"But since this man has to take the provincial examination, I can't take him home. I can only rent a room for him in an inn near Confucius Temple. I come over to see him every few days and ask him what he needs. Today's villain
I just happened to come over and take a look, so I'm here now." Xiao Zhuo replied with a smile.
But as soon as he finished speaking, two young men suddenly walked out of the inn. One of them was about twenty years old, and the other was only fifteen or sixteen years old. Both of them were wearing clothes made of cotton, and they didn't look like
They were children of a wealthy family, but their manners revealed a certain demeanor that only came from a wealthy family. Yunxi could tell at a glance that they were definitely not poor people, and he wondered why they wanted to hide their origins.
But he no longer had to secretly guess in his mind, because as soon as the two young men walked out of the inn and saw Xiao Zhuo, they looked very surprised on their faces and blurted out: "Uncle Liu/Dad, didn't you say you were leaving? Why?
Still here?"
"You two, you went out as soon as I left. You haven't picked up a book or newspaper yet. Are you going out to play? You two bastards!"
Xiao Zhuo cursed and was about to curse again when he suddenly remembered that Yunxi was still there. He thought of something and immediately turned his head and knelt down to Yunxi and said: "The villain is guilty, please forgive me!"
"Dad, what are you doing?" The younger man was confused when he saw this scene, and subconsciously reached out to help him up, but Xiao Zhuo knocked his hand away and said, "Kneel down yet.
!”
"Dad?" The man wanted to say more. The older man glanced at Yunxi and suddenly understood something. He also knelt down beside Xiao Zhuo and said to the younger man: "Fifteenth brother, kneel down quickly.
Down!"
Seeing both people saying this, although he was still puzzled, he knelt down.
Yunxi glanced at them a few times and looked around. When he saw a small alley with few pedestrians passing by, he turned his horse and headed towards the alley. A guard immediately said to Xiao Zhuo and the other three: "Don't kneel down."
"You're here, follow me." When Xiao Zhuo heard this, he pulled the two young men to their feet and hurriedly followed.
"Xiao Zhuo, what are you doing here?" When they reached the alley, Yunxi asked again.
Although Yunxi's tone was still kind, Xiao Zhuo shuddered when he heard these words, and knelt down and kowtowed again: "The villain has made a big mistake, please punish me. The villain has made a big mistake, please punish me." He said this.
After saying it twice, I secretly looked up and saw that Yun Xi's expression became a little impatient, so I started talking about the matter.
According to the imperial examination rules formulated by Yunxi in the second year of Jianye, the examination was carried out in different provinces, and the quotas were admitted by prefectures. The number of places in each prefecture was fixed. The Xiao family is from Ningbo Prefecture, Zhejiang Province. Ningbo is close to the sea.
It is very suitable for maritime business, whether it is smuggling or legal business. The Xiao family made a lot of money by virtue of its geographical location. They have always been very satisfied with their birthplace in Ningbo, until Xiao passed the imperial examination to become a scholar.
The Xiao family also had scholars before Xiao Tong, such as Xiao Zhuo, but they were all very reluctant to pass the exam. Not to mention that they had no intention of taking the exam in the first place, and even if they had, they would definitely not be able to pass the exam. But Xiao Tong has been very smart since he was a child and has a good memory.
He was also very strong. He passed the county and government examinations at the age of nine and became a boy student. At the age of twelve, he was admitted as a scholar. The whole family had high hopes for him to pass the examination and even pass the imperial examination.
But at this time, the Xiao family studied the national imperial examination examination format and began to curse Ningbo. In the Ming Dynasty, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Zhejiang were all major scientific examination provinces in the country. Even if there were separate rankings for the north and south, only those who passed the Jinshi examination every year
The number of people is also among the top three in the country.
In Zhejiang Province, Ningbo is the prefecture with the most Jinshi candidates after Shaoxing. The large number of people who have passed the Jinshi exam means that the average level of candidates is higher. It is more difficult to pass the examination locally than elsewhere.
And Ningbo is a place where there are probably a lot of scholars because everyone has made money doing business. The more scholars there are, the more people will pass the examination to become scholars. Now, although the provincial examination is organized uniformly across the province, the admission quota is allocated according to the prefecture.
, those who compete with you are the talents from the same prefecture, which means that the competitive pressure of Ningbo Prefecture is greater than that of other prefectures.
The Xiao family specially found people who were proficient in mathematics, combined with various materials bought from the yamen, and finally calculated that the competitive pressure of Ningbo Prefecture was second in the province and sixth in the country.
Although Xiao Tong is very smart, he is not smart enough to be the best in the world. They deliberately found out the test questions and test papers of the people who passed the previous provincial examinations and asked Xiao Tong to write an article based on the test questions and compare them with the previous ones to find connections.
We specially invited officials with Jinshi background to judge, and they all said that even among the best, they might not be able to win.
How could this work? How could there be a possibility that Xiao Tong would fail the exam? There was a discussion within the Xiao family at that time, discussing how to ensure that Xiao Tong would definitely pass the exam. After much discussion, the final decision was made: to transfer his residence. Change Xiao Tong’s place of birth to
Where the exam is relatively easy, he can be guaranteed to pass.
But relocating is not a simple matter. If it were simple, the restriction on place of birth in the imperial examination would be in vain. In the Ming Dynasty, relocating was very difficult, and even if you changed your place of origin to another place, you would have to live in this place for three generations.
Only in order to participate in the imperial examination. There may not be strict inspection when taking the exams for children and scholars, but the provincial examination and the tribute examination are very strict about this. Once found out, they will be deprived of all honors and even be exiled. Moreover, any scholar who fails in the same county will be punished because of jealousy.
It is possible to report it to the government, but there is no way to prevent it. The Xiao family thought about it for a long time, but no one thought of a foolproof way.
Just when everyone was about to give up, Xiao Zhuo suddenly thought of a way, or in other words, a loophole in the Ming Dynasty's administrative system.
When Yunxi first established the Shanghai Ship Bureau, he asked the person who promoted the Shanghai Ship Bureau to concurrently serve as the magistrate of Shanghai County. However, in order to clarify the rights and responsibilities, he later ordered the establishment of a new Qingpu County and transferred the household registration and land of the people who originally belonged to Shanghai County.
All were transferred to Qingpu County, Shanghai County was abolished, and only the Municipal Shipping Department remained.
But after the news came out, it aroused resistance from local people in Shanghai. Many people did not want to change their household registration into merchants, but they were reluctant to work in the municipal shipping department to make money. Once their household registration was transferred to Qingpu County, they would not be able to enter and exit the municipal shipping department at will like now.
I was working part-time, so there was a group of opposition.
He once advised Yunxi on the promotion of the Shanghai Shipping Department, but the Battle of Annan had already been fought, and Yunxi had devoted all his energy to preparing for the war with Samarkand. He only approved that it must not affect the business of the City Shipping Department.
', and said nothing else.
Since the emperor approved it in this way, Tiju did not dare to forcibly move the people's household registrations to Qingpu County, so it was delayed.
Xiao Zhuo said to the tribe: "You all know that when we first started doing business in the Shanghai Shipping Company, we were afraid that His Majesty would kill our family as fat sheep that day, so we were very concerned about His Majesty's various decrees and tried to figure out his intentions.
Your Majesty’s thoughts, please also read some other regulations.”
"I discovered that according to the regulations of the imperial court, under normal circumstances, even newly established states and counties must live in this village for three generations before they can participate in the imperial examination; but what about the residents of new counties and counties? Each newly established county has to live in this village for three generations.
The county towns are all newly built and originally had no residents, but after the county towns were built, there were residents. How to count the residents of these county towns?"
"The imperial court's charter does not stipulate this. I checked the previous practices and found that if someone in the county seat of this new county wants to take the imperial examination, as long as they can prove that their family has lived in the county seat since the county was established.
Can take the exam."
"So I plan to move Xiao Tong's birthplace to Qingpu County." Xiao Zhuo said: "Qingpu County, as a newly established county to replace Shanghai County, has been established for a short time. It is completely possible to forge previous records and pretend to be Qingpu County.
Xiao Tong's household registration was moved to Qingpu County when he was established; as for why he didn't live in the county, it can be argued that he didn't want to live in the county because it was deserted and it was inconvenient to buy nothing."
"Moreover, Qingpu County was established after the last rural examination, so there is a reasonable explanation for Xiao Tong's participation in the provincial examination in Zhejiang last time."
"The best thing is that this is a loophole in the imperial regulations. If a scholar who has lived there for a long time reports it in anger, it is hard to say how the imperial court will deal with it; but because the people in Qingpu County are unwilling to transfer their household registration,
There are not many people near the county seat, so I don’t worry about anyone reporting me.”
"Good!" At that time, everyone in the Xiao family happily shouted the word "good" after hearing what Xiao Zhuo said. Although the competition in the Zhili region was not easy, in history, it surpassed Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangxi in the late Ming Dynasty and became the national imperial examination
The place with the greatest competitive pressure is still much easier than Zhejiang at this time. Songjiang Prefecture has much less competitive pressure than Ningbo Prefecture. If you change your household registration to Qingpu County, the possibility of passing the examinations and Jinshi is much greater.
So Xiao Zhuo used gold and silver to pave the way and successfully bribed the former official in charge of household registration in Qingpu County who was now an official. He not only changed Xiao Tong's household registration, but also forged the records of the previous two years.
It just so happened that Xiao Zhuo's son Xiao Yong also passed the scholar examination last year. Although he was not as smart as Xiao Tong and had a low chance of passing the examination, he still had a desire to make progress in the imperial examination and pestered his father to change his household registration. Xiao Zhuo
Thinking that one would be a change, both would be a change, and after all, this was his son, so he agreed.
After changing the household registrations of the two people at the end of last year, Xiao Zhuo found many officials from the Ministry of Rites and the Hanlin Academy, and even the emperor's articles and memorials to read and try to figure out what exam questions would be asked. After all, this is the capital, and His Majesty might know it.
To mix in the topic of rural examination policy theory, Xiao Tong moved to the capital for convenience.
Facing the emperor at this time, Xiao Zhuo certainly did not dare to tell the truth, but he also did not dare to tell lies, so he could only speak carefully. But even so, Yunxi had already understood.
After listening to Xiao Zhuo's narration, Yunxi sighed in his heart: 'This ability to find loopholes is really strong, and he can find such a small loophole.'
He lowered his head and saw that Xiao Zhuo had been kneeling on the ground begging for mercy after saying these words. He smiled and said: "Xiao Zhuo, it is not you who are to blame for this matter. It is the loopholes in the imperial court's regulations. I will not punish you and your two children."
Nephew."
"I also allow them to take part in the Zhili Provincial Examination."
"Thank you for your grace, Your Majesty." After hearing Yunxi's words, Xiao Zhuo immediately kowtowed and said.
"Thank you for your grace!" Xiao Tong and Xiao Yong also hurriedly kowtowed. They just listened to Xiao Zhuo's words and understood that the person in front of them was the emperor of the Ming Dynasty. How dare they be disrespectful? Moreover, the emperor just gave them a grace, allowing them to
Zhili, who had relatively little competition pressure, took part in the provincial examination, and with a sense of gratitude to the emperor, he kowtowed more seriously than Xiao Zhuo, and soon blood started to flow from his forehead.
"Everyone, get up. There is no need to kowtow anymore. Especially Xiao Tong and Xiao Yong, you are going to take the Yingtian Township Examination in more than twenty days. What if your head is damaged?" Yunxi said.
"Thank you, Your Majesty." The three of them bowed and thanked them again, and then stood up.
After the three of them stood up, Yunxi immediately turned around and ordered a guard beside him: "Immediately tell Qin Song, the commander of the Jinyi Guards, about this and ask him to send someone to Qingpu County to copy the local household registration book.
Once again." Although Yunxi believed that mistakes made before the promulgation of the law should not be pronounced with late legal provisions because of the judicial concepts left over from his previous life, and allowed two people named Xiao to participate in the imperial examination, it does not mean that he can allow this loophole to continue.
exist.
"You send someone to inform the Six Ministers and the Imperial Censor. No, there is no need to inform the Minister of War. I will go to Qianqing Palace after the court tomorrow. I have something to discuss with them." After the Ming Dynasty, it is likely that prefectures and counties will be established. This loophole
It must be completely made up legally. (To be continued)