Chapter 171 170 Examination

Wei Guangde ate the lunch that was delivered, took a break, and continued to write his strategy.

Although Wei Guangde was young, he was not a dull scholar who was ignorant of the world. For the questions given by the emperor, he naturally had to sing praises. After praising the emperor, he also had to remember to flatter the court officials. At least at the moment, the head of state and the limbs were truly one, and the upper and lower parts supported each other.

Of course, it was still necessary to make some suggestions in a tactful way, otherwise there would be no highlights, but they were all tricks that others had used too much.

Wei Guangde would not learn from those young people who wanted to get ahead by giving advice, but they did not know that they would be defeated before the reader of the papers, and they would not even have the chance to let the emperor hear them.

Continue to write: "I have read the Book of Documents and it says: "Heaven blesses the people, makes them kings, and makes them teachers. Only if he can serve the God, he can favor and comfort the four directions. The ruler is the one established by the Heaven for the people and the one the people rely on. It is also said: "The ministers are my limbs, ears and eyes." "I disobey, you advise, you don't follow me, retreat and have words behind, respect the four neighbors." The ministers are the resources of the monarch, the ministers and neighbors, and the country relies on them. If the monarch wants to find people to care for the people, he must have the wisdom of knowing people and the wisdom of being an official, and then he can distinguish and be precise, so that he can get the wise ministers of the collection. If you want to care for the people as a monarch, you must do your best to be a minister, and do your best to be loyal, so that you can fulfill your responsibilities to the end of the generation. If the monarch does not know people, the wise and the foolish will be confused and no one can distinguish them, the loyal and the evil will advance together and no one can observe them, the fat and the grace cannot be investigated, and it is difficult to expect him to care for the people!"

The ending is copied from the "Book of Documents".

The meaning of the words is that God blesses the people of the world, selects monarchs and teachers for the people, establishes monarchs for the people to comfort the people, and establishes teachers for the people to teach the people.

Naturally, what Wei Guangde said at the end was that Emperor Jiajing was the monarch chosen by God for the people, and the ministers were the monarch's limbs. If the monarch made a mistake, the ministers should assist the monarch. The ministers should not obey the monarch in person, but talk about him behind his back. The monarch should also pay attention to the ministers and should not be deceived by the ministers.

Having written this, Wei Guangde pondered for a long time and felt that he had said what he should say.

He praised it in the beginning and mentioned a little about the administration of officials in the end. Whether the emperor would be deceived or not was not something he could do.

Wei Guangde felt that this policy paper was pretty good. The main reason was that he did not expect Emperor Jiajing to play by the rules and come up with a "monarch and minister topic" to test people. The several drafts prepared before had to be scrapped, and he had to put together one at the last minute.

Wei Guangde checked it carefully and felt that there was nothing to modify, so he copied it on the question paper. The main purpose of the check was to prevent the use of some inappropriate words. The format problem could be seen at a glance.

After checking the test paper, Wei Guangde felt that there was indeed no problem. He stood up and walked to the east corner gate of the main hall to hand in his test paper. After the test paper was handed over to the seal officer for sealing, Wei Guangde was no longer responsible.

After leaving the Fengtian Hall, Wei Guangde stood on the high steps and looked around. He vaguely felt that it seemed to be not much different from when he came here to travel. There may be some changes in details, but they can no longer be distinguished.

Leaving the main hall meant that Wei Guangde's palace test was over. Then a young eunuch on duty came to take him away. Wei Guangde could not stay for long and followed the young eunuch out of the Forbidden City.

When he arrived on the street, Wei Guangde found Zhang Ji and said, "Let's find the nearest restaurant. Young master, I'm hungry."

Now Wei Guangde is seventeen years old and is in the period of growth. The two steamed buns provided by the palace are enough to eat.

After getting on the carriage, Li San drove the carriage forward to find a place for Wei Guangde to eat. Zhang Ji sat inside and asked in confusion: "Young Master, won't the emperor prepare lunch for you?"

"Yes, just two steamed buns, is it enough for you?"

It would have been fine if Wei Guangde didn't mention it, but he got angry when he mentioned it.

At night, with the last tribute scholar Xia Kefan returning to Jiujiang Guild Hall, today's palace examination was completely over.

However, the candidates were fine, but the Wenhua Hall in the Forbidden City was brightly lit at this time. The examinee had already sent the sealed test papers with the seal of the seal to here, and divided them into fourteen parts according to the number of examiners and handed them to the fourteen examiners.

At this time, more than a dozen tables were placed in the center of the hall, spliced ​​together, and the fourteen examiners each occupied a table to start marking the papers, giving their own evaluations based on the policy papers on the question paper, and marking them according to the five levels of "upper, upper middle, middle, lower middle, lower", for the convenience of later statistics.

The stewards directly delivered the papers of the candidates, and omitted the copying process in the previous imperial examinations.

After everyone had done their preparations, an eunuch entered the side hall to invite the paper reader.

They came here directly after leaving the Fengtian Hall. According to the rules set in the fifth year of Jiajing, during these three days, the paper reader could not leave the palace to go home, but could only stay in the court to rest.

As the paper readers read the papers one by one, they wrote down their own evaluation criteria, and then they had to take turns. Each paper had to be read by the paper reader, with fourteen marks written on it and then summarized.

The best paper, naturally, has as many top-level evaluations as possible, and the stewards below also arranged the papers that have been read according to this standard.

Of course, the paper reader is not a robot, and it is impossible for him to stay in the Wenhua Hall all the time. He can rest if he feels tired in the middle, and the food will be delivered on time by the Guanglu Temple during these days.

In a small rest room, Yan Song frowned and looked at a eunuch, "You mean His Majesty asked about Wei Guangde again on the way back to the West Garden?"

"Yes, I heard it with my own ears. It was Eunuch Chen Hong who replied that His Majesty also asked him about his test ranking."

The eunuch's next words were no longer important. Yan Song had already judged that Emperor Jiajing might be really interested in Wei Guangde, otherwise he would not have asked him several times.

Yan Song had entered the court and had been in contact with Emperor Jiajing for a long time. They had been monarchs and ministers for nearly 20 years. Naturally, he understood what kind of person Emperor Jiajing was.

Although he was devoted to cultivation, he was very clear about the affairs of the court.

After the eunuch left, Yan Song's cloudy eyes gradually became clear. He felt that he might have guessed something.

Although Emperor Jiajing looked mentally and physically good on weekdays, what were those elixirs he had been taking for a long time? Could they be hidden from him?

Not to mention that he had once eaten an elixir given by Emperor Jiajing, which made him lie in bed for three days. When he came back, he had to smile and say that he was not blessed enough to enjoy it.

For the emperor, the people who were born in the guards were all soldiers who had achieved military success. In fact, they were similar to the nobles in the court and were worthy of the trust of the old Zhu family.

The fact that they inherited military positions in the guards actually illustrates this point.

Originally, the emperor should have made more use of the children of the nobles, but now the children of the nobles are generally not very good, so the situation of civil officials dominating the court has already taken shape.

Being noticed by the emperor naturally means that Wei Guangde may have a bright future, of course, it is also possible.

Yan Song thought about it and had already made up his mind. He would know what the emperor was thinking after a test.

The tribute scholars were waiting for the results of the palace examination with both eager anticipation and anxiety. Wei Guangde was the same, but he didn't know that his paper, which was covered with names and should not be recognized by others, was still found and seen by some people with ulterior motives.

Many of the fourteen examiners appointed by Emperor Jiajing this time were people who followed Yan Song. It can be said that his every word and deed would be followed by these people without reservation.

When Yan Song saw a paper that he had hinted at appeared in front of him, Yan Song glanced at it hastily and wrote the evaluation mark of "up" on it, and then handed it to the deputy assistant Xu Jie next to him.

At this time, the original deputy assistant Lü Ben had rarely participated in the cabinet's affairs due to physical reasons, and Xu Jie had become the actual deputy assistant. Although Lü Ben was also appointed as the examiner this time, in fact, his position in the cabinet could only be ranked third.

Xu Jie was actually a little puzzled when he took the paper handed over by Yan Song. He had only handed it over after reading a stack of papers. What did it mean to hand it over alone?

Seeing the marks on it, the closest one was the evaluation mark of "up", and the two in front were both "middle", Xu Jie understood what it meant.

At this time, the positions for grading papers were fixed. No matter how many people had read and evaluated the papers received by each person, they could know who gave what evaluation according to the order, not to mention that Yan Ge Lao was handing over this paper alone.

Xu Jie did not hesitate, but was slightly curious about who had done this paper.

But it was just a thought. After a hasty glance, he also wrote the evaluation mark of "up" on this paper. He could not interfere with what others did later. I think no one would not fail to notice the evaluation criteria given by the first and second assistants.

Xu Jie glanced at Yan Song casually, and then at Wu Peng and Lei Li beside Yan Song. I wonder what their expressions would be after seeing this paper.

Two days later, on March 17, Emperor Jiajing once again rode a dragon sedan out of the Western Garden and came to the Wenhua Hall.

Originally, the emperor would come here after the court session, but Emperor Jiajing had not attended court for many years. He just asked the ministers to leave after paying their respects outside the Meridian Gate. Naturally, he could only come back here directly from the Western Garden.

After more than a day, the papers of the 300 candidates in this year's joint examination had been read, and they were divided into three, six, and nine grades according to the marks on them. Today is the day to read the papers.

In the eyes of the candidates, their palace examination papers should be judged by the examiners fairly, and the emperor would give the rankings after the rankings were determined. However, in fact, before the fifth year of Jiajing, the papers of the candidates had been divided into three grades according to their joint examination scores.

For a ranking like Wei Guangde, his papers must be in the lowest grade, and no matter how wonderful his essays were, it would not change his grade and ranking in a big way.

Especially before this, in the process of sealing, the sealers would often give the essays of the candidates with higher joint examination scores to the examiners before other candidates, and naturally they would be the strong contenders for the top positions of the first and second grades.

This is also the reason why the joint examination scores and the palace examination scores are often very close.

However, in the fifth year of Jiajing, due to the strong resistance of the ministers, especially the repeated suggestions of Xi Shu, the then Minister of Rites, in order to prevent fraud in the examination of the palace examination, the papers should be "mixed and sent with names covered", and the candidates for the top three should also be decided by the examiners.

In addition, he also suggested to Emperor Jiajing that "the seal officials should not deliver in advance, and the reading officials should stay in the Ministry of Rites after the court session" and should not return to their private residences.

These suggestions were finally adopted by Emperor Jiajing and issued in the form of imperial edicts, which were determined as court decrees.

The last emperor of the Ming Dynasty was long bewitched by civil officials that "the ancestral system cannot be abolished". In fact, during the Jiajing Dynasty, when Emperor Jiajing was in power, no one cared at all, and they changed it if necessary.

It was just because Emperor Jiajing came to power as a vassal king that he took many actions tentatively instead of fully promoting them.

At the beginning of Emperor Jiajing's reign, he changed many precedents, which led to the term "Jiajing New Deal" or "Jiajing Reform". Many of them involved "taxes and labor" and "titles", and the Zhang Juzheng Reform, which was talked about by later generations, was actually based on some practices of Jiajing New Deal.

However, due to the strong resistance of interest groups, Jiajing New Deal was mostly carried out only in a local area, and the "several actions and several stops" failed to be fully and permanently carried out, so its effectiveness and influence were also very limited, far less intense than during Zhang Juzheng's period.

Entering Wenhua Hall, Emperor Jiajing sat on the throne and looked at the 14 reading officials below, "Let's start."

Now Emperor Jiajing would rather spend time on the cause of cultivation, and naturally he did not want to spend too much time on irrelevant matters, so now he speaks and does things simply and directly.

Then, Yan Song, the chief minister of the cabinet, picked up a question paper and began to read it aloud, which is "reading the paper".

This time was exactly the same as before. The three cabinet ministers read one paper each, which they thought was the best paper, the first-class.

After reading the paper, Emperor Jiajing closed his eyes and rested, as if he was in a trance, without saying a word.

Only after Lü Ben finished reading the paper did he wave his hand slightly and said, "Continue."

Then, Xu Lun, the Minister of War and the Prince's Guardian, also unfolded the paper in his hand and began to read aloud.

According to the order of Emperor Jiajing in the 14th year of Jiajing, the number of papers to be read was increased from six to twelve.

The reading officer selected four papers from the three grades of upper, middle and lower grades that had been divided in advance and presented them to the emperor for review.

After reading the twelve volumes, Emperor Jiajing slowly opened his eyes and looked at the twelve papers placed on the imperial desk in front of him. The order of the papers was actually their ranking, if he didn't want to interfere.

Then, the twelve papers in front of him were the first three and the first five of the second class, and the rest were the top four of the third class.

"Open the sealed envelope."

Obviously, Emperor Jiajing wanted to see the names of these candidates, because there was one last step, which was to select candidates.

The top three Jinshi, as the role model of all Jinshi, represented the image of the entire official group.

Therefore, whether the appearance conditions were qualified was also one of the conditions to be considered when determining the candidates for the first place.

As for other things that the emperor would pay attention to, such as the quality of the name and the emperor's dreams, he would also make a decision at this time.