The imperial examinations in the Ming Dynasty were held on the first day of March and the fifteenth day of March. They were adjusted several times in different periods.
During the Chongzhen period, the country was in dire straits in all aspects. The war was in turmoil and people's livelihood was in decline. Most scholars may not be able to withstand the long-term consumption of high prices in the capital.
Therefore, the imperial court also wanted to save trouble and changed the examination to the first day of March, so as to shorten the time for the candidates to stay in the capital after the examination, and to take the examination early and pass the examination.
It was both Shen Shuren's and Fang Yizhi's first time to participate in Chunwei. Such a tight schedule also left them no time to make new friends.
Basically, after reading the list, I knew that I was qualified for the palace examination, so I immediately went back to prepare behind closed doors.
…
In the evening before the imperial examination, in the Forbidden City.
After finishing his office work during the day, Zhu Youjian stretched out and took advantage of the fact that the Minister of Etiquette came over to perform business during the New Year, so he took the opportunity to pay attention to the list of imperial examinations:
"Fang Qing, did you find any outstanding talents during this examination? I just looked at the list of tomorrow's imperial examination. The comments you gave are all clichés. How can you tell the character of Juzi!"
Fang Fengnian was here to deliver materials to the emperor, so he had no choice but to be questioned like this:
"Your Majesty, character is easy to be faked, but knowledge cannot be faked. The Ministry of Rites can only evaluate knowledge when appointing officials. As for the character of the candidate, your Majesty can make your own decision tomorrow.
The purpose of the imperial examination system was to revolutionize the examination system of the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties, eliminate the shortcomings of the examination system, and put an end to those who are hypocritical and pretentious. Those who are loyal and filial as mentioned in the article may not necessarily be truly loyal and filial in life."
Zhu Youjian was very unhappy when he heard this, but now that the imperial examination was coming, he didn't want to argue with Fang Fengnian.
Now among the officials from the six ministries, the emperor was not satisfied with the ministers from the three ministries of household, rites and punishment.
Those ministers also knew in their own hearts that they felt that accompanying the emperor was like accompanying a tiger, and they wanted to quit. They did not give the emperor face on many issues. If they were caught making a small mistake, they would be dismissed from office and go home to escape the fire pit. As long as they did not make a big mistake and be punished. Just kill.
Everyone has seen the war situation in the Ming Dynasty. Nowadays, officials in the capital are really not that valuable. It is a basic operation to change the ministers every two years.
Needless to say, Cheng Guoxiang, the former Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, moved things like beads in an abacus. Zhu Youjian asked the Ministry of Revenue to check things, and he had to rely on the minister Jiang Dejing to take care of it.
The current Minister of Rites, Fang Fang, had previously, together with Liu Zhifeng, Minister of the Ministry of Punishment, had a quarrel with the emperor over some judicial opinions.
The main reason was that they felt that the series of new laws introduced by Chongzhen last year to deal with corrupt officials were too cruel. They not only killed themselves, but also implicated the killing of their family members. They advised the emperor, saying that according to the current situation, such strict law enforcement might disperse the hearts of the people——
But Chongzhen had a bad temper. When he saw them begging for mercy, he thought that Fang and Liu had taken the money and wanted to make money.
Therefore, at the end of last year, Chongzhen dismissed Liu Zhifeng, the person directly responsible, and sent him to prison for investigation. The position of Minister of the Ministry of Punishment is still vacant, and the minister of the Ministry of Punishment works on his behalf.
(Note: Historically, Chongzhen did not seize clear evidence of Liu Zhifeng’s crime in the end. Liu Zhifeng was starved to death in prison and nothing was done.)
Fang Fengnian also knew that after Liu Zhifeng was dealt with and the verdict was finalized, it might be his turn.
Of course, he is not from the Ministry of Punishment. He just helped to give some advice on that matter, and he will not be punished, but dismissal from office is a high probability event.
Today, the emperor asked about the list of candidates for the palace examination, and said that the Ministry of Rites did not pay attention to the candidates' character, and the comments were not comprehensive enough. So every year, he would explain the truth to the emperor and analyze it with great iron-headedness.
He knew that the emperor had recently been involved in a series of cases such as Liu Zhifeng's, which had made him doubt the loyalty of all his courtiers. So much so that the emperor no longer cared about the knowledge of civil servants, and only wanted to find some moral gentlemen to help him. That's why he had such a
Paranoid.
As the Minister of Rites, he must remind the emperor: Since ancient times, it has been impossible to expect moral restraint. In the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties, officials were selected based on their character. The final result was all kinds of hypocrisy, comparing whose parents died with more burials, keeping filial piety for a long time, and sleeping on the ice.
Asking for carp, it’s actually all fake!
Zhu Youjian was put in a bad mood, and he actually came up with the idea of "waiting for the end of Chunwei's work to be dismissed before Feng Nian".
However, for the next few days, we have to endure it. If the Minister of Rites is taken down by the emperor before the admission results of the palace examination come out, where will the court's face be saved?
Zhu Youjian suppressed his anger and patiently forced Fang Fengnian to name a few talents with integrity from the palace examination list, and gave him the previous papers for review and confirmation.
Fang Fengnian was forced to have no choice. He sighed and had to give a few names:
"Wei Zaode in the capital and Gao Eryan in Tianjin all have articles that are upright. However, I still say the same thing. Your character cannot be seen from the wording of your articles. Your Majesty, please be careful!"
In addition, there are Ningbo Ge Shizhen, Tongcheng Fang Yizhi, Suzhou Shen Lin and others. Their articles are simple in wording, prudent in policy and argumentation, and they have mature views on running the country. These people will be selected in the middle range during the examination. If your Majesty is interested, you can also
one look."
Fang Fengnian didn't dare to talk nonsense, after all, the emperor wanted to read the original scroll.
Sure enough, Zhu Youjian immediately asked someone to bring the paper, picked out these people, and read it carefully. The emperor was not very professional, so the quality of the eight-legged rhetoric, the quality of inheritance and transformation, mainly depended on each person's political attitude.
As expected, Wei Zaode's article sang a high moral note throughout the article, and he sang it more skillfully, which immediately won the emperor's favor.
Others, some more pragmatic, gave the emperor a sense of moral disillusionment.
When he saw Shen Shuren's paper, Zhu Youjian took another thought, suddenly remembered and asked:
"This Shen Lin looks familiar. He is responsible for reforming water transportation under the Ministry of Revenue, right? I remember that two months ago, I informed the Ministry of Revenue to promote pilot water transportation reform, but Cheng Guoxiang did not report the current situation!"
After watching, Zhu Youjian asked people to find people from the Ministry of Household Affairs to ask about the situation, and it was late at night before he knew it.
…
The next day was the official day of the imperial examination.
Chen Shuren and Fang Yizhi followed two hundred and ninety-eight other students of the same class early in the morning. Under the guidance of officials from the Ministry of Rites, they entered the palace and came to Jianji Hall.
Jianji Hall became the later Baohe Hall, with Wenyuan Pavilion on the left and Wuying Hall on the right. It has always been the venue for the palace examinations.
There are a total of three hundred desks in the main hall, with fifteen columns from the east and west and twenty rows from the north and south, arranged in a square and neat manner. The four treasures of the study are of the same color on the table, and candidates do not need to prepare them themselves.
Chongzhen sat on the central throne and said a few words of encouragement before the exam began.
Chen Shuren also boldly observed secretly, and found that Chongzhen's appearance was beyond his expectation. He looked wrinkled, skinny, with mottled beard and hair, and he did not look like a man who was just thirty years old.
Soon, Chongzhen announced the test questions himself, and the last stone in Shen Shuren's heart fell to the ground:
Sure enough, the test was about how to rectify the administration of officials to deal with internal and external strife, and to prevent officials from being disloyal and surrendering to thieves, and being hijacked by slave-building thieves.
Chen Shuren knew very well how to flatter people in order to get high scores, but when he reached the last step, he had no intention of following the steps completely.
Because the opinions on today's answer sheet may be recorded in history books, he doesn't want future generations to say that his opinions on the palace examination are purely childish and hypocritical.
Fortunately, he had been preparing for this answer for a long time, had multiple spare options, and knew how to compromise so as not to offend Chongzhen, but still have something to say.
After making up his mind, Shen Shuren answered the paper quickly and quickly. In terms of the speed of handing in the paper, he was definitely in the top ten percent.
Because most people had not finished the exam, Chongzhen was able to take the time to grade the first few papers in person before handing them over to the officials of the Ministry of Rites. When more people submitted papers later, the emperor could not read them and basically stopped reading them. .
The palace examination took three hours in total, and the results would not be available immediately. In theory, two days would be left for marking the papers. So after the examination, Shen Shuren and others went back.
But during these two days, the emperor can also interview candidates he thinks are good in advance.
The results of the policy question may also affect the final score, and the ranking is not entirely determined by the test paper.
So, just the next day, the second day of March, after the officials of the Ministry of Rites roughly reviewed the papers overnight and shortlisted the list of 60 people who could enter the first and second grades, Chongzhen personally summoned these 60 people and selected some questions for interviews.
As for the two hundred and forty people in the top three, the emperor had no time to ask. It was said that the emperor personally picked them up, but in fact the officials of the Ministry of Rites decided on their own and it was just a process.
After Chen Shuren learned that he had entered the sixty-person interview range, he knew that the second-class "Jinshi origin" was already there, so that he would not be reduced to "the same Jinshi". As for "Jinshi passing", he didn't think about it at all. I also know that I have no strength.
The location of the interview was not far from the Jianji Hall the day before, and was just to the west at the Wenhua Hall.
After everyone saluted, Chongzhen took the lead in asking Wei Zaode, whom he was most optimistic about:
"Nowadays, there are internal and external strife. Many officials in the imperial court have surrendered to thieves, and those who serve the country faithfully are becoming increasingly rare. How do you think we should rectify the situation? Wei Zaode, please tell me first."
Wei Zaode cheered up and hurriedly came out: "Your Majesty, I believe that the civil and military ambitions are not firm and that we are unable to be diligent in state affairs. This is mostly because the court's selection of officials pays great attention to fictitious writing, and it is unable to sharpen the integrity of benevolent people and magnify the spirit of lofty ideals.
As the saying goes, knowing shame is close to courage, but in today's court, there is no shame in being greedy and weak. There are even some important officials in the court who feel that they should be lenient to those who surrendered to thieves in various prefectures and counties, and give them the so-called opportunity to "reinvent themselves".
As everyone knows, once this bad example is launched, although it can save a few people who have lost their way, it will also make the world's morals decay, and those who know shame and integrity will be ashamed to associate with them. If things go on like this, the morale of the court will decline, but it will be like entering a den of abalone. Don’t worry about the smell for a long time.”
Chen Shuren was by the side and was not surprised at all, because he knew that this was the political attitude that the emperor himself liked to hear during the imperial examination in the 13th year of Chongzhen according to history books.
As expected, Chongzhen was immediately overjoyed and praised Wei Zaode, a moral model with "zero tolerance for bad officials."
After hearing the emperor's attitude, other would-be Jinshi next to him, and when asked about it again by Chongzhen, many of them agreed and emphasized the importance of "cleaning up the court atmosphere".
Some radical candidates, fearing that their speeches would not impress the emperor, quickly turned their speeches into empirical measures.
While talking, several candidates said sternly that Xiong Wencan, the former Superintendent of the Sixth Province who is currently in prison, should be interrogated and executed as soon as possible!
To warn those officials who do not have strong principles and have high expectations for those officials who surrendered to the thieves and hope that the rebels will reform!
Loyalty is not absolute, it is absolutely disloyal! Issues of principle cannot be ambiguous!
Soon, the would-be Jinshi who held this kind of view left a good impression on Chongzhen. Unfortunately, there were too many of them and their rhetoric was the same, so they were not very impressive, and in the end their recognition was not very high.
Beside Shen Shuren, his companion Fang Yizhi heard this response and shook his head secretly. He also whispered to Shen Shuren while others were not paying attention:
"Your Majesty personally asked, why did everyone sing a high-pitched tune? This unrealistic idea is really dangerous. How many people in the world today dare to say that they have never been sorry to Ming Dynasty?
Nowadays, the generals who lead troops to resist the bandits and slave-builders, some are bandits anyway, and some have supported their own troops, preserved their strength, and trapped their superiors without saving... There are too many problems. We really need to blame them for being shameless, and judge their deeds as well as their hearts. I'm afraid there are thousands of troops trying to force Li Chuang and Jiannu to his side."
Chen Shuren also sighed and shook his head slightly, signaling Fang Yizhi not to worry:
"What I said is true, but today is His Majesty's question, not a debate in front of the emperor. If I feel that what Wei Zaode said is inappropriate, I should think of another set of measures and discuss the matter based on the facts. You cannot directly refute it, and break it instead of establishing it."
The biggest difference between policy questioning and debate is that in debate you can only refute the opponent, but you cannot come up with a solution.
However, the policy question must be "If you do it, you will get it." If you can't get it, then you won't have to speak respectfully. Otherwise, it will definitely be a disgrace before the emperor and you will be severely punished by the emperor.
Fang Yizhi felt that Wei Zaode was shameless, but he really couldn't think of another solution and could only endure it.