"Teacher, the proficiency test is in half a month. Should we concentrate on studying?"
Huang Jinquan and Tong Yuan found Liu Jin at Liu Jin's house in the capital of the Ming Dynasty. They were about to take a test, but the two of them were busy running around and had nothing to prepare for.
As a scholar, I am somewhat ambitious. In the morning, I am a farmhouse minister, and in the evening, I ascend to the emperor's palace. I have no talent for generals and ministers. Men should strengthen themselves. Learning is the treasure of the body. Confucianism is the treasure of the table. You must use scholars as your prime minister.
Speaking of scholars, they successfully passed the Qiu Wei examination, which made the two of them look forward to this year's spring examination. As long as they could pass the general examination, they would have the opportunity to participate in the palace examination.
To be able to participate in the palace examination and to perform in front of the emperor was the highest ideal in the hearts of countless scholars in the Ming Dynasty.
"You're going to try it out in half a month?"
When Liu Jin heard this, he was slightly stunned. Time passed so fast. In the blink of an eye, it was almost February of the twelfth year of Hongzhi (the Ming Dynasty examination was in February, the early Qing Dynasty was also in February, and later the Qianlong Dynasty
changed to March).
"Yes, mentor."
"Have you not been out recently?"
Huang Jinquan nodded and said, then thought about it and asked again.
"Well, I really rarely go out recently. I stay at home with my mother."
Liu Jin touched his nose and told lies with his eyes open. He has indeed been quite busy recently. Of course, he is not busy with anything serious. He is busy with his two beauties.
Who will do anything serious in the first month? Liu Jin, who came from later generations, habitually regarded the first month as a big holiday. How could he not take a good rest and spend time with his family?
"If there's still half a month left, we really need to seize the time to review carefully."
"Well, let's stick to the old rules. Don't go anywhere in the past half month. Come to my place every day. We will continue to give each other questions and conduct mock exams."
After thinking about it, Liu Jin also said, these two students of his have dull qualifications. If they are not given some training, they will not even be able to pass the provincial examination, let alone be able to take the test.
The provincial examination is only an imperial examination at the provincial level. This general examination is the imperial examination of the entire Ming Dynasty. Those who come to participate in the general examination are all candidates from the provincial and rural examinations. There is no doubt that all of them are masters and all are talented people who are full of poems and articles.
.
If you want to go to the general examination, you will definitely not be able to do it without real materials... Of course, except for Liu Jin, a cheating parallel importer, if there is no golden finger, Liu Jin will never be able to pass the exam even if he has read the Four Books and Five Classics all his life.
This is not intended to belittle the time travellers, nor is it intended to elevate the ancients, but because there are tens of thousands of scholars in the entire Ming Dynasty, but only a few can achieve the title of Juren.
There are strict limits on the number of people who can pass the provincial examination every three years in each province. Even in places like Beizhili, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang, the number of people who can pass the provincial examination in each provincial examination is only over a hundred.
And this is what the courtiers have been slowly striving for.
You must know that in the early Ming Dynasty, the number of people who passed the imperial examination in a province may only be in double digits. Especially in the case of Zhu Yuanzhang, the number of places in many provinces was only more than 30 or 40.
That is to say, in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the emperor relaxed the restrictions and the number of places gradually increased, but generally there were only more than 100 in a province.
You can imagine that the exam is held once every three years, and there are only more than a hundred places in each province. How difficult it is to pass the exam. Thirty-odd Jinshi and fifty-old Mingjing are not just words.
Hearing Liu Jin's words, Huang Jinquan and Tong Yuan immediately laughed happily and said quickly: "Thank you, master!"
The last time two people were able to pass the exam, it was thanks to Liu Jin's gift. They conducted mock exams in advance, conducted a lot of training, and also analyzed and criticized each other and discussed how to do better in the exam. Of course, the more important thing is that they actually
The blind cat Liu Jin met the dead mouse and actually succeeded in the examination questions, so the two of them passed the examination.
Regarding the examination, to be honest, although the two of them really wanted to pass it so that they could ascend to the Emperor's Hall and become the disciples of the Emperor, they still knew very well how much they weighed.
Taking the examination together with all the talented people of the Ming Dynasty, if you want to pass the Jinshi exam, you can probably only rely on your mentor Liu Jin's method of answering questions.
"Go on, go on, go ahead and explain all the things in hand, and start working on the questions behind closed doors the day after tomorrow."
Liu Jin nodded with satisfaction. It felt good to be a teacher. If he could become a third-level scholar this time, he would probably have to teach the entire Ming Dynasty.
After Huang Jinquan and Tong Yuan left, Liu Jin thought about it and decided to go out for a walk and take a look at the Ming Dynasty talents of this era.
"I don't know if I can meet Tang Bohu~"
For some reason, Liu Jin immediately thought of Tang Bohu. After thinking about it, this Tang Bohu was too famous, and he always felt that if he didn't meet him, and if he didn't ask for a painting or calligraphy, it would be a waste of time.
"I'll go~ Cheng Minzheng seems to have been implicated in the theft of the official warehouse last year."
Then, Liu Jin suddenly slapped his head, and then he remembered that Cheng Min was arrested not long ago and put in jail because he was involved in the theft of the official warehouse last year.
Last year, the three northern provinces suffered from famine due to heavy snowfall. The case of the theft of official warehouses had a wide range of implications. It has not been completely settled until now. From time to time, officials were implicated, and as we went further, all the big shots were implicated.
Cheng Minzheng obviously fits this point. He is now the right minister of the Ministry of Rites, a second-rank official, and a proper official of the court. And such an important minister is now involved in the case of the theft of the official warehouse last year, and was ordered to be beaten by Emperor Hongzhi.
Into prison.
Liu Jin had always paid attention to the case of the theft of the official warehouse, but although Cheng Minzheng was a second-rank official and a high-ranking official like the Sixth Minister, Liu Jin didn't think of him at all for a while.
Now that I think of Tang Bohu and the case of the imperial examination in the Yiwei year of the twelfth year of Hongzhi, I think of Cheng Minzheng, who is also one of the core figures in this case.
Cheng Minzheng and Tang Bohu were both from Nanzhili, one was from Huizhou and the other was from Suzhou. In ancient times, they were definitely fellow villagers.
Generally speaking, in ancient times, when people came to Beijing to take exams, they would look for a way to see if any of their fellow countrymen were serving as officials in the court. If so, they would naturally have to pay one or two visits.
Xu Jing and Tang Bohu were no exception. After arriving in the capital, they visited their fellow villager Cheng Minzheng.
Naturally, you can't go empty-handed when visiting your fellow villagers, but these scholars in ancient times were very noble, and they would not accept ordinary things. The local specialties that were popular in later generations are not useful in this era.
Therefore, in order to solve this embarrassing problem, the ancient scholars came up with an excellent trick, which was to ask their fellow villagers for calligraphy or something like that of a younger generation.
The purpose of ordering calligraphy treasures is nothing more than to study, to encourage oneself, etc. This is very consistent with the urinal nature of literati, but of course this calligraphy treasures cannot be obtained in vain, so there is such a thing as retouching fees.
Therefore, in ancient times, when people came to Beijing to take exams and visit their fellow countrymen who were officials in the dynasty, they would usually ask for some calligraphy or other things, and then use it to give them some money to polish their pens.
The Tao Tao things are vividly reflected.
This thing has now become an unwritten rule, everyone does it.
There is no way, the salary and benefits set by Comrade Lao Zhu for everyone are really too low. If we expect the small salary from the court, everyone will starve to death.
Of course, this is also a rule that cannot be put on the table. It is just like this in normal times, and no one will point it out, because even a senior cabinet minister like Liu Jian, the chief assistant of the cabinet, still receives remuneration.
Otherwise, his fellow trilateral leader Liu Yu would not be appreciated by him, and he would probably ask Liu Jian for his calligraphy.
But Tang Bohu and Cheng Minzheng in history were unlucky in this matter. Xu Jing and Tang Bohu came to the capital to take the exam, so naturally they would visit their hometowns like everyone else, get to know each other, and become friends with each other.
Relationship, if the two of them can be admitted to the Jinshi, they will be officials in the same court or something, so they can take care of each other.
This is human nature and has been like this since ancient times. Liu Jian also takes care of his fellow countryman Liu Yu. It is estimated that there may be a relationship with the same clan, after all, they both have the surname Liu.
The two of them went to visit Cheng Minzheng. Xu Jiang's father had just passed away, so he used this incident to ask Cheng Minzheng for a memorial and gave him several hundred taels of gold as writing fee.
Originally, this was a very routine operation. As for the possibility of cheating on the questions, the ancient imperial examinations were very strict. Cheng Min, a political official and the right minister of the Ministry of Rites, had no need to cheat on the questions to get the money. Besides, Tang Bohu
People are arrogant and conceited, and they are full of knowledge. It is estimated that they are not willing to cut off the topic.
But it happened that Tang Bohu was an arrogant person. As soon as the exam was over, he went around bragging that he would be the first in the exam, so people heard about it. Cheng Minzheng's enemies and enemies used it to make a fuss, and it was easy to impeach him with just one piece of paper.
Song immediately brought down the right minister of the Ministry of Rites. As for Tang Bohu and Xu Jing, they were just the victims of the fire at the city gate that affected Chi Yu.
Although this was not an issue in the subsequent investigation, it was revealed that Cheng Minzheng collected Xu Jing's writing fees from Tang Bohu, which became a stain on Cheng Minzheng. He died of carbuncle because of this, and Tang Bohu was also because of this.
He was demoted to a minor official.
In fact, in the final analysis, this is not a question at all, but a very common officialdom struggle. Although officialdom struggle does not involve the sight of swords and swords, it is even more dangerous.
Now, due to Liu Jin's time travel, history has undergone tremendous changes. Cheng Minzheng, who should have been implicated in the case of Wan, was instead implicated in the theft of the official warehouse last year.
"Does this count as helping Tang Bohu once?"
After thinking about this clearly, Liu Jin smiled and shook his head slightly.
