Zhu Youxiao and the civil servants also knew very well that now was not a good time to act.
Because the imperial examination is about to begin, the court must be stable at this time.
This also gives both parties enough time to prepare.
A few days passed quickly.
With Wang Xiangqian, the chief minister of the cabinet, as the official, everything went smoothly and the meeting officially ended without any accidents.
Because Zhu Youxiao temporarily changed the scoring system and the subject matter content, many students who originally passed the exam in history failed.
But Zhu Youxiao didn't care about this kind of thing at all.
What he wants is not a writer who writes articles, but someone who has real materials and can do practical things.
Li Jin, who had high hopes from him, did not disappoint him. Zhu Youxiao was very pleased to learn that his name was on the list.
The other four students at Huangming Academy do not have Li Jin's ability.
Zhu Youxiao doesn't blame them. After all, they are still young and have a lot of room for training, so they are not in a hurry.
Zhu Youxiao soon held the palace examination.
The reason why he was so impatient was because he wanted to see Lu Xiangsheng earlier.
So on March 22, the first imperial examination of the Tianqi Dynasty reached the final critical moment.
And the candidates who pass the examination have also reached the pinnacle of their lives. They can stand with the civil and military officials in the Huangji Hall and have a glimpse of the dragon's face.
"His Majesty the Emperor has arrived, and all the officials are bowing before him and kneeling down~~!"
At the sharp sound of the ceremonial eunuch, hundreds of people in the palace immediately knelt down and bowed three times and kowtowed nine times.
When Zhu Youxiao, who was wearing imperial robes, sat on the throne and said flatly, the palace examination officially began.
Looking at the prospective Jinshi students standing below, Zhu Youxiao's heart was not disturbed.
Without too much nonsense or extravagance, Zhu Youxiao quickly got straight to the point:
"To be standing in this hall today, they are all the smartest people in my Ming Dynasty. I am encountering many problems right now. I wonder if anyone can help me solve my problems."
"I won't hold any written examinations. I'll just use these difficult questions as the questions for the palace examination."
The emperor did not play according to the routine, not only these candidates, but also all the officials felt unexpectedly nervous.
Aren’t you already prepared the test questions and papers? Why don’t you use them again?
And these candidates are even more nervous. Although they are mentally prepared that the emperor will ask questions, this rush-to-answer method will indeed put enough pressure on them.
And there is no precedent for direct answers as the theme in previous years.
But the emperor has announced the rules, so there is no choice but to bite the bullet.
"Your Majesty, please give me a question."
Hundreds of candidates replied in unison.
"The national treasury cannot make ends meet, and now it only has less than one million taels of silver. However, Shaanxi and Shandong have both suffered major disasters, and have to spend large amounts of military expenditures on all sides."
"At the same time, these three places all submitted memorials and urgently needed money, food and rice from the court, but the state treasury was simply unable to afford it."
"Can any of you tell me who should be given priority? Shaanxi or Shandong, or Jiubian Military Town?"
"How should we allocate it?"
In Zhu Youxiao's view, if you can't even answer this question, there is no need to take the exam again.
He would not write out a bunch of articles and poems to test which of them has better writing skills and the most exquisite calligraphy.
"Your Majesty, I believe that priority should be given to allocating disaster relief food funds to Shandong. After the disaster in Shandong is controlled, we will then consider the issue of Shaanxi and military expenditures."
"Because the disaster area in Shandong is small, unlike Shaanxi, where the entire province was hit by a disaster."
"And Shandong is the closest to the capital. If anything happens, the court can quickly respond and make decisions."
After one person answered, others seemed to be copying from a template and expressed their own opinions and solutions.
But from what Zhu Youxiao heard, it was just a change of soup without changing the medicine, and there were no eye-catching suggestions.
Some people even suggested that we should ignore the issue of the nine-border military expenditure and directly distribute the money and materials from the national treasury equally to Shaanxi and Shandong.
Zhu Youxiao was so angry that he almost had his title dismissed on the spot.
"Your Majesty, I believe that the issue is not about who comes first and who comes last, nor is it a matter of how much food is allocated."
"Because this major disaster in Shaanxi cannot be solved by spending hundreds of thousands of taels of silver."
"At this time, the imperial court should find ways to increase revenue and reduce expenditure, instead of allocating all the little treasury money it has."
"Otherwise, if other unexpected situations occur, the court will really have no money to use."
After a long time, among so many people, someone finally said something humane.
Zhu Youxiao quickly became interested in this person and asked:
"Oh, what's your name?"
"Your Majesty, my name is Lu Xiangsheng."
When he heard him say that he was Lu Xiangsheng, Zhu Youxiao's eyes suddenly lit up.
I finally met Lu Xiangsheng in person.
But there was still a big gap between the Lu Xiangsheng he imagined in his mind.
Perhaps because of the influence of historical documents, what impressed Zhu Youxiao the most about him was that he took Xiao to the expedition.
"Why do you have such thoughts?"
"Even if there are too many victims in Shaanxi and the area affected by the disaster is too large, they are still the common people of Ming Dynasty. Is it because there are so many that the court will ignore them?"
"Also, what should we do with the disaster in Shandong and the military and food expenses in Jiubian? Can we just ignore it?"
Zhu Youxiao asked questions again and again. In the eyes of others, Lu Xiangsheng's answer was simply too bad and had already left a bad impression on the emperor.
But while they were gloating about their misfortune, Lu Xiangsheng was extremely calm.
He was not frightened at all by the emperor's questions.
Since he dared to say this, he must have thought it through and been prepared.
Zhu Youxiao thought so too, so he pretended to be dissatisfied and questioned him.
In fact, it is creating momentum for him and giving him a chance to become famous.
Sure enough, Lu Xiangsheng did not disappoint him, and quickly expressed his opinions and the key to the problem.
“It’s hard for a clever woman to make a meal without rice, let alone our huge Ming Dynasty.”
"There are two capitals and thirteen provinces in the world. Money is needed, and there are so many places to spend it."
"There are at least hundreds of thousands of refugees in Shaanxi. Throwing the hundreds of thousands of taels of silver from the imperial court is like a stone falling into the sea, without even a splash being seen."
"It's terrible for a country to have no money, but the most terrible thing is that it doesn't have food and supplies."
"What is needed for disaster relief is not money, but food. Without food, even if there are mountains of gold and silver, it is just a show-off."
"Therefore, the first problem that I, Ming Dynasty, must solve is to accumulate food."
"The first priority is to use the remaining money to vigorously support agricultural production in Huguang, Nanzhili and other grain-producing areas."
Although Lu Xiangsheng's answer was not very eye-catching, it was at least much better than the answers of other candidates.
At least he will think about the key issues and dare to speak out boldly.
He said something right, what Ming Dynasty lacked was never money, but food.
This is why he forced the vassals to contribute grain and asked Li Zhicai to recover back taxes in Jiangnan.