Chapter 365 Different Imperial Examination Systems
June of the fourth year of the Han Dynasty (AD 193)
Zhang Ning, who was 10 months pregnant, gave birth to a big fat boy to Xu Wei in Jixian County. This made Xu Wei and the entire Daqian senior management extremely happy. Xu Wei was happy that he had an offspring, and it was like he had roots in this world.
And Old Man Wang and the others are happy to have an heir for their great business, and they feel secure. After all, their business is so big, and without an heir, it really makes them feel uneasy.
If Xu Wei hadn't stopped him, they would have even wanted to grant amnesty to the whole world to celebrate the birth of Xu Wei's son!
But Da Qian doesn’t talk about feudal society, and Xu Wei doesn’t need to win people’s hearts. He wants to offer amnesty to the world. Not to mention that the people exiled and imprisoned in Da Qian are all guilty nobles. It’s not like releasing these people. Xu Wei would not do such a stupid thing if he deliberately caused trouble for himself.
In addition to this happy thing, Xu Wei established the Liaodong Protectorate with the four counties of Liaodong for the smooth development of Liaodong and also to make everyone pay attention to Liaodong. Huang Long served as the governor of the Liaodong Protectorate! As long as Liaodong When development matures, Xu Wei will establish a new state based on these four counties.
Of course, the establishment of the Liaodong Governor's Office made the cadres of Daqian even more lacking. In order to speed up the recruitment of officials, the first imperial examination in Daqian and even the world was born!
The imperial examination system created by Xu Wei is completely different from the original one. The first is the difference in the number of people. Historically, only a few dozen people were admitted to the imperial examination. Even in the Song Dynasty, the number only increased to a few hundred people. This is basically There is a limit to the number of people admitted in one imperial examination. As long as you pass the imperial examination, which is the lowest official position at the county magistrate level, it can be said that you will reach the sky in one step.
But this also limits the number of people admitted. After all, China only has more than 2,000 counties. You can't admit thousands of county masters at one time.
But Xu Wei's imperial examination was different this time. He held the imperial examination in Youzhou, Bingzhou, and Jizhou at the same time. The number of people admitted in each state exceeded a thousand, which means that more than 3,000 people will be admitted in the imperial examination this time. Once, there won’t be any provincial or imperial examinations later.
Xu Wei's imperial examination is not to select elites, but to select cadres who can do things. Even if these people are selected, they still need to be trained to observe politics, and even if they are officials, they are basic officials such as village chiefs and township chiefs, who have a lot of territory. There are more than 3,000 village chiefs and township chiefs who can be easily arranged. If you want to become a county magistrate in one step, it is simply impossible here in Daqian.
But there are no restrictions on officials here in Xu Wei. As long as they do well, village heads and township heads can still become county magistrates and governors. In this way, some officials who are not familiar with government affairs will not be selected, because they are all fought from the grassroots. Moreover, such large-scale admissions also reduce the difficulty of the imperial examination, making it even more difficult to monopolize the imperial examination!
In fact, no matter in the Song Dynasty or the Ming Dynasty, in the later period, many families began to monopolize the imperial examinations. There were even families with seven or nine Jinshi, or even generations of bureaucrats. This meant that the imperial examination system was monopolized and it was difficult for ordinary people to enter the officialdom. , without the addition of fresh blood, the entire empire became a pool of stagnant water.
But Xu Wei lowered the difficulty of the imperial examination, making it even more difficult to monopolize the imperial examination. Passing the examination is only the most basic, and the real difficulty is how to climb up step by step in the future. This is not to say that there will not be bureaucratic families, but this is more difficult than the original imperial examination. It is even more difficult to monopolize the system.
The content of the exam is also different. It is impossible for Xu Wei to take the Six Classics of Confucianism or the classics of other schools of thought, because this would open a back door for the nobles and nobles.
Xu Wei himself knew very well that with his poor skills, which he had trained for less than 10 years, how could he possibly pass the examination on these subjects and pass the examination of the powerful gentry? He would not do such a self-destructive thing.
Therefore, the content of this imperial examination is also very simple. First, write a short essay of 500 words to show that you can read and write, and you can be regarded as an educated person.
The second exam consists of 100 math questions, from easy to difficult, with one point awarded for correct answers and no points for incorrect answers. In this way, the number of admissions will be determined by the score!
This is the track that Xu Wei has opened up for his subordinates, because Xu Wei has attached great importance to mathematics education since the Tengjia Army period. Da Gan’s subordinates may not understand the Analects of Confucius and the Yi Jing, the classics of hundreds of schools of thought, but with the addition of Subtraction, multiplication, division, the four arithmetic operations, and simple binary equations of one variable have all been basically learned. It can be said that in terms of mathematics, Xu Wei's group has an advantage.
The noble families of the Han Dynasty were all heirs of poetry and calligraphy. Whether it was Confucian classics or other schools of thought, they had an advantage.
But mathematics is what they are least good at. Looking at the 5,000-year history of China and several mathematical works, you can see how Chinese literati did not pay attention to basic sciences such as mathematics.
The former Han Dynasty was better. After all, you have to be a general or a prime minister, and you have to have tangible political achievements, and mathematics is the best tool for promotion. To become a general, you need to calculate the soldiers in your hands, the food, grass, weapons, etc., these are all Requires math to calculate.
Even when the government is in charge, mathematics is indispensable for handling government affairs. Mathematics is required for statistics, land measurement, water conservancy projects of new canals, tax collection, etc. Therefore, officials in the former Han Dynasty would more or less learn some mathematics.
But the current generation of big men is different. Nowadays, people no longer pay attention to political performance when they are promoted. At least political performance is no longer the main factor. Instead, they compete for family background, prestige and other illusory things.
A person with a high reputation can rise to the top of the sky to become a county guard with two thousand dan, or even the three princes and nine ministers. It was because of Xun Shuang's high reputation that Dong Zhuo promoted him from a white servant to a captain in less than half a year. The civil and military officials of the entire dynasty had no Several people objected, which shows that promotion based on reputation has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, but it has nothing to do with mathematics.
Prestige plays such a big role that everyone no longer strives for political achievements, but starts to strive for prestige, so there are three gentlemen, eight horses and eight chefs. If you don’t have such a high reputation, then you can find a way to get some people who are lying on the ice to ask for carps and cry for bamboos. Bamboo shoots, Kong Rong used pear allusions to enhance his reputation!
When the literati in the feudal era looked at the Twenty-Four Filial Piety, they found that they were all in the Eastern Han Dynasty. They took it for granted that the Eastern Han Dynasty was the best period, and said that it was the best period under the third generation, when gentlemen spread all over the world.
But when you look at the Twenty-Four Filial Piety in the Internet age, you will find that there is no difference between the hype of ancient people and modern Internet celebrities. Many of the hypes are not even as good as Internet celebrities, and they are not scientific at all.
So everyone suddenly realized that there is no such thing as a gentleman, they are just a group of hypocrites who are hyping up their reputation and want to become officials.
It is even easier for a person with a family background to become an official than for a person with a good reputation. When Yuan Huai was an official, government affairs were handled by his disciples and former officials. He could easily be evaluated as an expert in world affairs.
If he wants some military merit, he recruits a humble military general like Dong Zhuo to be his disciple and former official, and then directs Dong Zhuo to fight a few battles to achieve military merit. In this way, Yuan Huai has both civil and military skills, and can easily become a high-ranking official at the three-gong level.
If you ask people like Yuan Huai to ignore specific things, they will say that this is what common officials do, and a gentleman like him would disdain it.
But the merits of the lay officials are that officials like them have good leadership. It can be said that the disciples and old officials in the Three Kingdoms era are the masters in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In this way, the nobles and nobles confuse right and wrong to occupy high positions, and slander those who are truly capable. Common officials.