In mid-April of the fourth year of Xuanping, the latest general examination of the Tang Dynasty came to an end. This time, there were 320 candidates in the Jinshi Department and 120 in the Doctoral Department, for a total of 440 people.
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From the comparison of the numbers of the two, it can be seen that the Tang Dynasty is gradually increasing the number of people admitted to the doctoral program, from ten at the beginning, to eighty, and now to one hundred and twenty.
In time, it is very possible that the number of students admitted to the doctoral program will reach the level of the Jinshi program.
At the same time, the level of candidates who passed the imperial examination this time far exceeded the previous two imperial examinations!
This is because during the first two imperial examinations, the Tang Dynasty was not very powerful, and the scholars still had great doubts about whether the Tang Dynasty could survive. In fact, many of those who came to participate in the imperial examinations at that time were
Scholars with low-end character, many students who were only scholars in the past, can easily obtain the title of Juren and then participate in the examination as long as they take part in the imperial examination.
At the same time, it was also because mathematics, physics, chemistry and other subjects had just been promoted, and students were new to them at that time, so their level was naturally not that high.
The talents selected from such students are naturally not that high.
But today, two years later, the Tang Dynasty has proved its strength by conquering Hengyang, Changsha, Jiujiang, and Wuchang. In addition, the Tang Dynasty has also done many things that harmed the interests of the landlords and gentry, such as
The gentry, who were deeply disgusted by the landlord class, paid taxes as a group and divided their children into acres and other systems.
However, although the Tang Dynasty opposed the landlords on these matters, on the other hand, it still welcomed and even appeased the scholars as a group, and also established imperial examinations, which gave scholars hope in the Tang Dynasty.
A hope of continued prosperity and wealth!
Coupled with the fact that the Tang Dynasty has won consecutive battles, many people are doubting that the Ming Dynasty may not be able to hold on anymore. It is the time to join the Tang Dynasty to do a big cause, so there are so many former Ming Dynasties.
Juren came to apply for and participate in the Imperial Examination of the Tang Dynasty.
In addition, after more than two years of continuous promotion, science subjects such as physics, chemistry, and arithmetic have become relatively popular. Although the overall level is not high, it is at least much better than the previous two years.
Under this circumstance, the level of scholars admitted in the fourth year of Xuanping was much higher than that of the previous two years.
There is also a very interesting phenomenon, that is, whether it is the scholars admitted to the Jinshi Department or the Doctoral Department, a considerable number of them are students from the Imperial College.
A total of more than 200 students from the Imperial College participated in the undergraduate examination, and more than 180 were admitted. This ratio is quite high!
After all, the test questions in the current general examination are actually set according to the courses in the Imperial College, and the difficulty of the general examination in this subject is actually equivalent to the graduation examination of the Imperial College this year. Basically, as long as you can pass the graduation examination of the Imperial College, then basically
You will be able to pass the examination.
As a result, the Imperial College has become the cradle of new scholars. Many scholars who failed the examination want to apply to enter the Imperial College, and then study for one or two years before taking the examination.
After the success of this imperial examination, more than 400 potential mid-level and senior officials were added to the Tang Dynasty, but Li Xuan was still not satisfied with this!
The huge Tang Dynasty needed a lot of officials, and in the Tang Dynasty, not only officials above the county magistrate were officials, even ordinary clerks had the rank of ninth grade.
The official title also belongs to officials.
The large number of officials below the seventh rank is the talent gap that the officialdom of the Tang Dynasty urgently needs to solve.
In the first two years, the gap in low-level officials was mainly solved by directly recruiting talents, promoting officials and retaining officials from the previous Ming Dynasty.
Let’s not talk about the retention of officials in the former Ming Dynasty, but directly recruiting talents and promoting officials is not ideal, because as long as there are some ideal scholars who also want to join the Tang Dynasty, people will go directly to the meeting to try.
After I left, I was not willing to become an official directly based on the merits of being a scholar or a successful candidate. I believed that such an official path was not the right path at all, and it would be difficult to get promoted in the future. Moreover, once I became an official and had a formal official status, I would not be able to return to the official position.
Went to the meeting to try.
In addition, there is also an impact that if these people directly become officials, their starting point is generally very low, and the official status obtained in this way cannot even match their original social status.
You must know that in ancient times, a person's social status was quite high and he was a well-established local gentry class. If you asked them to be a junior section member or a junior section chief in a county, they would not be willing to do it.
Finally, in order to dispel their worries, Li Xuan issued an imperial edict. Scholars who directly entered the official ranks as scholars or judicial officers still retained the right to participate in the imperial examination. They could participate in the imperial examination at any time as long as they wanted.
As for the issue of social status, this is more difficult to deal with. Naturally, it is impossible for these candidates to be given too high an official position at the beginning. Otherwise, you will let those who take the examination to be admitted to the Jinshi, Ph.D. level.
But Li Xuan issued an order to inform the world that whether you are a scholar, a scholar, a Jinshi, or a doctor, you can hold any official position as long as you have the ability.
Li Xuan also knew that this was only treating the symptoms but not the root cause. There was only one way to really solve this problem, which was to popularize the titles of Jinshi and Doctor, and then turn them into academic titles, and then set up a large-scale national examination.
For exams like this, everyone starts from scratch, so there won’t be a lot of trouble.
However, the reform of the imperial examination is more troublesome than the reform of education. Now the Tang Dynasty is at a critical moment of competing with the Ming Dynasty for hegemony, and Li Xuan is unwilling to make casual changes, which will lead to instability within the Tang Dynasty.
At the same time, there is a prerequisite for establishing an academic qualification system and a national examination system, which is the need to establish a complete set of modern education systems, at least a few universities!
However, the modern education system of the Tang Dynasty is still in its infancy. Junior colleges in various places have just begun to operate, and several colleges of higher learning are only in name only. As for the Young Military Camp, this institution is too special and is not an ordinary school at all.
mechanism.
This kind of thing can only happen slowly!
After the end of the imperial examination, Zhaoqing returned to peace. Not only Zhaoqing returned to peace, but in fact most areas, even the front lines, have returned to peace.
After the Tang Dynasty occupied Wuchang and Jiujiang, Zhang Yue's Huguang Ming Army stationed troops on the north bank of the Yangtze River, with Hanyang as the center, rebuilt the defense line, and at the same time used the powerful navy to rush directly to Yuezhou, blocking Dongting Lake from entering the Yangtze River.
of alley.
Wang Yiqi directly abandoned Fuzhou and stationed a large number of troops on the line from Hukou to Anqing. At the same time, he deployed naval forces to directly block the entrance of Poyang Lake into and out of the Yangtze River, and built naval camps on the north bank of the Yangtze River and even on Jiangzhou Island.
, and also built forts, completely blocking the passage from Poyang Lake to the Yangtze River.
Now, both Zhang Yue and Wang Yiqi are directly blocking the Yangtze River with a large number of naval forces and forts, trying to curb the march of the Tang Army by blocking the Yangtze River!
To this end, Wang Yiqi even dispatched a large number of Fu Chuan, Guang Chuan and other ships that originally belonged to the coastal navy to directly enter the Yangtze River to block the channel.
In response to this situation, on the one hand, the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty bypassed the Yangtze River and directly used the land route as the logistics supply line. At the same time, he also made every effort to build an inland river naval fleet in Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake, and established the Yangtze River Fleet based on the Xiangjiang Fleet.
The Second Squadron of the Yangtze River Fleet was established based on the First Squadron and Ganjiang Fleet.
When the two squadrons of the Yangtze River Fleet are formed, it will be the day when the Tang Dynasty enters the south of the Yangtze River!
However, when the Ming Navy deployed a large number of ships into the Yangtze River for defense, it also gave the First Fleet of the Tang Navy a chance to conquer Nan'ao Island.
The Tang Navy had long planned to conquer Nan'ao Island. However, due to the large number of Ming naval forces on Nan'ao Island, and the Datang Navy's own weak strength, the previous several attacks were all feints, mainly to contain Nan'ao Island.
The Ming army.
But now, after acquiring a number of warships, the Tang Dynasty Navy is ready to launch a new round of naval battles to completely seize Nan'ao Island and push the maritime front to Fujian and even the estuary of the Yangtze River.
Although Li Xuan maintained a supportive attitude towards the naval plan, he did not invest too much attention and resources.
Now his mind is not on the navy, but on internal affairs construction and the Jiangnan battle plan.
If you want to seize the south of the Yangtze River, you must march eastward along the Yangtze River in one go. To do this, the strength of the Second Army and the First Army must be restored and replenished, and you must also take advantage of the rainy season to reorganize the units that have not yet completed their reorganization.
At the same time, we also need to vigorously support the construction of the Yangtze River Fleet. If we cannot seize control of the Yangtze River, then marching to the south of the Yangtze River will become very troublesome.
Naturally, a large number of generals will be responsible for the military's supplementary reorganization plan. All Li Xuan has to do is provide military funds and equipment, and he doesn't need to worry about the rest.
On the contrary, in terms of internal affairs construction, there are many things for him to worry about!
In late April, the French envoys who had been left out for many months finally gave in and re-wrote a letter of credence to request an audience. This time they did not insist on using the title of emperor, but honestly used the title of king.
this title.
Now that the Fo Langji people had surrendered, Li Xuan also took advantage of the situation and went down the steps, and then issued an order to allow them to enter Zhaoqing for an audience. After receiving the news, a group of Fo Langji people who had been waiting in Guangzhou for a long time finally went to his house with excitement.
At the same time, the ships, escorted by the Tang Navy, began to arrive in Zhaoqing along the Xijiang River.
When they first arrived at the pier outside Zhaoqing, these blond and blue-eyed people seemed to have discovered something extremely horrifying. They stared at a boat on the river with billowing smoke, no sails, and no large number of oars.
, a weird boat with only two big wheels on both sides sailed up the river!
Seeing this scene, Gerdes from the Franji Mission made an incredible voice: "Oh my God, what is this, a monster?"