The implementation of this version of the imperial examination system was an epoch-making political action.
Before that, whether it was the Spring and Autumn Period or the Warring States Period, the Qin Dynasty, or the First and Second Empires of the Han Dynasty, when it came to selecting and appointing officials, the first was hereditary blood, and then hereditary blood plus gentry monopoly. Generally speaking, The number of ways to select officials is increasing.
And more importantly, in the era before Liu Bei, there had never been one person or department that could monopolize the personnel power of the entire country.
Personnel power is related to the core part of the operation of the entire country. That is to say, whoever holds the personnel power often means that who has greater power.
Emperor Jiajing did not publicly go to court to handle government affairs for many years, but by controlling personnel power, he successfully controlled the core power of the Ming Empire's court to maintain his status and power.
What Liu Bei is doing now is to integrate all the powers he has seized before through an institutional construction and build the central staff of the empire with him as the core.
In the past, the personnel power of the Han Empire was very decentralized. There were governors and governors in the local areas, three Dukes and generals in the central government, as well as the emperor himself. The personnel power was mainly decentralized and focused on a multi-pattern lineup. No one could control the personnel power alone.
Now, through more than ten years of wars and political struggles, Liu Bei has defeated all those who had held personnel power in the past, and then integrated these powers together to build a system represented by the Nine-Rank Official Personnel Law and the Imperial Examination System. A powerful autocratic system based on Liu Bei's personal prestige and strength.
He has complete control over personnel power, including the selection of minor officials. His power has surpassed that of any emperor in history. No one can question this fact.
So what happened next was natural.
Under the provisions of the imperial examination system, local governments did not even have the initial power to select. Every aspect of this system was fully supervised and managed by the Central Academic Department.
The entire study and examination system, from establishment to perfection to final implementation, is all within the framework of the academic department. The entire system of Zhouxue and Taixue is under the direct jurisdiction of the academic department. In fact, the state and county governments have no influence on the state and Taixue. learning influence.
All administrative bureaucracies lost the possibility of selecting, controlling, and forming personal attachments to their subordinates. From this moment on, the Chinese official system underwent revolutionary changes.
From now on, officials are no longer officials of a certain individual. It will no longer be possible for students to have former officials all over the world, and disciples to have former officials will never exist again.
Everyone actively or passively became officials of the country, the so-called civil servants. The personal dependence relationship inherited from the ancient pre-Qin era in the officialdom was cut off by Liu Bei.
Its specific performance can actually be manifested in many places.
For example, although state schools are located in local areas, they are also independent from the local bureaucracy.
Local officials are completely unable to intervene in the educational affairs of state schools, including examination matters. State and county officials can only provide assistance in terms of security and logistics in accordance with the requirements of the school division, and cannot interfere in anything else.
So in terms of system, Liu Bei stripped away the power of local talent selection and returned this power to the Luoyang court. All local talents directly faced the assessment of the central government and the assessment of the emperor, and fought with real swords and guns, and then decided Win or lose.
The promotion of this system is a big impact on the current officialdom.
Some people thought that Liu Bei might be able to resume the implementation of the inspection and evaluation system, or at most put a patch on it, but they did not expect that Liu Bei would directly strengthen and correct the patch that Zuo Xiong put in place.
At least from their current perspective, Liu Bei has cut off the possibility of some families restoring their former glory as noble sects through various channels.
Because in the past, things such as money, family status, and reputation could be passed on to the next generation through various means, and then based on these things, one's own power and official position could be passed on to the next generation.
However, under the imperial examination system, things like test scores that compete for intelligence cannot be passed on to future generations through inheritance from parents, so hard work is indispensable.
Perhaps in the future they can discover various loopholes in this system, exploit loopholes, and use various means to do things that harm fairness, but at this initial moment, they have not yet had time to thoroughly explore the loopholes in this system.
Liu Bei did not leave any time for them, and directly announced that the first imperial examination would be officially held next year, in March of Yangchun in the sixth year of Zhenguan. At present, all states are about to start preparing for the initial preliminary examination.
According to the rules, as long as you are a student from Zhouxue or Taixue, you can register for the imperial examination. As long as you think you can do it, then you can. No other conditions are required.
Moreover, the first exam was the "state exam", which was an exam within the scope of the state school. The exam questions were personally determined by the emperor and the leaders of the Central School, and the test papers were printed and then brought to the local area by school officials from Luoyang. , organize students to take exams.
The entire process was conducted in secrecy, and none of the participants could be leaked. The entire process of setting the questions was conducted in a closed environment, and the people responsible for doing the errands were temporarily transferred from the army. Elite soldiers.
After the examination papers were published, the emperor's personal troops were responsible for supervising the printing process.
After the printing is completed, academic officials will go from Luoyang to local prefectural schools to organize examinations under the supervision and protection of the emperor's army. The examination papers will always remain in the sight of the emperor's army.
When you arrive at the place, the setting of the examination room and the reference process for candidates are also very detailed.
First of all, Liu Bei stipulated that the examination room can use classrooms in the state school, but before using the classroom, a dedicated person needs to check all the candidates' accompanying utensils, etc., from inside to outside, and no one will be missed.
There are many other detailed regulations, not to mention 100%, but more than 99% of cheating methods must be completely ineffective.
Someone once said that a thousand years of scientific research history is a thousand years of cheating. This is not true, but it does make sense.
Because those people in ancient times had really endless cheating methods. They even used rat hair pens to copy scriptures on a very small book. Various cheating tools even formed an industrial chain in some places. , the main theme is "the sparrow is small but has all the internal organs", and it is really not afraid of blinding the eyes.
So when it comes to cheating, don’t underestimate the ancients. Their productivity was not up to standard, but they were not lacking in technical ability, imagination, and execution. What the imperial court lacked most was concentrated in the matter of cheating in exams. , quite funny.
However, no matter what, the relative fairness of the imperial examination cannot be denied. What the imperial examination brought to the people of the world cannot be explained in a few words.
Therefore, Liu Bei decided to promote the imperial examination and officially issued an edict, with the Academic Department as the main responsible group. It was said that Zheng Xuan, the Minister of Academic Affairs, who was temporarily acting but seemed to be doing a very happy job so far, would be fully responsible for this, which was the first time in the Third Empire of the Han Dynasty. Imperial Examination.
Zheng Xuan actually knew about the imperial examination very early. When Liu Bei started designing and patching some rules for the imperial examination, Zheng Xuan put forward many opinions.
Basically, Zheng Xuan, as a scholar-type bureaucrat, had a positive attitude towards the imperial examination. He was very willing to support the imperial examination and said that he would let his descendants actively participate in the imperial examination and compete with the world's elites. Win and get results.
Liu Bei once asked him with a smile.
"One day, descendants of the Zheng family will not be able to obtain official positions through the imperial examination. Will you feel anything at that time?"
Zheng Xuan just smiled.
"Failing to pass even one selection test only shows that he is really not worthy of being an official. Since he is a person who is not worthy of being an official, why should he care whether his surname is Zheng?"
Liu Bei nodded in approval.
Then at the specific operational level, Zheng Xuan made some suggestions to Liu Bei based on his own experience in teaching and assessing his disciples. In addition, he also suggested building a special examination venue, believing that doing so would increase the solemnity of the examination. A sense of solemnity.
Of course, the final exam should be conducted in the palace, but other exams should also be conducted in a special examination venue to conduct a completely closed exam to eliminate the possibility of collusion between inside and outside. If necessary, an off-site invigilation model can be used, or even the military can be brought in to invigilate the exam. .
Zheng Xuan said that when he taught his disciples, he often tested them. On several occasions, he encountered situations where disciples cheated, which made him very angry. As the imperial examination is a way to select important officials for the country, more attention should be paid to this point.
Because of his suggestion, Liu Bei broke ground not far from Taixue and built a specially built examination venue for the second selection of the imperial examination - Luoyang Examination Yuan.
The first state exam followed his original design, turning the teaching venue into an exam venue to save money.
The selection examination is actually the most important examination in which candidates from all over the country come together to compete on the same stage. It is the imperial examination in the true sense, so having all the candidates gather together and conduct closed-door examinations in a special place may be beneficial to the examination. It means a lot to everyone.
Zheng Xuan was happy about this.
One day before Liu Bei was about to promote the imperial examination, he called Zheng Xuan to discuss the final details. After the final details were confirmed, Zheng Xuan showed a relieved smile.
"How to let the most suitable talents work in the most suitable positions has been an eternal problem. Countless talents throughout the ages have racked their brains for this, but they have not been able to come up with a better way. In the end, there was only a nondescript imperial examination. Showing up finally helps me relax a little bit.”
Drinking the tea that Liu Bei personally brewed for him, Zheng Xuan smiled and told Liu Bei what he was thinking.
Liu Bei smiled and shook his head.
"The imperial examination is not perfect, and there are many problems. Although the selected officials no longer have the deep ties between major families and the connections between disciples and former officials, mutual recognition between them will still appear.
Coming from the same state, winning the same exam, and having the same experience of studying and referencing together will make them stick together. When their status is not enough, it may just be a healthy competition between them, to compare who has greater credit and who is promoted. quick.
But when they become mature and stable, and gradually become the pillars of the court, it is inevitable that small and large groups will appear, there will be factions that fight against different factions, and there may even be a recurrence of fights between eunuchs, relatives, and scholars. This is all possible. appeared. "
Hearing this, Zheng Xuan put down his tea cup and looked at Liu Bei in surprise.
"Now that you know, why not take precautions early? Do you already have a way?"
"How to take precautions?"
Liu Bei smiled bitterly and said: "We all know many things, but how easy is it to actually do it? Didn't you know many things back then? But how many can you really do?"
Zheng Xuan's expression froze and he suddenly stopped talking.
After a long time, Zheng Xuan smiled bitterly and said: "Even if you are now the supreme and unique emperor in the world, is there anything you want to do but can't do?"
"What do you mean? There are plenty of them."
Liu Bei shook his head and said slowly: "Before I became a Liangzhou animal husbandry, I thought that after becoming a Liangzhou animal husbandry, I would be able to do many things that I couldn't do in the past. Later I discovered that there are still many things that I couldn't do. Then go one step further and become a ruling general. Now I can always do what I want to do, right?
The results of it? There are still so many things that I can't do. After thinking about it, I think it can't be done. If that's the case, then I will be the biggest person in the world and the emperor. In this way, I can always do whatever I want, right? It turned out that it still didn't work, and I had to be even more careful. I didn't dare to take a step randomly, for fear that if I took too long a step, my hips would be pulled. "
"Ha ha ha ha ha……"
Zheng Xuan smiled bitterly and said: "When you say this, do you think there are still many dirty things in the world that cannot be solved? How many people did you kill in order to solve the dirty things? Are all these people dead in vain?"
"Of course their death was not in vain, they deserved to die."
Liu Bei put down his tea cup and sighed: "But the bad guys in this world are not born bad, and the total number of bad guys is not constant. They are always changing and appearing. The bad guys in the past die and new bad guys appear. Now that the bad things in the past have been restricted by my laws, new bad things will appear."
Zheng Xuan looked at the cup of tea in front of him and was silent for a while.
"Can't you say that the world can't be better?"
"OK."
Zheng Xuan raised his head and looked at Liu Bei.
"Can?"
"As long as people like you can do a few more right things, the world will become a better place. If everyone does their best to do a few right things, and don't care what other people say, then the world will always be better." Get better.”
Liu Bei picked up the tea cup and stretched it out in front of Zheng Xuan: "While we are all still alive, do more right things. As long as you do enough right things, the world will definitely get better."
(End of chapter)
