In the eastern warm room of the Qianqing Palace.

Both Zhang Juzheng and Feng Bao were stunned after hearing what he said.

What is going on between Your Majesty and Zhao Shouzheng?

If Your Majesty hated him, why did you give him the title of No. 1 Scholar? If Your Majesty liked him, why did you grit your teeth and call him a calamity?

What a contradictory and complex mentality this is...

After being stunned for a long while, Zhang Juzheng finally came to his senses and said, "Your Majesty, the original number one scholar..."

"Oh, I think he is too young. We need to replace him with an older and more mature one to stabilize the fortune." Emperor Longqing lied with a smile.

Although the fact that he had become the top scholar could probably not be concealed, it was still quite embarrassing for the emperor's disciple to be unwilling to be the top scholar of his teacher for the sake of his own teacher.

"Is that so?" Zhang Juzheng nodded and whispered, "But if you want to change the ranking, it's better to give an explanation to avoid random guesses."

"Reasons..." Emperor Longqing thought for a moment and then said decisively:

"Because others only answer questions with pens, but he has already answered my questions with actions!"

"In the ten winter months, he ran around and raised money to open a porridge shop to help the refugees, saving countless lives. Hundreds of thousands of refugees gathered to eat porridge, but he was able to arrange everything in an orderly manner. There was no riot, and no one died of cold or disease in the porridge shop. This shrewdness and ability are beyond the reach of even those veterans who have been officials for more than ten years. Who among the same Jinshi can compare with him?"

"Seeing that the refugees had nothing to do, he used a small piece of coal lotus to help tens of thousands of disaster victims find a living, which immediately improved the public security outside the capital. He also provided 50,000 taels of silver to help the treasury..." Emperor Longqing was so excited that he stammered and said with a smile, "Don't repeat the last sentence."

Zhang Juzheng nodded to show that he understood.

"What's even more commendable is that he never took any credit for himself. After doing so many things, almost no one in the people noticed his existence. They only praised the princess as a living bodhisattva and attributed all the credit to the royal family. He is kind and loving, helps the poor and helps the needy, and is humble and non-competitive. This is the demeanor that the first scholar of the Longqing Dynasty should have!"

"Master Zhang, are the reasons I gave strong enough?!" Emperor Longqing said, looking at Zhang Juzheng with sharp eyes.

"hard."

What else could Zhang Juzheng say? Apart from anything else, given the current state of the imperial court, the Ministry of Revenue could not even afford to pay 50,000 taels to the emperor.

Is there anything in this world harder than silver?

As for giving money to the emperor, does it count as bribing the examiner? Let's not delve into this...

~~

When Zhang Juzheng left in compliance with the imperial order, Emperor Longqing breathed a sigh of relief and asked someone to call in Wang Wuyang, who was kneeling outside.

"I gave the top prize to Zhao Shouzheng. Are you satisfied now?"

"Ah, your majesty is wise!" Seeing the emperor so kind, Wang Wuyang immediately transformed into a fart spirit and said:

"Why didn't I think of such a brilliant idea? Let Master's father become the top scholar, then there won't be any problems. Your Majesty is so insightful, and I am not even a fraction as good as you."

Feng Bao secretly rolled his eyes when he heard this, thinking, isn't this the flattery technique that we can never learn?

"Hahaha..." Emperor Longqing had always been subjected to verbal abuse by the censors, and he had never seen such a gentle and charming woman, so he couldn't help but laugh:

"You are afraid that I will punish you, so you are deliberately flattering me, right?"

"I have sworn to be sincere in everything I say to Your Majesty..." Wang Wuyang couldn't help but say aggrievedly.

"No matter what you say, you can't escape this punishment." Long Qing sneered.

"I know..." Wang Wuyang couldn't help but hang his head, thinking that his master was still the best. Whenever he annoyed him, he just had to flatter him.

"I will punish you to fill Zhao Shouzheng's original position." Then Long Qing said calmly: "You will take the 22nd place in the second class."

"I thank your Majesty for your magnanimity!"

Wang Wuyang couldn't help but be overjoyed. In fact, he had already made preparations for the worst case scenario before this incident today - being directly disqualified from becoming a Jinshi by the emperor.

Although that would allow me to study with my master every day, I still need to have the status of a Jinshi so that my master would look upon me with respect...

There is no way, even though our teacher is snobbish, vengeful, and narrow-minded?

~~

Wenhua Hall.

Zhang Juzheng brought back Zhao Shouzheng's test paper.

Seeing the emperor using a red pen to cross out the original '22nd place in the second class' and then write a big '1st place in the first class' next to it, the big guys were about to go crazy.

But after hearing what Prime Minister Zhang said, the bigwigs could only smile bitterly.

Who made the test questions seem to be tailor-made for people?

Zhao Shouzheng has already solved the problem of refugees in the capital. No matter how well others write, they are pale and powerless in front of him. They have no confidence to argue...

This alone is enough to silence the gossips.

"After filling it out, go to bed quickly..." Huo Ji sighed, thinking that luck is something that cannot be suppressed.

The big guys filled in the remaining twenty or thirty places in one go, and then went to bed together.

Zhang Juzheng, however, came to Xu Ge Lao's residence with his freshly-released ranking.

At this moment, Xu Jie had almost recovered and was sitting in bed eating some porridge. When he saw Zhang Juzheng coming in, he asked him to sit down at the head of the bed.

"The rankings are out?" Lord Xu looked normal, except that his eyes were a little dark and his face was still pale. It was obvious that he had been through a lot in the past twelve hours.

"Yes, Master." Zhang Juzheng responded and looked at Xu Fan beside him in surprise.

According to past experience, the powerful young minister should have known the ranking at the first opportunity.

Xu Fan had a gloomy face and hadn't said anything yet. Xu Jie said calmly, "It was I who didn't allow him to go. The emperor has clearly said that my father and I should stay quiet for two days. How can we not know what's good for us?"

Lord Xu said this politely, but the resentment in his tone could not be hidden.

"Alas, Your Majesty has gone too far this time..." Zhang Juzheng sighed, "Taking advantage of the fact that the Prime Minister is ill, you come here to mess around. It makes me feel depressed."

Xu Jie glanced at Zhang Juzheng, sighed for a while and said, "I should have listened to you yesterday and not eaten that plate of sea bass."

"Ah?" Zhang Juzheng said in shock, "Master, is it that there is something wrong with the four-gilled perch that Meng Chong sent?"

As he said this, he pretended to think for a moment and said, "It doesn't seem likely. If he really had an ulterior motive, why would he come up with that first line? Isn't that just shooting himself in the foot?"

"I can't say for sure." Xu Jie nodded. Because of this, he didn't dare to say whether he was drugged or just had bad luck.

After all, as the Prime Minister, he faces meticulous and cunning people all day long, so it is difficult for him to understand the confusing behavior of humans...

"But you'd better avoid the food in the palace in the future." Xu Jie said to his disciple with concern: "There is a kitchen in the residence, you can come and eat in the future."

"Thank you, teacher." Zhang Juzheng thanked him with a grateful face and then told his teacher the general ranking of the palace examination.

Xu Fan heard that the top five were all occupied by science students, and the worst one was ranked 22nd in the second class, while the dozen or so old friends he was planning to recruit had all slipped to the top three. Naturally, he was furious.

"Haha, this is so ridiculous! They actually promoted Sun Shan to the top spot. They really don't care about their reputation! He is just waiting for the chaos to get out of control!"

"Yes, we pressed and pressed, and wanted to give him a low ranking, but His Majesty picked out his paper, crossed out the original ranking, and personally selected him as the first in the first class."

Zhang Juzheng sighed and said, "The teacher is not here, so we can only let Your Majesty do what he wants..."

"Humph, do you really think you can sit back and relax after winning the first prize?" Xu Fan gritted his teeth and said, "Wrong, we have just entered our hunting ground!"

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