As soon as Liu Xiuzhi got up, he saw his friend sitting aside blankly, mumbling something, so he reached out and patted the other person, "When did you get up? Oops, my arms are so sore. It must be you."
I didn’t sleep well last night.”
Xu Jie: "..." opened his mouth, but in the end said nothing. He only said that he had just gone out for breakfast and brought him one.
Liu Xiuzhi screamed in surprise when he saw it was a wolf-toothed potato. After briefly washing himself, he couldn't wait to taste it.
It is helpless to say that the imperial court originally vigorously promoted potatoes, hoping to increase the variety of potatoes in the northwest. However, the eating habits of the region cannot be changed in an instant. People in the northwest have eaten pasta for hundreds of years, and have long since left the country.
Without wheat, there was little interest in potatoes even though local officials repeatedly promoted their benefits. In the end, northwest officials were worried that they would not be able to complete the tasks assigned by the court, so they had no choice but to use their own fields for planting.
The imperial court had no choice but to put a knife on the people's necks and force them to eat it, so they had to treat it as a strategic reserve grain. However, although the northwest does not like eating it, in the capital, people still like it made from potatoes.
Liu Xiuzhi had tasted this snack once before and never forgot it. After eating it today, he couldn't help but sigh: "I don't know when Huating County will be able to grow this thing. I really want my parents to try it."
"That's not easy. Brother Liu, wouldn't it be great if he brought your father's father's hall to the capital this time for high school?" Xu Jie said with a smile, this is not the reason why they came to the capital this time.
"How can it be so easy?" Liu Xiuzhi sighed. This examination is strictly speaking the first imperial examination since the emperor ascended the throne. As the first disciple of the emperor, his future career is likely to be much smoother than that of ordinary people.
Therefore, people who were not sure at first wanted to take a chance this year. With thousands of people gathering in the capital, it would be difficult to get ahead.
Thinking about this, there was no time to joke around. After hastily eating everything, the two of them went out to hire a carriage and went directly to Uncle Liu Xiuzhi's house.
The uncle's family received them warmly, and only then did they realize that Liu Xiuzhi had accidentally notified the wrong time. His uncle had actually sent someone to wait at Tongzhou Bay a few days ago. Seeing that he had not come yet, he was worried that something had happened.
what is the problem.
Liu Xiuzhi scratched his head in embarrassment and accepted the elder's scolding obediently. Fortunately, Xu Jie on the side helped with the speech. Uncle Liu took into account the presence of outsiders and was not too harsh after all.
As a good friend, Xu Jie is temporarily staying here to take the exam, and will move out after finding a house. There is no way, the main capital city now has a population of one million, and many new jobs have appeared recently, causing people nearby to come here to find work.
Looking for a way to survive, the city has long been overwhelmed, and real estate is not much more expensive than an inch of land. Xu Jie's father is just a county magistrate, and his family background is mediocre, so he had to look around to see if he could find cheap housing.
Uncle Liu was just a sixth-rank official, he had a lot of people in the capital, and his residence was not very spacious. Xu Jie had to share a room with Liu Xiuzhi at night, but after learning about his friend's sleeping habits, he could only be more active
He went out looking for a place to live. However, even though he was mentally prepared, he was still shocked by the high prices.
Not to mention the house, he even took the note from Zheng Yao to Fang Ling and found that he couldn't afford anything in it. He couldn't help but smile and shake his head.
The capital is expensive, and living there is not easy. Even if you go to high school successfully, you don't know how many years it will take to gain a foothold.
After another day of fruitless work, Xu Jie, who was tired, planned to find a teahouse to take a rest, but as soon as he entered, he was startled by the lively atmosphere inside.
I saw twenty or thirty Confucian scholars gathered around the hall, salivating and wondering what they were arguing about. After I stepped forward to inquire carefully, I suddenly felt that I couldn't laugh or cry.
It turns out that a while before the competition, when Jinsheng Shang was conducting a private interview in private, he encountered candidates who slandered Master Xian and couldn't help but reveal his identity and reprimanded him. The candidates in the capital went crazy.
Don't get me wrong, they were not complaining about those people. They were shocked that everything in the play was true! The emperor would really leave the palace to observe the public sentiment! So they went to various teahouses and restaurants to stay, and at the same time, they expressed their opinions openly.
With superficial and childish remarks about governing the country, I hope to have an "accidental encounter" with the emperor. It is best if the emperor has a discerning eye and discovers that he is a famous official, and then he will be promoted in the imperial examination, and he will rise to the top from then on!
At first, in order not to get into trouble, most people just chose to flatter each other, but the emperor never showed up. No matter how full the emotions were, they would dry up one day. Moreover, the literati were indifferent to each other. It was difficult for them to get together like this and not avoid disputes. So the scene was
As Xu Jie saw, the teahouse owner was annoyed to death. However, it was difficult to say anything due to the identity of these people. After all, they were all traitors, and no one could guarantee whether there would be someone among them in the future.
Senior officials can only hold their noses and endure until the palace examination is over.
Shaking his head, Xu Jie was really ashamed to be in the company of this group of people, so he asked the waiter to order a crab roe cake, the signature tea here, and found a corner to sit down.
Before the items were presented, I heard a round-faced young man next to me say: "Shopkeeper, why are you running out of crab roe cakes here? My elders came here specially to eat them."
"Oh, I'm so sorry. There are so many people these days. The last plate has been reserved just now. Why don't you look at it and change it to something else?"
Xu Jie heard this and said: "Brother, if you really like to take the tea snacks, I can just eat something else."
The round-faced young man turned around without being polite. He cupped his hands with Xu Jie and walked to a partition upstairs with the tea. Through the bamboo curtain, Xu Jie could vaguely see a thin man sitting there.
After a while, the young man came out again and solemnly thanked Xu Jie, "I'm sorry, it's rare for my parents to come out, so I'm sorry to thank you for your kindness. Thank you so much. I've taken the trouble to ask you your name.
"
Xu Jie told him his name, and then said that it was just a plate of food and should not be taken seriously. The two chatted for a few words and found that the other party was both here to take the exam, and they were both from Jiangnan, so they couldn't help but get closer.
The debate among the scholars over this matter has reached a fever pitch, and the loudness has reached the point of deafening. Xu Jie looked at it and said with some humor: "I don't know what they are thinking. Your Majesty has appeared once before. For the sake of his own safety,
I will not leave the palace rashly again. Instead of doing useless work here, it is better to go back and study."
Hearing this, Fei Jin's expression suddenly became strange. He subconsciously looked up at the cubicle, coughed twice, and tried to change the topic.
Upstairs, Zhu Houcong, who was having a splitting headache due to the noise from the students in the hall, had a gloomy face. He wished he could raise his knife and strangle the dozens of "ducks" one after another. Behind him, Gu Dayong bowed his head and shut up.
Afraid of attracting the emperor's attention.
Since the day he and Xian Ruxing broke up on bad terms, Zhu Houcong has been very upset. He didn't understand what was wrong with him, and he couldn't bear to look for him. In addition, Xian Ruxing was also busy recently, so the two of them stayed like this for several days.
We didn't meet each other. As time went by, Zhu Houcong couldn't stand it anymore. He couldn't eat well and couldn't sleep well, so he could only devote himself to government affairs. His diligence even shocked the cabinet.
However, the court has been calm recently, and it is just in time for the autumn harvest. Because the officials are very strict, everyone from top to bottom does not dare to be too arrogant. It is rare for the people to live in peace for a while, and there are no troublemakers. Zhu Houcong struggled for several days.
, and soon returned to the previous state of doing nothing. Just when he was hesitating whether to take the initiative to see Xian Ruxing, the eunuch Gu Dayong beside him suddenly asked that the capital city was very busy recently. Would Your Majesty want to go out in the white dragon fish suit?
It’s time to understand the sentiments of the people.
After thinking for a moment, Zhu Houcong accepted the other party's suggestion, changed his clothes and went straight to the teahouse. He still remembered the last time he and Master Xian Xian were listening to a story here. After that, the other party also said that he would make up a brand new story for him.
As a result, I turned around and started busy writing picture books...
Why did everything seem to be more important than himself? Zhu Houcong was depressed and looked even worse.
Seeing the emperor's expression, Gu Dayong, who had originally planned to take him to appreciate the courtesans and dancers he had arranged, could not open his mouth, so he could only put these things aside for the time being and wait for the opportunity.
Unexpectedly, he happened to meet Juren who was discussing government affairs in the teahouse. When Zhu Houcong heard that the other party spoke ill of Xian Ruxing, he was furious.
In fact, he was not only angry with those people for misunderstanding Xian Ruxing, but also angry that they were obviously reserve officials of the Ming Dynasty, but turned out to be so ignorant and stupid. He couldn't help but wonder how these people passed the exam, so he went back to the palace to find the newly "passed" imperial examination
The veteran Zhang Cong asked about the situation, and the answer he got was even more incredible.
As we all know, not long after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the basic national policy of recruiting scholars with eight-legged essay was formulated. The eight-part essay is strictly a kind of propositional composition, and it is required that only words from the "Four Books" and "Five Classics" can be selected as the title. The Four Books and the Five Classics
Although it is extensive and profound, after all, the thickest book is only about 100,000 words. One hundred and fifty years after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the system of academic examinations, provincial examinations, and imperial examinations was adopted. After excluding those examined in the previous dynasty, there were really not many questions left.
too much.
It is really difficult for the question maker to ensure that the question does not overlap with the previous questions. Therefore, the examiner can only try to make the question as difficult as possible, and arbitrarily arrange and combine the words from the Four Books and Five Classics. This is called "intersection question"
, some of the cut-and-answer questions are barely readable, but most of them are nonsense.
Naturally, the result is that how well you do in the exam depends entirely on luck. Some of them are just scribbling, but they are blind and blind, which just suits the examiner's taste. Zhang Cong is one of those who is not very lucky, having passed the imperial examination four times out of eight times.
They all failed on the question of interception and matching, and now I still cry bitterly when I mention it.
Zhu Houcong frowned. As the helmsman of the empire, he was keenly aware that there would be trouble in the long run, but he didn't know where to start when it came to making changes. After all, the selection of scholars with stereotyped writing can be said to be the lifeblood of the imperial court, and the scholars in the world are not the soft persimmons of the clan. Although he is expensive
I am the emperor, but if I touch this, my head will be broken and bloody. So I decided to take advantage of this free time to visit the people more and observe the opinions of the students.
However, after a few days, I was still a little disappointed. Maybe it was because the Ming Dynasty's domestication policy was so good that the people didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with this matter. Instead, they began to gather together to study the topic. Just like now, a few people downstairs are starting to
Take turns to come up with your own questions.
It was the turn of a young scholar. After thinking hard, he wrote a question.
"Your wife's yang | desire for goods."
Selected from the sixteenth chapter of "The Analects of Confucius, Jishi", "foreigners also call her Mrs. Jun" and "Yang Huo wants to see Confucius".
Originally, he didn't have any other thoughts, but when combined, it seemed unseemly. There were some young people around him, and they couldn't help laughing when they saw this.
As a result, Zhu Houcong upstairs was so angry that he smashed the cup in his hand. He squeezed out words as cold as swords through his teeth, "Write down the names of these people, and then go to Jinyiwei to inform them, Jingzhong
If you raise a son who commits rebellion and is disrespectful to the Heavenly Family, I will send them all to prison!"
The emperor was so angry that he laid down millions of corpses. The palace people nearby did not dare to express their anger and could only bow their heads and say yes.
After he finished chatting with Xu Jie and went upstairs, he learned the news and quickly interceded for the Confucian scholars.
Speaking of which, he has not been idle during this period. He was originally just a boy with mediocre qualifications and his family was too doting on him, so he never put much effort into his homework. Now he lives with his uncle Fei Hong. Fei Hong is an old man who is stronger than others.
My son, of course he doesn't allow his descendants to live in such a muddle-headed way, so under his supervision and instruction, he worked hard and barely passed the examination for the last-class juren. He would definitely not be able to pass this exam, but Fei Hong still let him feel it.
The atmosphere in the examination room was low. Jiajing wanted to know about the situation of the students in Beijing Middle School, but it was inconvenient to have no one responsible for asking questions, so he called him to his side.
He tried his best to be pure and kind, but he couldn't bear to see people guilty for what he said, so he anxiously defended: "Your Majesty, these people must have done it unintentionally. Even if you give them the courage to do so, they don't dare to talk about the Tian family!"
"Jun" has always been used to refer to the emperor in daily life. If the phrase "Jun's wife is masculine | lust for goods" is understood in another way, it can be said to imply that the queen cuckolded the emperor. How could this not make Jiajing angry?
He stared at Fei Jin and said in an indifferent tone: "When you were in Anlu, if it weren't for Master Xianxian's protection, you would be a pile of bones now. Now this group of people is scornful of her. Is this how you repay her?"
Blinking his eyes in confusion, he asked the emperor's soul, "Your Majesty, their words are indeed suspected of insulting the mother of the country, but... what does this have to do with Taoist Xian?"
Zhu Houcong felt as if he had been struck by lightning, completely staying where he was.:,,.