The Ming Dynasty exams are once every three years, with three exams in total, each exam for a whole day, and are scheduled to be held on the ninth, twelfth and fifteenth day of the second lunar month. Relatively speaking, it is relatively humane.

It usually takes a long time for examiners to correct papers. Of course, the specific time will depend on the situation.

For example, how many candidates are there, how many examinees are there, whether the emperor is urging him, and whether there is another time to delay the marking, etc.

The number of candidates in the first spring examination (college examination) held after Zhu Mai ascended the throne was actually much smaller than the previous Tianqi, and the Chongzhen Dynasty.

The reason is that after years of war, many Juren died, surrendered to the false Shu, and were expelled from the Qing Dynasty, and were dismissed from fame and fortune, and had no qualifications for reference.

According to previous statistics from the Ministry of Rites, the number of candidates who took the exam this time is only about one-quarter of the previous year.

This is because many people know that this is the last time in the old-style college entrance examination, and the content of the college entrance examination will change greatly in the future, and many people use the idea of ​​realizing their dreams to refer to it.

Otherwise, the number of references will be even smaller.

Because it was the last examination before the imperial examination reform and the first examination after Zhu Mei became the throne, she specially issued an order to increase the number of 20% of the number of scholars to show her favor to the juren in the world, which is also considered as comfort.

At the same time, the Ministry of Rites chose Huang Daozhou as the main examiner and Chen Zizhuang as the deputy examiner, and the same examiner selected as many as 18 people.

There are few candidates and many examinees, so the marking of the paper will naturally be faster.

Today is just February 28th, and it is not yet March, and the results of the test scores come out.

If it is in previous sessions, the results of the examination will often be postponed to March or even April.

Zhu Mei looked at it and saw a total of 108 names on the scroll of the transcribed tribute (by the name of the examiner) - in fact, it could only be selected by one hundred scholars, but for the sake of more auspiciousness, eight more places were added.

The first one is Huiyuan, named Yang Tingshu.

On the other hand, Hao Guangming directly revealed the information of this person.

"Yang Tingshu, born in 1595, is 51 years old this year, and is one of the leaders of Fushe. He won the first place in the provincial examination in Chongzhen and passed the imperial examination.

Later, when the Qing emperor went to Jiangnan, he was arrested and died unyieldingly. At this time, as well as in the future, he was considered a little famous."

Except for the first place, which is known as the Huiyuan, the ranking of other tribute scholars is meaningless, and there is only the review information of the examiner on this scroll.

In Hao Guangming's view, the most famous figures in later generations were Wang Fuzhi, Huang Zongxi and Zhang Huangyan.

There may be some small historical celebrities among the remaining people, but their fame is nothing compared to these three.

At this time, Huang Daozhou said below: "Your Majesty, if there is no problem with the results of the imperial examination, my Ministry of Rites recommends holding the palace examination on the ninth day of the third month to determine the third-class Jinshi in this imperial examination."

"Yes." Zhu Meiyu actually paid limited attention to this exam. He heard this and nodded and said, "The palace exam is scheduled for the ninth day of the third lunar month."

"I'm leaving." Huang Daozhou was about to leave after reporting the examination.

Zhu Meiyu said, "Mr. Li Shan, please wait. Now that the three governments have piloted the three-year compulsory primary school system, we should consider the reform of follow-up education.

Therefore, I plan to hold a special meeting on education reform in three days, and all officials at the head of the Ministry of Rites and above must attend.”

"yes."

After Huang Dao responded, he sighed slightly in his heart: Your Majesty is not very concerned about the examinations, but he is so concerned about education reform. It seems that education reform is imperative.

He also knew that the Ming Dynasty wanted to develop and strengthen, and relying on the previous system of educating people, the system of selecting scholars would not work.

In fact, since the half-successful and half-failure of Zhang Juzheng's reform in Wanli, many people with insight have realized this and are actively looking for a way out.

However, the previous scholars were confined to the limitations of the times and were unable to break through the shackles of Confucianism. They considered using another set of knowledge and education system to replace the old things - or many scholars in the Ming Dynasty may have some time, and they may face Confucianism.

At least he was a new saint who improved Confucianism on a large scale.

Unfortunately, the war in the late Ming Dynasty destroyed this self-transformation.

Then the Qing Dynasty replaced Ming Dynasty with the decaying knowledge system of the Ming Dynasty, and even supplemented it more perfectly, completely imprisoning the thoughts of the people of China without external forces.

There is no trace of self-breakthrough and hope for change...

Although Huang Daozhou did not have such a deep understanding of this issue, he was aware of it. Therefore, even though he was an old-style literary scholar, he was still willing to support Zhu Mai to carry out educational reforms.

···

After Huang Daozhou left, Zhu Mai summoned another person.

"My minister, Chen Tingyang meets His Majesty!"

"Flat."

The person in front of me was not tall and thin. Looking at him at his fifty years old, he was the candidate of the Minister of Commerce of the Ministry of Commerce, Chen Tingyang.

He was from Chongming, Suzhou Prefecture. He passed the imperial examination for scholars when he was a teenager, but he never passed the imperial examination since then.

But Chen Tingyang admired the great loyalty and righteousness, advocated chivalrousness, and liked to talk about economics.

Because his family was a wealthy businessman and had many interactions with the sand ship group in Chongming, during the Tianqi period, merchant ships repeatedly assisted the court in transporting materials to pacify the Liao affairs.

During the Chongzhen period, Chen Tingyang was first elected as the Imperial College for his righteous deeds, and then promoted to the Secretariat of the Wuying Palace.

Later, he wrote a letter, suggesting that the Yuan Dynasty sea transportation be restored to supplement the shortcomings of the canal transportation, and presented the "Sea Transport Book" and "Sea Transport Map" to Chongzhen, which shows that he made a lot of preparations for this matter.

Unfortunately, the canal transportation involved too many interest groups, and Chongzhen was busy dealing with internal and external troubles, so he had no intention of doing this.

In addition, Chongzhen also had some doubts about shipping. Because with Chongzhen's knowledge, there were many winds and waves on the sea, and shipping was very unstable - so what those who taught him back then said.

So, in the end, he just asked Chen Tingyang to first conduct a small-scale trial. Even if Chen Tingyang succeeded in the trial, he only started shipping from Huai'an Prefecture to Dengzhou, Tianjin, Ningyuan and other places, which was limited to today's Bohai Sea

, the Yellow Sea area.

When the Qing emperors entered the pass, the Hongguang court was established. Chen Tingyang, a confidant promoted by Chongzhen, was not valued. He finally joined the court of the King of Lu, and was captured during the Anti-Qing War and died without surrendering.

Zhu Mai took over Nanjing last year and formed ten ministries before ascending the throne, she considered letting Chen Tingyang be the Minister of Commerce.

However, although Chen Tingyang's loyalty to the court was unquestionable, Zhu Maisu was not sure whether he had the ability to take charge of the Ministry of Commerce.

So after ascending the throne, Zhu Mai summoned Chen Tingyang once, explained the importance of the Ministry of Commerce, and gave Chen Tingyang a test question, asking him to examine business affairs in the north and south, and wrote a memorial on "making prosperity for the country through business."

.

More than half a year has passed since Chen Tingyang came to report his life, which shows how much he attached to what Zhu Ma told him.

The "Commentary on Business and Rich Country" written by Chen Tingyang was presented a few days ago, with nearly 100,000 words. Zhu Ma only finished reading it yesterday.

Overall, although Chen Tingyang's insights on enriching the country with business have not been able to transcend the limitations of the times, he is already much stronger than most Ming Dynasty people.

After discussing with Hao Guangming, Zhu Ma felt that it would be no problem to have the knowledge and experience of future generations to let Chen Tingyang take charge of the Ministry of Commerce, which led to today's summons.

"I have read Mr. Wumei's "Commentary on Business and Rich Country" and it is well written. Some of the remarks are also quite thought-provoking.

But I didn't explain anything clearly - people can get rich through business, and the country can also get rich through business! What does Mr. Wumei think?"

Hearing this, Chen Tingyang's eyes lit up, wishing he could say, "Listen to you, just like reading for ten years", but he felt that this was too flattering, and finally said excitedly: "Your Majesty is wise! The country can indeed get rich through business!"
Chapter completed!