will naturally have the honor.

And it's not just good looking on the surface, there are real benefits involved!

The successful candidates would not only seek the chief examiner as their master, but also the examiner who recommended them as their teacher...

Although the imperial court strictly prohibited such disgusting activities, no one paid any attention to it.

~~

In the Ming Dynasty, the friendship between teachers and students was the core of official network management.

Shen Zhuangyuan took in thirty prospective Jinshi scholars at once, which made him much more impressive than Mr. Zhao, who was struggling to make ends meet and cheated people, taking one in today and kidnapping another tomorrow.

Although all examiners can get a share, the number of places is limited after all, and each person will only get a little over 20 places.

Shen Shixing got thirty at once, which was far above average, so others would naturally suffer a loss...

But who makes him the top scholar? It should be so.

After Shen Shixing returned to his seat, it was the turn of the second-ranked examiner, Lin Shizhang, the third place winner of the Jiwei year.

The two bosses also gave Lin Tanhua face and picked out a total of 28 papers from his papers...

Lin Shizhang was also overjoyed and thanked repeatedly.

Of course, as educated people, they would not say such low-level words as "thank you for the reward, boss", but would say "thank you two presidents on behalf of all the talented people".

"It rhymes quite well." Shen Shixing could not help but sigh when he saw this. The imperial court's talent selection ceremony had turned into a feast where the examiners used their power to trade personal favors and divide up the new Jinshi candidates.

The next moment, I thought, wasn't my mouth full of grease? How could I have the nerve to express such emotion?

In the end, he couldn't help but feel sorry for Wang Xijue. If he had to avoid Wang Dingjue, Lin Shizhang's share would be his.

And if you miss this course, the chef's disciples will have to start three years later than all of you here.

Who knows, in the future, he might lose to others because of this reason...

~~

After that, it was Li Zihua, the runner-up in the previous subject, and Yu Youding, the third place, who each got... Oh no, they got twenty-seven places.

The number of quotas allocated to the examiners below them became fewer and fewer, but the number of quotas allocated to Hanlin editors was no less than twenty-three, and the number of quotas allocated to Hanlin reviewers was no less than twenty.

After this group of upright poets had divided up the places, there were only a little over a hundred places left for the six non-Hanlin examiners.

And we have to leave some money for searching for lost scrolls...

This kind of shameless plunder is the root cause of the Hanlin poets’ control over the Ming Dynasty court.

So the saying "the most shameless are the clean stream" is absolutely correct.

But even these six are divided into different levels.

A doctor named Liu Yiru got exactly 23 quotas, the same treatment as the Hanlin editor...

Because he was a Langzhong in the Ministry of Personnel's Examination and Reward Department, he was in charge of the performance appraisal and evaluation and rating of civil servants.

In addition, the censors are not to be trifled with. If you give them too little, they will get angry.

Therefore, Wang Zhi, the Chief Censor of the Ministry of Personnel, got twenty-two places; the other two Left Censors each got twenty places.

As for the remaining two examiners, Director Jiang of the Military Affairs Department and Director Cai of the Yunnan Li Department of the Ministry of Revenue, they had no capital and no backing, so they could only give in and divide the last 25 places...

Because the latter's official position was more important than the former's, he got one more.

This was because Li Chunfang was tactful and didn't want to make things look bad. Otherwise, even if the two small managers were to get single digits, they would just stare and watch.

Therefore, it is often said that passing the imperial examination depends on talent and knowledge, while passing the imperial examination depends on luck.

If you are selected by the Hanlin Academy to examine the papers, your chances of passing are much higher than if you are selected by an ordinary official...

ps. The third update is here... Please give me monthly votes and recommendation tickets~~~