On the spring equinox of the twenty-seventh year of Fu Rui's reign, today was the first grand court meeting after the Chinese New Year. Except for the powerful officials stationed in several border states, almost all the foreign officials and pillars of the court came with majestic slogans.
Arrive in the capital.
Among them were state shepherds from various states, as well as some relatively large county guards. They followed the torrent at the intersection of the waning moon in the sky and the first red in the east, turning from the high gate mansions in all directions to the imperial road in front of Donghua Gate.
Slowly swarmed outside the imperial city gate.
And the reason why so many foreign officials from the imperial court came to Beijing this time is because they want to bring the most famous scholars from their respective places to the capital to take an exam, an exam that can directly change their destiny!
Because as long as you pass this exam, you are 50% sure that you will have a position as a Beijing official in your pocket!
The academy issue led by Lu Xiangrui the previous year finally came to a conclusion today. Jinghua Academy will recruit their first class of students today.
In fact, the construction of Jinghua Academy was completed at the end of last year, but it was a good time for every family to reunite, and it was not convenient to recruit all the scholars to Beijing to take some exams, so the date was postponed to today.
.
Today is not so much a court meeting as it is an exam invigilation meeting headed by Chu Zheng, leading the civil and military officials, because after Chu Zheng met with the courtiers, he waved his hand and said he wanted to go to the examination room.
Hundreds of officials had just entered the Donghua Gate in a huge crowd, and immediately walked out in a line. It was just pitiful for those who had been in local government all their lives and finally seized the opportunity to take a good look at the Golden Palace.
Can see clearly.
Behind Chu Zheng, Chu Wushuang and Chu Tianxiong were accompanying him, one on the left and the other on the right. Since Chu Tianxiong came to Beijing, the two brothers, who had a deep relationship at first, got closer and closer.
.
By the time Chu Zheng and the others staggered all the way to the south of the city, the entrance exam had already been completed for the most part. Because it was just a simple enrollment process, the content of the exam was far less complicated than the imperial examination and could be completed in just two hours.
All exam content.
But what is worth mentioning in this exam is that in addition to the literary candidates, there are also martial arts candidates. Chu Tianxiong relied on the letter he brought back to the capital to ensure the stability of the border between Chu and the Southern Tang Dynasty for ten years. The establishment of the
Martial Arts Academy.
With his help, Da Chu selected fifty small flag officers and twenty small flag officers from the frontier armies of the three border states and the standing armies of the remaining five states and came to the capital to take the exam.
The small flag officer is a position specially created by Da Chu to train low-level officers. If you want to make a living in the military camp, you must seriously practice the position of the small flag officer for several years.
Compared with liberal arts candidates, the items for martial arts candidates are more complicated. In addition to regular horse riding and archery, they also need to test military strategy and formation! From this, it can be seen that in Chu Tianxiong’s mind, this martial arts candidate
How serious is the academy?
Chu Zheng led hundreds of officials to walk around the examination room. After confirming that this examination did not involve buying and selling places like the previous imperial examinations, he felt at ease. If someone cheated in this first-year examination,
Then there is really no need to continue opening this academy!
"Fat Zhao, how much does this entire academy cost?"
After looking at the entire academy, even Chu Zheng's critical eye had to nod with satisfaction. Where there should be pavilions and pavilions, there are water pavilions and cloud residences! Where there should be splendor, there are gold and silver inlays.
!
When it comes to Zhao Yunqing, the Minister of Household Affairs, Chu Zheng is quite satisfied. Although he is greedy for money sometimes, he does things very neatly and neatly.
Hearing the emperor's shout, a fat man in the crowd pushed aside everyone and trotted to Chu Zheng's side. As a celebrity around Chu Zheng, he didn't have to buy anyone's face.
"Hey...Hey, Your Majesty, the little fat guy is here!"
"Stay away from me. Don't be disgusted with me. How old are you? You still call yourself a little fat boy. You're almost an old fat boy. Please tell me how much money this academy cost me."
Seeing that Zhao Yunqing was about to touch him, Chu Zheng immediately reached out to stop him, and Zhao Yunqing also stopped obediently.
"Hey, Your Majesty, I told you not to blame me. We have built an academy before, and the cost is usually around 150,000 taels, but now our academy has an additional martial arts academy. In total,
You need to have an extra training ground, a martial arts performance ground, and..."
"Okay, okay, stop talking nonsense, I just want to know how much money this academy spent!"
"Three hundred thousand taels!"
Upon hearing Chu Zheng's request, Zhao Yunqing changed his habit of being verbose and immediately spoke in a concise and concise manner, while Chu Zheng
But she looked at him with a half-smile.
"Fat Zhao, one hundred thousand taels of this must have gone into your own pocket!"
Hearing Chu Zheng's words, Zhao Yunqing's face immediately fell. Even though his fat face tried to look aggrieved, he looked like a good girl who had just been raped by a man.
It's just that the man isn't too picky about his food.
"Your Majesty! What an injustice! What a huge injustice. Even if you lend me ten courages, I wouldn't dare to put a hundred thousand taels in my pocket!"
Chu Zheng was not angry, but rather happy. It seemed that he was very happy to tease this little fat man.
"Then tell me how much you took."
Seeing Chu Zheng's question, Zhao Yunqing immediately put away his coy attitude. He was probably used to being casual in front of Chu Zheng, so he pretended to hesitate for a few seconds before speaking.
"Hehe, not much, not much, only fifty thousand taels."
"Fifty thousand! Fifty thousand is not much!"
Chu Zheng's tone suddenly became serious, and Zhao Yunqing immediately knelt down on the ground in a familiar way, then flicked his sleeves and started crying with tears and snot. Looking at his look, it was probably not the first time he had done this.
.
Every time the emperor heard that he was greedy for money, he always had this tone. He already knew how to deal with it.
"Um... Your Majesty! This money doesn't all go into my pocket alone. Although I have a relatively high official title and am the chief engineer of the academy, I still have to feed the people below before they can concentrate on it.
Do things for me! As the saying goes, the king of hell is easy to deal with, but the kid is difficult to deal with. Of the 50,000 silver that I was greedy for, 40,000 were divided up by those kid, and only 10,000 taels actually went into my own pocket!
Even then, the evil bitch at home took everything away and left me not a single cent. Your Majesty, I feel so miserable!"
"I knew you were such a shameless and shameless person. Get out of here!"
"Hey! Thank you, Your Majesty, for your kindness!"
Hearing Zhao Yunqing's miserable words, Chu Zheng did not continue to embarrass him, and the latter simply put away his tears and got up from the ground, a little more agile than him in doing practical things, just like the person who had just begged for mercy.
Not like him.
In fact, Chu Zheng is not afraid that his officials are greedy for money. If you are not greedy for money as an official, what is the point of wearing this official hat?
What's more, Zhao Yunqing, an old fat man, knows how to feed his subordinates, so why doesn't Chu Zheng understand it?
It's just that he believes that officials must be greedy for money within a certain limit. As long as it doesn't exceed his bottom line in Chu government, there won't be any problem.
What's more, you have to do things while being greedy for money, and you have to do things well! Just like Zhao Yunqing, he gets the money and manages things beautifully. Of course, Chu Zheng will not blame him. This is probably
This is probably the reason why Chu Zheng prefers Fatty Zhao who is unabashed in front of him!
After they took a look around, the exam in the academy was coming to an end. In order not to disturb these scholars, Chu Zheng went back to the palace before the exam ended. In order not to cause trouble, he also stayed in the academy.
The court meeting was dismissed at the door, but he was kind and righteous and did not let the officials make another trip.
At the gate of the academy, many officials have gone back to their homes to find their mothers. Only the officials from outside the capital still stay here.
They want to know the examination status of the scholars they brought as soon as possible, and then choose the best ones to curry favor with them.
For these foreign officials of the imperial court, being able to enter the capital and become a capital official is the most honorable thing to do to honor one's ancestors. It doesn't matter even if they lose one or two ranks because of it.
But it was probably impossible for them to get promoted on their own, so they had no choice but to place their hopes on these scholars.
Besides them, there were two other people who had not left, namely the second prince Chu Tianxiong and the minister Cheng Yijie.
"Second Prince, you are going to the Martial Arts Academy to check out the situation anyway, why not take a look at the Arts Academy? This is a good opportunity to win people's hearts!"
Regarding the suggestion put forward by Shangshu Ling, Chu Tianxiong did not agree and shook his head.
"The reason why I want to go to the Martial Arts Academy is because I have high hopes for it. However, the students in the Arts Academy are different. The more I value them, the more they will treat me as nothing. Once I make them feel arrogant,
After that, it will be difficult to suppress them later.”
After listening to Chu Tianxiong's words, Cheng Yijie nodded in agreement. Those scholars are really such idiots.
"The second prince is right, but the veteran didn't think it through clearly."
Chu Tianxiong looked at Cheng Yijie and laughed.
"Old Minister, not only have you not thought clearly, you have also
I didn’t understand! If I went to the School of Liberal Arts this time, the people who would immediately rush to flatter me would be people who want to flatter me. What’s the use of such people? Most of the remaining people are also people who are just looking for fame.
, they are even more dispensable. The most disgusting people in the world are those self-proclaimed scholars. Even if there are a few reasonably good scholars among the others, I can't buy them off just by going to see them."
After Chu Tianxiong finished speaking, the bell for the end of the college exam rang behind him. He ignored Cheng Yijie and turned around and walked into the college.
"It seems that the second prince really became the emperor, which is not bad!"
Looking at Chu Tianxiong's back, Cheng Yijie murmured alone outside the academy gate.
…
In fact, in addition to the opening of the academy, there is another lively event in the capital today. The restaurant that started construction together with the academy and is said to have a big shot behind it also opened!
The restaurant was named Fusheng! As soon as the name came out, people in the capital didn't know that it was the third prince's property, so all the people who were relatively respectable in the capital came to support it.
Originally, these people came with the idea of giving gifts, but after eating the food at Fusheng Restaurant, they realized that the craftsmanship here is no worse than that of Manxiang Restaurant! So everyone who came to give gifts turned into gluttons and filled the restaurant with food.
Ordered all kinds of dishes!
On the seventh floor, the highest floor of Fusheng Restaurant, this place is never open to the public. It is Chu Fusheng’s exclusive box.
At this time, Chu Fusheng was sitting alone in the room. Judging from the laziness of his hands on the chair, it seemed that he had been sitting here for a long time.
There were only four dishes placed in front of him, and these four dishes were the same four dishes he used to entertain Ergou and the others.
After a long silence, Chu Fusheng spoke softly.
"Ergou, the restaurant I promised you has been built. When will you come to the capital to try it?"
He probably thought of Jiang Ergou as a friend, and felt a little happy, so he picked up his chopsticks and took a bite of the Jiangnan Drunken Crab that he had not yet named. He chewed it carefully for a few mouthfuls, then swallowed it, and then gently tasted it again
said.
"Just call Ergou's crab!"
…
The misty rain has gone away from winter in the south of the Yangtze River, and spring is coming again in the small streets south of the city.
In spring, the city of Suzhou is covered with a veil by the continuous spring rain, which makes it difficult to see clearly, especially in the morning when there is still a hazy layer of mist.
A young-looking scholar walked out of a large courtyard with an unknown book under his arm. Judging from the size of the courtyard, it should be from a scholarly family. Even if it is not so good, it is also a wealthy family.
People.
It was probably early spring and there was still some moisture in the air, so the young man gathered his clothes tightly around his body and left in a hurry.
He walked through the dew all the way to the east of the city, and stopped in front of the door of a courtyard where books could be heard. After hesitating for a while, he walked forward and knocked on the door.
Without waiting for too long, the door was opened. The person who opened the door was a very charming little girl. If Ergou were here, he would definitely recognize this little girl as Chen Xici.
But this little girl full of spirit was obviously not happy at this moment. She slightly pouted her little mouth, looking a little playful.
"Lu Dongshu! Didn't I tell you that my grandfather no longer accepts disciples?"
The young scholar was not angry about this, on the contrary, he was a little embarrassed.
"Miss Chen misunderstood. Students are not here to be teachers, but to study."
"Reading!? Mr. Lu, don't try to lie to me."
Little girl Chen Xici laughed as if she had heard some big joke, and just when she was about to drive away this annoying Lu Dongshu, a voice came from behind.
"Little girl Xici, let him come in."
After the little girl heard the sound coming from inside, she didn't know what kind of illness her grandfather was suffering from. She snorted coldly at Lu Dongshu and turned around and left.
The latter burst into laughter, and then walked into the courtyard and walked to the seat below Chen Mu, who was sitting cross-legged on the teacher's seat.
Chen Mu didn't speak, he just looked at Lu Dongshu quietly, and Lu Dongshu didn't speak either. After standing quietly for ten breaths, he bowed to Chen Mu and then went to find a place to read by himself.
Chen Mu's academy is not big, even very small, with only thirty or fifty children. Compared with the newly renovated Jinghua Academy in the capital, it is even more different.
However, although academies are different in size, there is no difference in the depth of learning. When the mind is calm, where can we not learn?