Inside the main hall, the disciples listened very attentively.

Even if they put aside their superstition about their teacher's prophetic powers, they were still very convinced by Zhao Hao's analysis and conclusions.

"In addition, at the end of last year, the imperial court reported to the Ming Dynasty that the money stored in the Taicang warehouse of the Ming Dynasty could only be used until March of this year... That is to say, by the time of the palace examination, the court may have run out of money. In addition, the grain stored in the Taicang warehouse can still be used for more than two years."

"Since then, up to the latest court report, I have seen His Majesty's handwritten orders to the cabinet and the Ministry of Revenue eight times, ordering them to find ways to cut spending. He also set an example by proactively reducing the palace's spending by 200,000 taels. His anxiety is evident on paper. Therefore, I think the second thing His Majesty is likely to ask is about financial management - asking how to help the court get out of trouble."

As Zhao Hao spoke, he wrote four relatively decent words on the blackboard: "financial management and relief".

The disciples quickly wrote it down carefully.

Then, he slowed down his tone and said, "The third issue is the refugee problem. Refugees are a major problem for the country. This problem was already very serious, and the invasion of the Tartars last year undoubtedly made the situation worse. At the peak, there were hundreds of thousands of refugees lingering in and outside the capital. After the court's drastic measures, there were still more than 100,000 people who stayed in the capital for the New Year. As a result, countless chaos occurred under your majesty's nose."

Zhao Hao picked up his pen again and wrote down the four big words "refugee problem".

"The above three points are what I think the palace examination may ask about. You can spend three days to learn about these three things separately."

"Yes, Master." The disciples suppressed their excitement and nodded happily.

Even if the master no longer provides guidance, they will be satisfied.

~~

Just like the civil servant training in later generations, only after passing the written test will they be trained for the interview.

At this time, no one would prepare for the palace examination before the examination. That would not only distract the candidates, but also make people feel that it was not auspicious.

Therefore, the time to prepare for the palace examination is usually only half a month.

Although there are only five categories of questions in the palace examination, how many questions can be asked in each category?

Therefore, according to common experience, Chinese candidates should find out at least 20 to 30 possible questions and then prepare for them one by one...

Except for a very few people who are truly strategic or bold, who would dare to only prepare for a few questions?

These twenty or thirty questions had to be answered one by one by the current officials in Beijing, and the imperial court had to borrow the transcripts of the court reports for the past year, and look for relevant countermeasures and imperial edicts in the court documents. Even if one swallowed the whole thing, it would be almost time for the March 15th Palace Examination.

So everyone had no time to think it over carefully, let alone come up with their own ideas, and they just went up to the Golden Palace with their heads buzzing.

I can only wait until I see the test questions before thinking about them on the spot, organizing the logic and language... The time for the palace examination is short, and the essay written in a hurry is naturally unbearable to read.

It is said that the Grand Secretaries and Ministers of various ministries who reviewed the papers thought that the most painful thing in their lives was reading the essays written by these Chinese candidates. They thought that these were all "parrot-like and nonsense" and that the emperor was basically asking the blind for advice.

But now, Zhao Hao directly cut off 90% of the questions for his disciples and father, leaving only three questions for them to think about.

Now, of course, there will be enough time to prepare, and you can even save time to spend on polishing a few meaningful essays for the palace examination.

~~

In the east room, there were boxes full of past court reports, copies of documents from the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of War, and copies of relevant documents sent by the cabinet.

In the capital, this has become a business. Some people specialize in collecting, sorting and copying these things, and then selling them to those in need.

Zhao Hao asked Zhao Shizhen to buy back all the ones he could find. Before Wu Shilai left office, he used his connections to get a batch of items that could not be seen outside. They had already been stored in this room, just waiting for his father and his disciples to eat them.

So the six of them entered the room, each facing a box, and hurriedly looked through it.

Zhao Hao sat in the main room, watching over the stove and silently reviewing his judgment.

That serious look was very rare in him.

Because the palace examination in the second year of Longqing was so weird that he could not afford to be careless!

The scientific way of thinking is to first observe the research object and find the essence from the chaotic phenomena.

Generally speaking, the palace examination is just a formality, and the rankings of the successful candidates are mostly determined during the joint examination.

Although there will be some discrepancies between the rankings on the gold list and those in the imperial examination, except for a few talented people whose policy essays are outstanding and suit the tastes of the superiors, and the unlucky ones who performed poorly in the palace examination, wrote extremely bad essays, or soiled their papers, the rankings of the vast majority of candidates are within the original range, with a fluctuation of no more than ten places.

Just as Hua Shuyang said that day, the top three are usually selected from the top five in the imperial examination, and the number one is ranked even earlier.

That's why Wang Xijue ranked first in the provincial examination and Shen Shixing ranked second. But when it came to the palace examination, their rankings were reversed, with the latter becoming the top scorer and the former ranked second.

However, all these unspoken rules were no longer valid in the palace examination in the second year of Longqing!

In the original history, the top scholar in the second year of Longqing was Luo Wanhua from Shaoxing.

This man's ranking in the imperial examination was a pitiful 351st!

Oh my God, there are only 400 successful candidates, and his ranking is almost the same as Mr. Zhao!

Can you imagine Mr. Zhao winning the first place in the imperial examination? Luo Wanhua won the first place. Where can you go to seek justice?

In fact, Luo Wanhua only ranked 84th in the Zhejiang provincial examination, almost last place... He was far worse than Zhao Erye, who ranked seventh in the Nanzhili examination!

Moreover, cases like Luo Zhuangyuan's turning around are very common in this session!

The second place winner, Huang Fengxiang, ranked 226th in the imperial examination.

Zhao Zhigao, the third place winner, ranked 77th in the imperial examination, which was the highest among the top three.

If this is the case for the top three, there will naturally be countless more who will make a dramatic turnaround in their rankings, which is jaw-dropping.

Correspondingly, those who ranked high in the imperial examination all failed in the palace examination.

All five champions were demoted.

The second place, Zhang Wei, ranked 31st in the second class.

The fourth place, Shen Yikuan, was directly demoted to 56th place in the top three, becoming a fellow Jinshi who made people laugh and cry.

The other three were either the top scorers, who at least had some respect for their dignity, or had a good father or a good brother, so they were not fucked too badly.

Outside of the top five, the situation is even more dire.

For example, Wang Yongji, who was ranked eleventh, suddenly fell to 332nd place in the top three and almost fell to the last place.

Even Zhao Hao's five disciples had all undergone earth-shaking changes in their rankings in the original history, and almost none of them were spared.

It was a complete mess. You couldn't tell that this was made by steady and gentle men like Emperor Longqing, Xu Ge Lao, Li Xianggong, and Chen Xianggong.

It seems more like the work of Prime Minister Zhang Jiangling after he took control of the country. However, Zhang Juzheng never made such a mess.

~~

What is even more intriguing is that when the imperial court selected scholars for the imperial examinations later, the convention was broken again.

According to convention, Shujishi basically come from the top 36 in the second class, and the second class Jinshi who rank lower have basically no hope.

Don't even think about getting the third place in the imperial examination.

However, in the selection of candidates in the second year of Longqing, the main reference was actually the results of the imperial examination.

Many of the top three Jinshi candidates, such as Shen Yikuan, were selected; however, most of the top thirty-six candidates in the second class were not selected.

Just when people were speculating whether the value of the palace examination would decline in the future, the next palace examination in the fifth year of Longqing's reign returned to normal.

After that, there has never been a turmoil like the one in the second year of Longqing…

This made Zhao Hao confused. What happened in the palace examination this year?

ps. Second update, please give me monthly votes and recommendation votes~~