Even though he had lived in the Ming Dynasty for more than a year and had been in the capital for several months, Zhao Hao was still too far away from the top of the Ming Dynasty.

Without historical data to support him, he naturally had no way of exploring what exactly happened in the palace examination in the second year of Longqing.

Besides, that wasn't something he should worry about.

But he could infer that the large-scale fluctuations in candidates' scores were definitely not caused by the quality of their essays.

Because when the examination papers were graded, each Chinese paper was reviewed and scrutinized by the co-examiner and the chief examiner three, five, and seven times. The writing level of those who were selected was not a problem, and the ranking was basically reasonable.

As mentioned before, the Chinese candidates basically knew nothing about state affairs, and the examination essays they wrote were mostly parrots. The examiners basically judged the candidates based on the level of their writing.

In addition, the examination papers were only reviewed for two days, so the examiners had neither the ability nor the need to change the ranking of the candidates.

Therefore, it can be concluded that it is caused by factors other than text.

Also, because the number of people involved in the change is so large, it is impossible that it is the result of someone using connections or bribes... If there were so many candidates who could use the connections of the national talent selection ceremony, the Ming Dynasty would have been doomed to fall.

There is only one reason - it is the point of view of the policy paper!

Usually, to be on the safe side, Chinese candidates would adopt the popular views in official circles as the core of their countermeasures.

Because they have not yet entered politics, the examiners will not laugh at them for following the crowd.

On the contrary, being rash and surprising will leave the bosses with a bad impression of being not stable enough and seeking to attract attention, so most of the viewpoints in the policy essay volume are common clichés.

If the admitted candidates had a sudden idea and wanted to convey some opinions that were contrary to the general environment by praising or criticizing the essays in the palace examination, then it makes sense...

~~

After making a bold guess, the next step is to carefully verify it.

First of all, in this year's palace examination, Emperor Longqing asked a total of two questions - one was how to eliminate refugees, and the other was how to resist foreign humiliation.

Mr. Zhao said three, of course, to deceive others. Even if he was good at calculating, he couldn't have guessed exactly two without leaving any margin.

That's not scientific.

Zhao Hao leaned back in the rocking chair by the fireplace with a jacquard blanket draped over his knees.

As he swayed slightly, he closed his eyes and recalled several of the top-ranked essays in his memory.

Zhao Hao wanted to extract their arguments and see what different viewpoints were hidden inside.

Especially Luo Wanhua, who was able to make the examiner disregard the long-standing rules and give the title of top scholar to a Chinese scholar who ranked last in the imperial examination.

After carefully reading over Luo Zhuangyuan's lengthy article of more than 4,000 words in his mind, Zhao Hao quickly extracted the main points.

First, Luo Wanhua put forward a rather insightful opinion on the issue of migrants, where "many are idle and few return to farming":

One is, "If you want to drive the people of the world to work hard, there is no other way but to value grain."

The so-called "expensive grain" comes from Chao Cuo's "On the Expenses of Grain". The general idea is to increase the price of grain to increase farmers' income. With higher income, farmers' enthusiasm for farming will increase, and they will naturally be willing to go back to farming.

Second, he proposed to survey all the land in the country and crack down on tax collection, so that powerful families could not evade taxes and thus share the heavy burden on farmers.

This was the "land measurement" that Zhang Juzheng promoted throughout the country ten years later. It can be seen that Luo Zhuangyuan was quite capable.

Third, the salt law formulated during the reign of Taizu was restored - merchants transported grain to the border in exchange for salt permits. In this way, grain prices would naturally rise, and the court could collect salt taxes instead of exploiting farmers, thus achieving the effect of increasing income and reducing burdens on the people.

On the second question, how to resist the Tartars.

Luo Wanhua proposed a package plan of "changing the current situation of emphasizing culture over military affairs", "re-training the troops in three years", "managing finances and accumulating strength by storing salt", and "then looking for an opportunity for a decisive battle".

It actually roughly conforms to Zhang Juzheng's thinking.

This made Zhao Hao suddenly enlightened - it seemed that this paper was recommended by idol Zhang.

"Idols are worthy of being idols. They really promote talents in a non-standard way." Zhao Hao immediately changed his tune and no longer thought that someone was messing around.

Can idols' affairs be called messing around? They are well thought out.

However, according to Zhao Hao's memory of the palace examination rules, the examiner could only recommend a dozen test papers, and ultimately decide the top ten, or at least the top three candidates would be the emperor.

Jinshi are the emperor's disciples. How could the emperor let the examiners do all the steps?

So what did Emperor Longqing like about Luo Wanhua?

Zhao Hao thought about it and burst out laughing.

Luo Zhuangyuan's paper opens with the words "I have heard that an emperor must make wise decisions and stand at the same time, only then can he achieve real success in the world." In the penultimate paragraph, he shouts again, "Your Majesty, please make decisions alone and exercise power, which will be as loud as thunder in the sky and unfathomable!"

Which emperor would not love such thoughtful words?

Considering the calls from both the government and the people at that time for "the Holy Emperor to rule with ease" and "to delegate power to the Cabinet and government affairs to the six ministries", it is not surprising why Emperor Longqing selected Luo Wanhua as the top scholar.

~~

I recalled several other papers. Although the answers to the essays were different, the common point of all the top scorers was that they all shouted, "Return the power and blessings to the Lord, Your Majesty, please make the decision!"

As Zhao Hao thought more deeply, his ideas gradually became clearer.

It seems that the variables lie in Zhang Juzheng and Emperor Longqing.

Judging from the fact that the palace examination ranking was almost completely denied when selecting scholars for the Later Academy, Lord Xu should have been very dissatisfied with this.

Because the Shujishi were jointly selected by the Prime Minister and the Hanlin Academy. Considering the relationship between Zhao Zhenji and Xu Jie, it can be roughly assumed that the candidates for Shujishi were all finalized by Xu Gelao.

It was normal for Lord Xu to be dissatisfied, because the weapon he used to defeat Yan Song and force Gao Gong to retreat was the censors.

One thing that officials have been doing is to limit the power and freedom of the emperor.

Some of these were reasonable, such as advising the emperor not to allow eunuchs to monopolize power, so as to avoid a repeat of the eunuch rebellion during the reign of Emperor Wuzong.

But most of the admonitions were purely making trouble out of nothing and nitpicking. For example, they forbade the emperor to return to Yudi to reminisce about the past, forbade him to go to the outskirts of Beijing to relax and have fun, suspected that the emperor had the intention of traveling at public expense and forbade him to go to Mount Tai to worship, etc., as if they wanted to keep the emperor in captivity.

Even the fact that the emperor had not slept with the empress for a long time was brought up and discussed openly in the memorial, making Longqing lose face in front of the people of the world.

In addition, Gao Gong was beaten out of office by the censors. Emperor Longqing naturally hated these "righteous people" who spoke on behalf of the emperor but ignored internal and external troubles and only focused on his every move and talked about it.

In the struggle between the emperor and the censors, Xu Jie undoubtedly stood on the side of the latter.

In other words, the latter was originally his hunting dog, so the owner must of course protect him.

In July last year, Emperor Longqing ordered the cabinet to conduct an investigation on the imperial court. However, in order to protect the censors, Lord Xu stopped the investigation.

It can be said that Emperor Longqing, who had been on the throne for just over a year, was completely controlled by the civil service group headed by Xu Ge Lao, and could not do anything he wanted.

So that's why the emperor wanted to make trouble in this palace examination, to promote those candidates who were willing to uphold the emperor's authority, and to make those who shouted "The Holy Emperor rules with ease" be relegated to the back?

Even if you still can't do anything to the censors, you can use this method to express your position and vent your anger?

"That's probably the case." Zhao Hao let out a long sigh, feeling like he had finally figured it out.

Then it will be a natural thing to teach apprentices how to write articles.

ps. Third update, please give me monthly tickets and recommendation tickets~~