At the end of the fifth year of Zhenguan, Zheng Xuan, the Minister of Education, was ordered by Emperor Liu Bei to announce to the world that the first imperial examination was officially promoted and he issued an express document to inform all states to prepare.
Later, he gathered with Emperor Liu Bei and many professional scholars to discuss the first nationally applicable examination paper for state examinations.
On December 12, the fifth year of Zhenguan, the state examination was officially launched. Students from every state school and Taixue students in the country can take the state examination as long as they are willing to refer to it and successfully register. There is no need to pay any fees for this.
There are no other requirements.
Family background, ancestors' achievements, official positions, etc. are not asked at all. They only look at grades and test scores.
In the end, a total of 310,000 people signed up to take part in this imperial examination in the 13 prefecture schools and Taixue schools across the country that had been completed and officially put into teaching.
The state exam lasts for three days, and the test content is mostly basic content and extensions of basic content. However, the questions are difficult and complex, and there are many and all-encompassing questions that need to be answered.
There are nine chapters in the Confucian classics, arithmetic, astronomy, geography, agriculture and industry, and even physics and chemistry.
This all-inclusive examination paper and three consecutive days of examination are a great test for students' computing power and ability to withstand stress.
After the exam, there were countless students from all over the country crying and crying. Many people said that they did not complete all the questions. Some questions even required a whole piece of paper to answer. There was a lot of content, especially the math questions, which required a lot of time to calculate.
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Although the exam lasted for three full days, many people said that they had too much time to do calculations on a lot of math questions, or they spent so much time on math that they didn't have time to answer other questions.
After the state exams, fear of math problems began to spread among students.
Anyone can deceive you, but not mathematics, because if you are not good at mathematics, you are not good at it.
The marking time for the state examination is seven days, and the final results of the examination will be announced after seven days.
The selection method for the examination at Liu Bei's side is mainly to determine the number of admissions based on the different reference numbers of each state's school, and then select the best batch to enter the second round based on the principle of high scores and low scores.
part of the exam.
Because the number of reference students was larger this time, the number of 310,000 surprised many court officials. Later, when everyone added it together, they felt that this should be the result of the academic department's vigorous efforts to promote student enrollment over the years.
That's why there are so many people.
Especially in Liangzhou, Yongzhou, Yizhou and Sili areas, because the schools started early, the system is relatively mature, and more students are enrolled. It is only now that so many people want to take the exam.
Because there were too many participants, the selection was naturally more cruel. Liu Bei limited the number of candidates to 10,000, and then allocated quotas based on the number of students in each state, trying to take into account the average number of people in each state and taking into account the best
Basic fairness.
Some places have a larger population, so competition will be more intense. Some places have a smaller population, so competition will be less intense. Liu Bei established this principle.
However, some officials feel that this is unfair to students in more populous areas. Those students may have stronger academic abilities, but they cannot enter the examination selection stage because of this distribution model. This is somewhat inappropriate.
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However, Liu Bei believed that this was a means for the Luoyang court to promote macro-control.
In the agricultural era, a large population in an area itself meant fertile land and high productivity, so more people would settle there, so the number of wealthy people would be larger, and more students would be trained.
If we follow the model of completely fair competition, then the competitiveness of students in this area must be very strong, and the number of admissions will be particularly large. When the number of places for selection by the court is limited, they will occupy too many places, and sooner or later other areas will be taken over.
Far behind.
What follows is that there are too many officials from the same region, who stick to each other, and political and economic resources are excessively tilted, which leads to an imbalance in the power structure and will lead to larger-scale regional conflicts and power disputes.
A wise ruler and government cannot tolerate this situation, especially for Liu Bei.
He cannot let one place be rich and powerful, while other places cannot even drink soup. He is the monarch of the entire Han Empire, the king of kings, not the monarch of a state or a separatist warlord.
This kind of behavior that naturally promotes the development and growth of small groups, this kind of thing that makes disadvantaged areas alienate from the central government, as long as his brain is not broken, he will not do it.
Therefore, Liu Bei directly chose the selection method of limiting regional quotas during the imperial examination, leaving a certain quota for each state. Even states with a sparse population and poor economic development can still have enough quotas for selection.
And in this way, it may be able to promote the natural migration of the population to a certain extent, allowing some people to migrate from the central plains to remote areas to settle, thereby avoiding fierce social competition and choosing a relatively simple model.
In ancient times, most governments would take the initiative to restrict population movement, hoping to tie the population to the land in order to stabilize the scale of agricultural production, but Liu Bei did not make such a mandatory requirement.
At the level of legal regulations, the Third Reich's household registration policy allowed movement, and did not pay attention to tying a person's household registration to a certain area. There was only a provision that after moving to a place to settle, one must pay taxes for five years before they can move freely.
For people who have previously moved to remote states and counties, they have a tax holiday of several years, and then they must wait five years from the time they start paying taxes before they can move further freely.
The Luoyang court previously used taxation to macro-control population migration. Through the promulgation of policies, the Central Plains area was more restricted, while the restrictions in remote areas were less, so there were more opportunities for development.
As a result, some people who were interested in development naturally followed the court's policies and migrated to remote areas.
After that, Liu Bei planned to carry out macro-control through education and examinations, tilting certain educational resources to remote areas, so as to guide a group of people to migrate to remote areas and settle in them over a relatively long period of time, enrich the population in remote areas, and reduce the core population.
The area is too densely populated.
In the agricultural era, having too many people in an area was not necessarily a good thing, and having too few people in an area was even worse.
Therefore, Liu Bei did not accept the doubts and dissatisfaction of officials from well-off areas. Instead, he forcibly passed his own resolution, which gave relatively more resources to remote states and counties, while increasing the academic ability of wealthy areas.
compete.
This is the rule at the state examination stage.
When it comes to the selection stage, the rules have changed slightly.
Based on the summary of test scores of students from each state obtained during the state examination, Liu Bei and a group of school officials and professionals from various disciplines came to a very clear conclusion.
That is to say, under fair competition, the academic ability of students from the Central Plains area is generally better than that of students from remote areas. Their scores are higher and their grades are better. In remote areas, apart from Liangzhou, which has emerged as a new force and has many outstanding students, several other
The outlying states appear to be more stretched.
Especially in Jiaozhou, even if it received special care, only more than a hundred students could barely pass the state exam and enter the selection stage.
It is because Liangzhou received special care from Liu Bei and started early that it was able to catch up with the Central Plains region in terms of academic ability, while other regions did not gain many advantages.
Although since Liu Bei carried out the teaching reform, the teaching materials used are no longer Confucian classics. However, in the process of setting up state schools in each state for enrollment and running schools, the Central Plains area is still faster than the remote areas, and the quality of students will be better.
Some.
The children of those families in the Central Plains who survived many political storms still surpassed the students from the border areas in terms of learning, and their economic status was better and they were able to study full-time. The learning process during the Zhenguan years would have been easier and more convenient.
concentrate.
The border areas lack financial capacity, which makes it more difficult to build state schools and recruit students. The start time and duration of real teaching are not as good as those in the Central Plains areas. The resulting gap in academic ability between students from both sides is obvious.
Everyone is indeed on the same starting line in terms of teaching materials, but one side's track is smoother, while the other's track is bumpy. The result is that in the central plains it is a simple race, while in remote areas it becomes an obstacle race.
Take Jiaozhou, which has the worst conditions and the latest start. If these Jiaozhou students with a weak foundation are allowed to compete on the same stage with students from Yuzhou, Yanzhou, Xuzhou and other places, they will be beaten to the last drop.
So at this stage, Liu Bei fully understood why Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to create the North-South List.
The imbalance of educational resources, students' educational attainment and educational background is a long-term problem, and it is a problem that the court needs to invest great efforts to improve.
And until this problem is truly improved, the imperial court cannot just watch as students from remote areas continue to be unable to get ahead, nor can it just watch as the Luoyang imperial court does not even have an official from Jiaozhou, Bingzhou, or Youzhou.
Sooner or later these remote states will rebel, secede, and become independent.
Therefore, Liu Bei decided to refer to the model of the North and South Rankings and temporarily set up a "Border Ranking", that is, students from the border areas and students from the mainland were admitted according to separate rankings. The quotas were allocated based on their respective reference numbers and the final number of admissions, and then each list was ranked.
Choose the best of each.
Liu Bei made it very clear when he explained this policy.
"It is an indisputable fact that few students from remote areas can compete with students from the mainland in the same competition. If we really want to be admitted on the same list, the vast majority of the admitted students will be mainland students, and students from the border areas can only get a very small number, or even
All of them are students from the mainland, and there are no students from the border areas.
Do you think this situation is okay? Yes, I know some people think that my internal ranking is unfair to mainland students, but this is an imperial examination, what is selected is officials, and what is involved is power. There are too many aspects that need to be taken into consideration.
This is by no means a simple exam.
In the past, I worked as a herdsman in Liangzhou, and I heard and witnessed the resentment and dissatisfaction of the Liangzhou people against the Guandong people. I also saw with my own eyes the astonishing mutual disapproval and fighting caused by the different regions of origin in the same Han Dynasty.
Despite my efforts, this situation has not been completely resolved.
The emergence of the border list is a continuation of this situation. Although I worked hard, the previous imperial court was too generous to the mainland and too ruthless to the border areas, so that the changes in just a few years could not reverse the relationship between the border areas.
Serious deficiencies in the Mainland.
Back then, people from Liangzhou once asked me whether Liangzhou people were still Han people. At that time, I felt horrified. Did the actions of the Luoyang court make Liangzhou people regret becoming Han people? I knew then that this kind of
This situation must never happen again.
I know you have a lot of thoughts in your mind, but what I want to say is that the emergence of Bien Neibang is exactly the result of the failure of the imperial government's governance. The goal of our governance should be to completely depose Bien Neibang. One day, when Bien Noi Bang is
When the inner list can be abolished, that is when we will achieve success!"
Liu Bei's words were very clear, so those who held objections had nothing to say. After careful consideration, they agreed with Liu Bei's concept of selecting scholars by ranking within the border.
So when it was time to take the exam, this rule was set. The exam papers were still the same, but based on the candidates' different places of origin, the candidates were divided into two groups, the border list and the mainland list. They were admitted according to the separate lists, and the treatment after admission was the same.
After determining this principle, everyone began to prepare for the examination in full swing.
The exam is a national exam in which students from all over the country who have passed the state exam compete together in the Luoyang area. The exam location is at the Luoyang Examination Institute near Luoyang Taixue. This newly completed building occupies an area of
It is very active and can accommodate more than 10,000 people to study and take exams, so it is also called the Ten Thousand People Examination House.
All students who pass the state examination will travel all the way to Luoyang at public expense under the organization of the state school, and they do not need to bear any expenses for the trip.
During the itinerary, the state school escort will arrange food and accommodation throughout the entire journey. The candidates will eat and live together with the escort. You only need to prepare for the exam while traveling.
Through such unified scheduling, not only can students arrive in Luoyang to take the exam faster and safer, but it can also give them an initial feeling of what the "imperial grace" is.
Although I don’t know what other people think, Zhuge Liang and his younger brother Zhuge, who are from Langya County in Xuzhou, fully feel the advantages of this policy arrangement and are grateful.
Apart from anything else, this arrangement made their brother Zhuge Jin, who was worried about their personal safety every day, speechless. On this point alone, Zhuge Liang and Zhuge Jun felt that it was very good.
Zhuge Jin indeed loved his two younger brothers very much, but both Zhuge Liang and Zhuge Jun felt that this kind of love was a bit too much.