After the provincial examination was over and the banknotes were paid out, Tang Ning no longer thought about these things. The third uncle had been running around for a few days and had found craftsmen to start repairing the house.
When she first bought this house, Tang Ning had already compared and considered it for a long time. She was basically satisfied with the layout of the house. No major changes were needed during the renovation. Only the green bricks on the ground, the doors, windows and the columns outside needed to be re-paved.
It also needs to be repainted. The pavilion in the inner courtyard is too old. He plans to tear it down and redesign a larger one. When the weather gets hot in a few days, he can stay outside to enjoy the coolness at night.
There are even more changes in details.
The bathroom must be built new. He has been having problems with the latrines here for more than a day or two. The toilet is a must and is connected to the sewage pipes in the capital. It is clean and trouble-free.
The bathroom also needs to be built separately, the floor should be paved with marble, and a shower head should be built. Every time I take a bath, I have to boil a large bucket of water and wait for at least half an hour. It is too inconvenient.
A large open space must be cleared in the backyard. As a training ground, it cannot be as small as the county government's yard. Every time Tang Yaojing's sword slashed in front of his eyes, it made people frightened.
In addition, a carpenter must be asked to customize a large bed. An ordinary size bed is spacious for one person and suitable for two people. But it is a bit too crowded for three people. Four people, not four people...
The house next door is also being renovated. Tang Yaojing is already penniless and all the money was taken from the Red Sleeve Pavilion. She will repair the house here as she wants. The only difference is that she will be separated from the inner courtyard by a wall.
Rebuild a courtyard, which was originally an open space.
After walking out of the house and looking back, Tangning realized a problem.
When the two houses are built, won't there be two Tang mansions here, and they are adjacent?
No matter how long Tang Yaojing stays in the capital, he will always return to Lingzhou. It will be a pity that this house will be empty by then. It is better to buy it from Tang Yaojing himself, tear down the wall, and create two Tang mansions.
It turned into a large Tang Mansion, which perfectly solved the problem of being unable to accommodate more people in the family in the future.
He came here today to keep an eye on the progress. He was quite satisfied with the work done by the craftsmen, so he asked his third uncle to give them an extra 20% of their wages. When he walked out, the sun was almost over his head, and it was time to go back to the county office for dinner.
His mother-in-law had some objections to him moving out at first, but later she thought it was not far from the county government office, so she agreed.
Before Tangning reached the county government office, she saw several figures wandering at the door.
After his expression was startled, he strode over.
A government servant at the gate of the county government office waved his hand impatiently and said: "Where are you beggars from? This is the county government office. Go begging for food elsewhere. There is nothing here to give you!"
Tangning walked over and asked with a smile, "When did you come?"
"Gang leader!" Liu Laoer saw him and immediately said, "We just arrived today."
Tang Ning once wrote two letters to Lingzhou, one of which was addressed to Liu Laoer and the others.
It was a long way to the capital, so he told them in the letter to come over after they had handled the affairs of Lingzhou. He thought they would be faster, but he didn't expect that they didn't arrive until today.
The government officer at the door was a little stunned when he saw that he was familiar with these beggars.
Tang Ning looked at Peng Chen behind her and said, "When you go back, tell me that I won't go back for dinner today."
Liu Laoer and the others had been traveling all the way. Tang Ning originally wanted to invite them to have a meal at Tiantianju, but Liu Laoer and the others stood at the door of Tiantianju, unable to get in. In the end, they had to choose a noodle restaurant on the street.
Stall.
Tang Ning looked at him and said, "You are all the elders of my Beggar Clan. There will be many scenes to meet in the future. You don't even dare to enter a restaurant. How can this be okay?"
"We still feel that two bowls of noodles can fill our stomachs more." Liu Laoer smiled sheepishly, waved to the waiter at the opposite stall, and said, "Add two more cloves of garlic!"
Tangning stopped worrying about this matter and asked, "Why did you come here so late?"
Liu Laoer explained: "The gang leader asked us to inquire about the little beggar. Along the way, every time we visited a city, we would stop and ask, so we wasted time."
Tangning hurriedly asked, "How's it going? Is there any news?"
"Not yet." Liu Laoer shook his head and said: "But it's not that there is no news at all. Along the way, we learned that there are still little beggars who disappeared like this in the Gyeonggi area, including Lingzhou.
Quite a few, there are even some children from ordinary families, and all traces point to the capital..."
Tangning looked at him and asked, "Have you found out what's going on?"
Liu Laoer shook his head and said, "Not yet."
The waiter brought several bowls of noodles over and said, "Sir, your noodles are ready!"
"Let's eat first." Tangning looked at them and said, "After eating, you can settle down in the capital first. We will discuss other matters later."
Liu Laoer and the others are weak in power. It is not easy to get ahead in the beggar circle in the capital. It needs to be done slowly.
Moreover, this matter is not urgent or important at present.
Time has entered mid-April, and the provincial examination has ended for 20 days. According to the practice of previous years, Gongyuan will release news in these days to announce the release date.
During these twenty days, countless eyes from the capital were focused on the Gongyuan outside the city.
At this time, in the Gongyuan, many examiners gathered together, with several examination papers in front of them.
A few days ago, all the examination papers for this provincial examination were reviewed, and they selected more than two hundred papers from them, which were the winners of this provincial examination.
For most of the examination papers, they have already ranked them according to their numbers and can immediately remove the anonymity and transcribe the names of the candidates.
At this time, what they have in front of them are the test papers of three people, who are also the top three in this provincial examination.
However, the examiner has not yet made a final decision on the specific rankings of these three people.
"In this case, all the answers in the first test were correct, and the poems in the second test were also amazing. However, this policy essay is mediocre and can only be regarded as average..."
"These two articles, although the first and the second are inferior to him, the strategies and discussions are both excellent articles... It's really hard to choose who should be the leader."
An old man with gray hair murmured a few words, with a look of hesitation on his face.
Seeing that the examiner was having a hard time making a choice, an examiner stepped forward and said, "Mr. Li, the imperial court has always focused on policy discussions. The first and second sessions are for reference and comparison when the policies and discussions are similar. The official believes that,
These three examination papers can all be ranked first, but the leader should still choose between these two."
Fang Hong shook his head and said: "Before the provincial examination, His Majesty once said that the articles on policy are only for reference, and the focus should be on "policy" and "theory". Mr. Liu forgot it so quickly?"
The Minister of Rites who had just spoken was immediately speechless.
"Your Majesty has mentioned this sentence many times." The gray-haired old man nodded, looked at the several co-examiners, and asked: "What do you think of the co-examiners?"
Several people looked at each other, and finally one person stood up and said: "If we don't talk about articles and just talk about "policy" and "theory", this one is more meaningful."
The old man pondered for a moment, nodded and said: "That being the case, this person is the first in three games. Do you have any objections, sir?"
In the first round, he came out on top, answering all the questions correctly, more than 20% more than the second person. If the poems in the second round were released, I am afraid it would cause another stir in the poetry world. In the third round, several co-examiners agreed.
, all three games top the list, what else can anyone object to?
The old man looked at everyone and said: "Since everyone has no objections, the results will be released tomorrow!"
…
In previous years, the list would be announced at least three days in advance. Perhaps the release of the list was delayed too long this year. When everyone learned the news, there was only one day left before the list was released.
On this day, it was just dawn, and the entrance to the Gongyuan of the Capital was already crowded with people.
Among them, only a small number were students who took the provincial examination, and most of them were ordinary people from the capital who were watching.
Tangning was woken up by Xiao Jue early in the morning. She couldn't even see the gate of Gongyuan yet. The front was already so crowded that it was difficult to move forward.
