Daming Crazy Emperor

Chapter 159

After the general examination, all candidates left the tribute courtyard, and the gate of the tribute courtyard was locked again.

At this time, none of the chief examiners, deputy chief examiners, invigilators, examiners, seal officials, and honor recorders are allowed to leave the Gongyuan.

This is the Suoyuan system in the "Chengshi of the Imperial Examination". Not only the candidates must be locked in the Gongyuan during the exam, but all the examiners participating in the examination must be locked in the Gongyuan. Leaving the Gongyuan, and not communicating with the outside world.

This is done to prevent fraud.

Of course, there are many ways to prevent fraud.

For example, what the marking officer sees is not the examinee's own answer sheet, but the transcript handwritten by Yulu, so that cheating with special handwriting can be prevented.

Moreover, the test papers read by the examiners were drawn by lottery, and there were only transcribed numbers on them, without any candidate information.

In other words, the examiner does not know whose test paper he is looking at.

The official Mifeng who is responsible for sealing the candidate's information and the recorder who is responsible for transcribing are not allowed to participate in the marking, and they are not even allowed to meet and speak with the marking officer from the beginning to the end.

It seems that there is no way to cheat after being separated layer by layer.

actually not.

Because the marking officer and the invigilator are basically the same group of people.

What about the dozens of invigilators? Could it be that the Guan Gong Yuan let people sleep for ten days and a half a month, and then sent dozens of other officials to check the papers?

This is naturally impossible. The invigilators must not be sleeping in the Guan Gong Courtyard. They usually participate in the marking work.

Therefore, the content of this candidate's answer sheet is a common pattern of internal cheating by the examiner.

Generally, there will be many examiners colluding. Before marking, they will inform other participating examiners of the answer sheet information of their cheating subjects in various ways.

In this way, the test papers of cheating candidates can basically pass the primary selection of the examiners.

Of course, whether these candidates can be ranked in the tribute list depends on the final judgment of the chief examiner and deputy chief examiner.

If both the chief examiner and the deputy chief examiner were involved in cheating, then the cheating candidates would definitely be listed on the tribute list.

That is to say, if Gu Bingqian or other eunuch officials were the chief examiners, Wu Kongjia and other examinees who had worshiped under Wei Zhongxian in advance would definitely be able to be on the tribute list.

It's a pity that the chief examiner at this moment is Emperor Taichang, and the two deputy chief examiners are both imperialists.

So what will happen?
The examination was over, but the courtyard was still busy.

Rows of honor recorders were sitting in the various transcription halls of the scripture hall, writing quickly, quickly transcribing the candidates' test papers.

Rows of examiners were also sitting in the examination halls of the Supreme Court, carefully reviewing the transcribed examination papers.

Xu Guangqi and Bi Maokang, two deputy chief examiners, sat in the Jukui hall and carefully screened the test papers from the primary selection by the markers.

The supervisory censor sent by the Metropolitan Procuratorate and the Shizhong selected by the six departments are wandering around, constantly patrolling.

There are also soldiers of the Shenwu Battalion.

All the passages, intersections, front and back doors, and the gates and small doors of all the pavilions in the entire Gongyuan are all standing upright like wooden carvings of Shenwuying infantry.

If there is nothing wrong, they are responsible for serving tea and water to the examiners, delivering test papers, or bringing in food from outside, and distributing them to these examiners, just like orderly soldiers.

Of course, if something happens, they may drag some examiners out and kill them.

As the chief examiner, Taichang should have been locked in the Tribute Academy.

However, since he is the emperor, he is naturally not restricted by this lock-up system.

Generally, he would come to the Gongyuan after lunch and would not leave until nightfall.

Time flies by like running water. It has been nearly 20 days since the papers have been graded, and there are not many papers that have not been transcribed. It is time to start the list of gongshi.

After lunch that day, he came to the Gongyuan again as usual, and made a pretense of looking around.

Immediately afterwards, he came to Jukui Hall, sat on the position of the chief examiner, and carefully read through a stack of test papers.

He has already seen the test papers of Liu Zongxiang, Sun Yuanhua, Song Yingxing, Song Yingsheng, Cheng Yuandan and others.

These people knew the questions in advance, so they naturally did well in the exam. It would be no problem to pass the primary election. If they failed the primary election, then there would be problems.

Xu Guangqi and Bi Maokang will naturally not be stuck after they pass the primary election, so these people are already tributes.

However, Taichang didn't intend to list them in the top three, because that would be too eye-catching, and anyone who is interested will know that he is taking the lead in cheating.

Moreover, the talents of these people are not mainly in the imperial examinations, and the stereotyped essays they have produced are not so top-notch. It is really a bit reluctant to rank in the top three.

He could cheat without any problem, but it would be bad for someone to see through him at a glance.

You know, scholars are really hard to mess with sometimes, especially when it comes to exams, they are especially hard to mess with.

If you piss off all the candidates who participated in the examination, it is basically tantamount to pissing off all the scholars in the world.

Scholars are still needed to govern the country, so naturally he would not foolishly offend all the scholars in the world.

Therefore, he decided that the top three should be ranked according to real talents and knowledge, and he would not put his cronies in it.

Anyway, as long as his cronies can rank second in the palace examination, they can be admitted to the cabinet as a minister by being a scholar of the Imperial Academy. There is no need to occupy the top three to provoke scholars all over the world.

The test papers he read were selected by Xu Guangqi and Bi Maokang, and there were a few of them who had outstanding literary talents and were filled with the heart of serving the country.

These few must not be nerds. If they were nerds, they would definitely not be able to answer the three additional questions.

Just like those who worshiped under Wei Zhongxian in advance, they were all eager for quick success and quick profit, and they read the "Four Books and Five Classics" to gain fame, enter the officialdom, and fight for power and profit.

Those guys answered the three questions in a mess, and they didn't know what to say.

Therefore, they were all eliminated, and they were eliminated in a fair manner. Even if the examiners sent all their papers through the primary election, it was useless.

The question is, among the outstanding candidates selected by Xu Guangqi and Bi Maokang, who ranks first, who ranks second, and who ranks third?
Taichang took a stack of test papers and flipped through them for a while, then took out three copies, handed them to Liu Shiyou who was beside him, and confessed: "Go and get the answer sheets of these three candidates, and take the test papers of Mi Fengguan, Supervisory Censor and Call them all over the matter.”

In fact, he just wanted to put on a show to show his fairness.

There must be eunuchs in these secret officials, supervisory censors and givers, but they cannot all be eunuchs. Their identities can just represent most of the officials in the current court. That's about it.

Soon, Liu Shiyou came in with the test papers, more than ten mifeng officials and more than ten supervisory censors and officials.

There are actually acquaintances here, such as Yao Zongwen, Wei Yingjia, those eunuchs who often jump out to make troubles, and Yu Shizhong and Yushi are on the list.

Taichang didn't care about these guys, after the emperor and his ministers greeted each other, he said solemnly: "The palace examination is just a few days later, and the papers are almost finished. It's time to start thinking about the ranking of the tribute list. I checked it carefully. Fan, these three people should be the most talented three among this batch of candidates, so I decided to open the test papers of these three people now and rank them."

Uh, is this legal?

It seems that there is nothing against the rules, because the examination papers will be read in two days, and the tribute list must be posted in the next few days, otherwise, the time for the palace examination will come, and the tribute list has not yet been released, then A little ridiculous.

All the Mifeng officials, supervisory censors, and officials did not speak, which means they acquiesced.

Of course, they also knew that it was impossible not to acquiesce at this time. He was the emperor, and there was absolutely no need for them to offend the emperor for no reason.

It doesn't matter much to be the top three in the tribute list, and this is not the final palace examination gold list. Even Wei Zhongxian didn't think that his grandson must be in the top three!

Seeing that everyone was silent, Taichang raised his hand and said to the leader, Mi Feng, "Let's open the seal, let's see together, who are the names of these three talented candidates!"

So, who are these three people?

To be honest, Taichang really didn't know.

(End of this chapter)