In different eras, examination malpractice manifests itself in different ways.
It was different in the early Tang Dynasty and later when the pigtails were the masters. The pigtails would have rotted to the root, and only money would be valued from top to bottom. The princes and nobles would protect the pigtails, the officials would do their best, and the candidates would show off their magical powers. That would be called a chaotic dance of demons.
Eight-part essays have become the only life-saving straw for readers.
A Qing magistrate earns one hundred thousand snowflakes of silver. It can be said that no official is corrupt. When a scholar becomes an official, he only comes for money, and no one can stop him.
Someone once said that if a Taoist official is successful and his conscience is in the middle, he can easily earn two to three hundred thousand, while those at the lower end can get countless. The biggest corrupt officials are the prime ministers, princes, and sometimes even the emperor.
waived.
In the early Tang Dynasty, when the status of the imperial examination was established, people could not imagine what would happen later.
At this time, people's sense of shame is still relatively strong. For example, if the nobles take part in the imperial examination, even if their cheat sheets are found, they will lose face and their families will be affected.
Just don't say you leaked the test questions.
Therefore, in the Taoist examination in the sixth year of Yuanzhen's reign, only thirty-six cases of cheating were reported, which was incomparable with the later scenes where cheating was common from top to bottom.
Even so, the imperial court also issued a document warning everyone that they must keep their eyes open in the future and not let a giant rat take advantage of the loopholes. Once caught, they will be dealt with severely.
If Taoist officials are involved, we will kill every one of them without mercy.
Therefore, during the imperial examination in Beijing in the fourth year of Yuanzhen's reign, there was a story about leaking the test questions. The culprit was not found yet, but it made some people in the court angry.
In this year's Beijing Examination, there were more people conducting overt and covert investigations. Li Po felt that if he were replaced, he would no longer act rashly, and the breakthrough would have to be at the Ministry of War.
Didn’t he say something about the selection of official positions below the fifth rank? There must be something wrong with the Ministry of War...
The suspects have actually been identified, and Dou Gui is still wandering around Jiangnan. He just wants to see what kind of trouble the Ministry of War will make.
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In fact, Li Po is not as brooding about this matter as Li Gang thought, because he has firmly grasped the imperial power, and even if there are things in the court that he doesn't know, it doesn't matter.
He carefully selected the official officials of the three provinces and six ministries. Except for Dou Cong and Pang Yu, a few of the generals who came later, all the generals of the Wei Mansion were led by his confidants.
Not to mention the Yulin Army, Yu Chigong, Luo Shixin, Ashina Rongzhen, who are these people?
With these people in control of the military, what else does he have to worry about?
Some people do some bad things in a sneaky way, which at most only affects his mood. In fact, he doesn't think that such uncontrollable changes will happen.
It's like a fault-finding game. As long as you search carefully, you will always find someone's fault. It's just a matter of sooner or later.
The entire empire is like a house. It needs to be cleaned from time to time to be clean for a period of time. There are no corners that cannot be cleaned, and some dust is inevitable. As long as the house does not collapse, a few mice will run out and steal some rice and noodles.
It's normal to bite something and break something.
As the emperor, what he has to do is to urge the officials to work and not let rats appear in hordes in broad daylight.
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Li Gang's visit to the palace was obviously to test the emperor's tone. This year was very busy with political affairs. The emperor had not interfered with the imperial examination for a long time. The people in the Ministry of Rites didn't know what the emperor meant, so Li Gang came to report to the emperor first.
Work.
Seeing that the emperor's enthusiasm for the imperial examination was still undiminished, he let go of his worries.
The great political affairs of the country are afraid of sudden interruption or change. There are many influencing factors. Sometimes there is indeed a problem in the middle link, and we have to stop and discuss it carefully.
More often than not, it is the emperor's own problem, unable to implement it consistently and forgetting his original intention when formulating policies.
This kind of thing is very common. The emperor is also a human being and has his own interests. When doing some things, the emperor will get bored at first, and his focus will gradually shift to other affairs. In addition, he will be affected by some power struggles.
Many seemingly good policies died prematurely and failed to persist.
Li Gang was a veteran of several dynasties and had seen too many such things.
Especially when Yang Guang was in power, his interests were numerous and wide-ranging, and he was very fickle. As soon as he started to do something, people's interest disappeared. As a result, the people were not dead, and the political power was over. Nothing could be more serious than this.
The enthusiasm of the ministers has increased.
After such troubles have been made several times, the ministers will become more flexible when a government decree is issued. Many people are not working hard. Anyway, these decrees will not be implemented for a few days. It is estimated that there will be changes again, so why bother to do it?
What?
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Li Gang was relieved, and Li Po did not disappoint him. He arranged a small court meeting the next day and recruited all the officials of the fourth rank of the Ministry of Etiquette into the palace. He made an expected statement about the upcoming imperial examination in Beijing.
This year's imperial examination is much larger than the last one, and there are more subjects. In the seventh year of Yuanzhen's reign, there were more than 90 people who passed the imperial examination, which is almost one out of more than 70 people. The elimination rate is very high.
of.
In addition to the previous provincial examinations, Taoist examinations, and the Beijing examinations, those who were selected are truly the best among scholars, and they are all elites among scholars.
Li Po gave instructions at the meeting. Many of the candidates for scholarships in various subjects are looking for pragmatic talents. It is not how well the article is written or how neatly written the words are. What is looked at is the content and what the candidates show in the test paper.
Vision, etc.
No matter how good your writing skills are, and the flowers you create are like flowers, but the things you write are far from the topic, you will not be able to win the imperial examination.
Therefore, the examiners who grade the papers must not be bookish. I will put aside all the hometown party members, relatives, and favors. If anyone shows favoritism, he will immediately hand it over to Dali Temple for discussion.
After all, these Jinshi candidates are going to be officials in the county, and they have to be responsible for the people of the county. Can people who know nothing and can only write articles be good officials?
This is the disadvantage of the imperial examination. One phenomenon that easily occurs among imperial examination officials is that they have high ambitions and low abilities. In addition, some scholars disdain practical work and only focus on superficial articles.
At the beginning, the number of candidates who won the exam was so small that it was hard to tell. But when there were more officials in the imperial examination, the political situation in the county would gradually begin to deteriorate.
When the opening to enter the officialdom widens and poor scholars flock in, it can hardly be said to be a good phenomenon. It is very clear what they who used to live in poverty want.
Therefore, combating corruption and standardizing the ethics of officials have become the most concerned areas of the dynasties that opened up subjects to obtain scholars.
In the early Tang Dynasty, there was no need to worry about this. Li Po just wanted to lay a solid foundation for the imperial examination and not let those bad things happen under his nose.