The matter of Pei Ji and Fang Baihua was just a small episode for today's Jiangdu City. The imperial examination was held as usual the next day, but some scholars found that the people who were next to them had disappeared, but now it was the time to decide their lives. At that fateful moment, no one is interested in finding out the whereabouts of an unknown person.
After the imperial examination on the second day, the election results of the martial arts department came out immediately. Su Lie was selected as the top scholar in the martial arts department with three first places in cavalry combat, infantry archery, and mounted archery, while Li Jing was the only one with the highest ranking in the martial arts department. A scholar with excellent grades in Tao Lue.
When reviewing the list, Yang Gao did not find any outstanding figures from the Sui and Tang Dynasties that he knew. There was only a man named Lu Heng who defeated Su Dingfang in an infantry battle. He ranked first in infantry combat and third in infantry shooting. The results were nominated by the martial arts examiner as the second place in this martial arts subject.
Yang Gao systematically detected Lu Heng's four dimensions: Commander 62, Force 92, Intelligence 51, and Politics 43. He is extremely good at foot combat and has immense strength. He is a man of great talent. Then he agreed to the examiner's nomination, named him a partial general, and went to Xue Rengui's account in Huainan to listen to his instructions.
Su Dingfang, the number one scholar in this martial arts examination, was named a fifth-rank Fujun general, and Li Jing was appointed a fourth-rank minister of the Ministry of War. Both of them were transferred to Nanyang Yang Yanzhao. Most of the remaining martial arts winners were awarded the positions of captains and army commanders, and served in various armies.
The selection results for liberal arts subjects were more troublesome. After the examination, Yu Yunwen personally led nearly a hundred doctors from Guozixue to work day and night, nervously reviewing the piles of examination papers.
For the sake of fairness, each examination paper was graded by five doctors. The highest score and the lowest score were removed and then the average was taken. This was of course Yang Gao's idea.
After three days of grading, almost all tens of thousands of test papers had been marked. Yu Yunwen submitted the list of the top 300 candidates and the test papers of the top ten candidates to Yang Gao. The order of names is decided by the emperor. If the emperor is not in the capital, the decision will be made through discussion among several ministers.
After Yang Gao got these ten test papers, the first thing he did was to see if there were any from Fang Xuanling and Zhang Juzheng. Sure enough, the test papers from both of them were among them. Yang Gao immediately took out the two test papers and reviewed them carefully.
There is not much difference between poetry and scripture. The two are basically equally divided, so the key still lies in policy.
The topic of this policy discussion was chosen by Yang Gao himself. There are two topics in total. One is titled "On the Current Situation of the World" and the other is "Methods of Enriching the Country and Strengthening the Army." You can choose one of the two.
Fang Xuanling chose to answer the first question. He analyzed it methodically in the test paper, "Today's world has resembled the Warring States Period. Among them, Guanlong Li Yuan, Zhongyuan Li Mi, Hebei Dou Jiande and His Majesty are the most powerful today. Although Li Mi and Dou Jiande It has great momentum, but there are extremely unstable factors inside, and it will be destroyed by others in the future, so your majesty’s biggest enemy is Guanlong Li Yuan.”
After that, Fang Xuanling proposed several strategies to deal with Li Yuan, each of which was a rare good plan, and Yang Gao couldn't help but applaud the case.
Zhang Juzheng chose to answer the second question. He believed that if he wanted to enrich the country and strengthen the army, he must first rectify the administration of officials, strictly inspect the implementation of the imperial edicts by officials at all levels, and require officials at all levels to report local political affairs to the imperial court on a regular basis. Supervise each other and improve the supervision and supervision system at all levels. Ensure that every decree of the imperial court can be implemented accurately.
After that, he proposed the famous "One Whip" method. He believed that the reason for the chaos in the world was that the taxes on farmers were too heavy. In fact, very little of the taxes collected were finally included in the national treasury, and a large part of them was Misappropriated by middle officials. Therefore, in order to curb this situation, the land tax, corvee and other miscellaneous levies in various states and counties can be combined into one line, and the silver taels can be collected together and paid per mu, making it difficult for local officials to cheat.
Yang Gao hesitated for a long time, and finally took up a pen and wrote Zhang Juzheng's name on the top candidate.
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At noon, the admission list of liberal arts subjects was posted outside the school grounds where the liberal arts examination room was originally located. The scholars who had been waiting there for a long time surrounded them with a "swish" sound, and in an instant the entire school grounds was blocked with water, and only the students could be seen. Densely packed heads.
The first three are Zhang Juzheng, Fang Xuanling, and a scholar named Fang Zheng. This Fang Zheng is from a poor family in Hedong. He writes good policy essays, but it only appears in the scriptures. There are several blank spaces, which may be related to the poor family's lack of reading.
Tens of thousands of people crowded together under the list, desperately searching for their own names. Naturally they cheered when they found their names on the list, while those who were not named on the list were quite unwilling. After reading it once, they read it a second time. Three times, hoping to find my name in an inconspicuous corner, but in the end I couldn't find it and could only leave sadly.
The official next to the gold list shouted loudly: "Don't crowd, don't crowd. The list will be kept here for ten days. For those who are on the list, officials will come to announce the good news. Don't crowd. People who read it will go to Back up, don’t crowd, don’t crowd!”
Although the official shouted at the top of his lungs, basically no one listened to his advice. After all, this was a rare opportunity, and everyone wanted to know the result as soon as possible.
After reading the list, Fang Xuanling, an elegant and slender man in green clothes, raised his hands to Zhang Juzheng, who was wearing coarse black clothes and a pale face, and said with a smile: "Congratulations to Brother Zhang, you are the number one scholar in high school. What a congratulation!"
Zhang Juzheng smiled slightly when he heard the words, raised his hands and said in return: "Where is it? Brother Fang is very resourceful, but uncle is just a fluke."
Fang Xuanling laughed and said: "Brother Zhang, there is no need to be humble. Although you and I have only known each other for half a month, Xuanling is so impressed by your way of governing the country!"
Thump thump thump. . .
While Fang Xuanling and Zhang Juzheng were talking, there was a sound of horse hoofbeats, and several officials rushed over on horseback. They shouted loudly to the dense crowd: "Attention, the successful scholars, your majesty will be here in ten days." I will personally receive you at the Wenhua Hall, and you will be well prepared when you return, and you must not lose etiquette in front of His Majesty."
