When the emperor is angry, blood flows everywhere.
Although Zhao Zhen always shows kindness to others, Prince Jun is a king after all. Once he suddenly bursts into anger, his majestic power will still frighten Yang Yuanzhen to the point where he cannot hold his head up.
Yang Yuanzhen turned around tremblingly and picked up the book that fell at his feet, his hands still trembling uncontrollably.
The cover of the book feels rough like low-quality paper, and the pages are not neatly cut and may even be a little prickly.
Before seeing the true content of the book, Yang Yuanzhen, who has read countless books, had already made an instinctive judgment based on the feel of the book.
This book should have been printed by some big bookstore, but it looks like a manuscript bound by poor scholars themselves.
Facts also prove Yang Yuanzhen’s judgment.
When Yang Yuanzhen reluctantly calmed down and took the book in front of him to look at it carefully, he could tell at a glance that the three words "Tanwenlu" in the middle of the cover were definitely not printed, but written by someone in his own hand.
Zhao Zhen scolded him before contacting him, and he thought that the person who wrote this book should be Xinke Xie Yuan Guo Jin who he personally took.
Yang Yuanzhen carefully opened the "Tan Wen Lu" with anxiety. After reading the first few pages, he quickly realized that this was an imperial examination teaching aid.
The author's knowledge of classics and meanings is so profound that Yang Yuanzhen just casually read a few short paragraphs and found it quite rewarding.
But right now, Yang Yuanzhen was on fire. No matter how good the book was, he had no intention of reading it carefully. He just hurriedly searched for the key point that made Zhao Zhen furious.
However, this "Tan Wen Lu" is a tome with a lot of content. The content of the four parts before and after it is added up to hundreds of pages.
Yang Yuanzhen flipped aimlessly for a while, but still couldn't find the key. He became more and more anxious, big beads of sweat fell from his forehead, and there were even bloodshot eyes in his eyes.
Seeing Yang Yuanzhen's embarrassed look, Zhao Zhen couldn't stand it. He coughed lightly and waved his hand.
The old chamberlain, who had always been silent, bowed slightly, turned around and walked quickly to Yang Yuanzhen. He turned the book to a page in the second half of the book for him, and his finger fell on the middle of the page.
Yang Yuanzhen's eyes followed the old chamberlain's finger, and his heart suddenly trembled, and his back was sweating profusely.
"Mock Exam Question No. 79: It is not good for a villain to live idle and do anything."
Isn't this the first Four Books question that I have asked?
It's just that the second half of the sentence is missing: "When you see a gentleman, you are disgusted with it, and you cover up his bad qualities and focus on his good qualities."
Although one paragraph is missing, the imperial examination focuses on answering questions in context, so as far as the test questions are concerned, there is actually no essential difference between half a sentence and half a sentence.
At this moment, Yang Yuanzhen finally understood the reason why Zhao Zhen suddenly lost his temper.
The Jinke Township Examination suddenly broke out in Yuzhou, and sixteen people were selected in one go. This is already an extremely unusual phenomenon.
Now, the Imperial City Division has found the original question that is almost exactly the same as the test question from Jieyuan, who is from Yuzhou.
What the hell...
It’s hard not to suspect that something is fishy!
Yang Yuanzhen just wanted to cry without tears.
What kind of sin did you commit in your previous life to end up in such a bad situation?
Yang Yuanzhen's mood was shattered at this time, and he almost wanted to faint again.
But he also knew in his heart that when the matter got to this point, pretending to be dead would not help at all.
For the current plan, the only way is to take advantage of Zhao Zhen's patience with him and seize the time to defend himself.
As soon as he thought of this, Yang Yuanzhen's mind began to work rapidly, racking his brains to find a way to escape guilt.
Suddenly, an idea flashed in his mind, and he quickly turned to the last page of "Tan Wen Lu" and searched up and down.
Sure enough!
At the end of this page, there is a line of small characters written: "The ninth day of the fifth lunar month in the eighth year of the Great Zhou Tianyou". This is the time when Guo Jin completed transcribing the entire book!
"Your Majesty!"
As if Yang Yuanzhen had grasped a life-saving straw, he quickly pointed out his findings to Zhao Zhen on the throne.
"This book was transcribed in May this year. It was originally written earlier, but it was already August when Wei Chen was asked to draft the title. The time doesn't match up at all!"
"Oh?"
Upon hearing this, Zhao Zhen hurriedly asked his chamberlain to bring the book up for review, and it turned out to be exactly what Yang Yuanzhen said.
Zhao Zhen frowned slightly and looked at the old chamberlain on the side: "How did the other Yuzhou candidates fare?"
This time the rural examination was suspected of leaking questions, and the stakes were very high. All the elite members of the Imperial City Division were mobilized. In addition to sealing off Gongyuan, all the candidates from Yuzhou were also controlled. Guo Jin was just the first one.
Gu Wan, the head of the Imperial City Sidu, has been leading people back and forth, reporting the latest progress of the interrogation to the old chamberlain.
The old chamberlain glanced at the newly handed note, bowed and replied: "I have found out clearly that this book was written at the beginning of March this year. It is collected by various volunteer schools in Yuzhou because it was written by Wei Chen, the magistrate of Yuzhou.
Therefore, scholars in Yuzhou rushed to borrow and copy it, and everyone in Yuzhou knew about it."
"Wei Chen?"
Zhao Zhen was stunned for a moment, then asked again: "After this book is written, are there any deletions or changes?"
"No. On this point, there is no difference between the confessions of Yuzhou candidates."
The old chamberlain bowed and said: "If your Majesty is not at ease, I will send someone to Yuzhou immediately to get the original copy of this book. After comparing it, we will know whether it is true or false."
"No need."
Zhao Zhen waved his hand.
The old chamberlain in front of him has been with Zhao Zhen for decades and has always been Zhao Zhen's confidant. Zhao Zhen understands the methods of the Imperial City Division under his command.
Even if the dead body sent by the enemy country falls into the hands of the Imperial City Division, the Imperial City Division can still pry the other party's mouth open, let alone some ordinary soldiers who have not experienced hardships?
Moreover, there are one or two hundred candidates from Yuzhou taking part in the provincial examination this time. It is simply impossible for so many people to have their confessions verified in advance and to withstand the professional interrogation of the Imperial City Division without revealing any flaws.
】
Since the confession is correct, judging from the current situation, this whole thing should be a mistake.
Yang Yuanzhen's examination questions were only chosen in advance by Wei Chen's "Tan Wen Lu" by mistake. And because "Tan Wen Lu" was written by Wei Chen, it was extremely popular among Yuzhou scholars, which led to this.
So many candidates from Yuzhou passed the provincial examination.
As for Xie Yuan Guo Jin, he is just the luckiest among them.
Coming to this conclusion, Zhao Zhen felt dumbfounded for a moment. There was such a big commotion in the middle of the night, but it turned out to be just a misunderstanding?
But if you think about it carefully, there seems to be nothing wrong with it.
According to the rules, in major examinations such as the Provincial Examination, you cannot ask questions that are combined with each other. You can only ask questions from the original text of the classics. The four books and the five classics only have a few words in total, so the possibility of success in answering the questions is not impossible.
In fact, there were occasionally people who got lucky and passed the exam by betting on the questions, but it was far from the scale this time.
"This Wei Chen will really cause trouble for me!"
Zhao Zhen looked at the "Tan Wen Lu" handwritten by Guo Jin and asked with some complaint: "Why did he write this book, but the salary I paid was not enough for him?"
Zhao Zhen thought that Wei Chen wrote this kind of imperial examination guidance material to make money, so he was dissatisfied.
The old servant said respectfully: "It is said that Wei Zhizhou felt the difficulty of poor students in pursuing education, so he founded the Yi Xue in Yuzhou, and wrote this book and hid it in various Yi Xue. He used the book as a teacher to teach the students the teachings of the saints.
Tao."
"Is this happening? I underestimated him. This is the result of enlightenment."
Zhao Zhen breathed a sigh of relief and his expression softened a lot, but when he picked up the yellow list for the Henan Provincial Examination, he couldn't help but have a headache.
Even if it has been verified that the fraud is false, as soon as this list is posted, I am afraid it will still cause an uproar in Bianjing City...