The ruthless emperor in the late Ming Dynasty forced Chongzhen to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 301 The Coolest Emperor in History
"Auntie, what do you think of these officials' proposals?"

After listening to Zhang Yan read the proposals of those officials, Zhu Cihong did not express his opinion immediately, but looked at her and asked, wanting to hear her opinion first.

Because he knew that Zhang Yan must have his own ideas about some of the disadvantages exposed by the imperial examination.

"Lang'er, how can a woman like my aunt have any opinion, so I won't make a fool of myself." Zhang Yan hurriedly shook her head and waved her hands.

Obviously, he was very aware of his status and role in his heart, and he always insisted not to express his own opinions, but only screened the opinions of the ministers for the emperor's reference.

Zhu Cihong also knew that it was not that she had no opinions, but that she was adhering to the tradition of not being involved in politics in the harem of the Ming Dynasty.

Although he has given Zhang Yan the greatest rights in the past few years, she has never done anything according to her own wishes. All the things and decisions she made were all explained by him.

Thinking of this, Zhu Cihong was both moved and thankful that he had found such a kind, wise, careful, capable aunt without the slightest ambition or selfishness. The key is to obey his words.

For an emperor to have such an empress dowager, he was really lucky and saved a lot of effort, otherwise he would not be as relaxed as he is now.

So I don't want to try any more, so as not to create a gap in the relationship that I just drew closer, and finally make myself really alone.

"To sum up, these proposals are good. How about it? From now on, it will be stipulated that the top 14 candidates in the college examination can take the rural examination for free every year, and the remaining scholars can also participate in the rural examination if they want to, but each person must pay a fee of five taels of silver. , and it takes one year to continue to participate, um, let’s also limit the age, it must be over [-] years old to participate in the provincial examination.”

After finishing speaking, he thought about it and added: "Considering that there are too many scholars in this first session, let's change this year's provincial examination to the top [-]!"

Zhang Yan quickly recorded Zhu Cihong's words, and then said: "Xiao'er, do you really have to pay? Does this make the court seem too..."

"Hehe, although the scale of the imperial examination in the future will not be as scary as this year, it is still a time-consuming, labor-intensive and money-consuming thing. It is also a huge expense to hold it every year. It is necessary for candidates to pay. It is also reasonable, after all, except for the top [-], other scholars are not eligible to participate in the provincial examination in principle."

Zhu Cihong waved his hand, paying the money is only to restrict those scholars who are not yet able to pass the exam but want to participate, so that they should be more cautious when deciding to participate, so as not to affect the truly capable scholars.

"Well, since that's the case, let the Ministry of Rites prepare for the rural examination according to the new regulations, and at the same time let the yamen issue notices and publish these restrictions in the newspapers."

Zhang Yan nodded, then looked at him with questioning eyes.

"Let's do it like this." Zhu Cihong waved his hand, obviously not caring about the specific implementation, as long as his effect is achieved.

"Besides that, there is the possibility of impersonation during the trial court, which is also a difficult problem to solve. Although many officials have also raised this matter, they have not proposed any good solution."

"Well, this is indeed a difficult problem, and it is not easy to solve with the current technology."

Zhu Cihong nodded, his brows wrinkled involuntarily.

In the past, if you wanted to take the imperial examination, you needed to be recommended by a scholar. In addition, there were few scholars and everyone knew each other. If you wanted to impersonate someone, you would be courting death.

But now there is no need for recommendation, all ghosts and snakes can participate, and there are so many people, impostors will definitely emerge in endlessly in the future.

"Let's put this problem aside for a while and solve it later."

After thinking about it for a while, Zhu Cihong finally had to decide to press down this issue and deal with it later.

Because there is no way to solve it now.

To solve this problem, it is necessary to re-count the population, compile the household registration, and issue a household registration book to each household like later generations.

Then during the exam, I will take the household registration book and go to the government office where I am to issue an identity certificate. Even so, I am afraid that it will not be able to completely eliminate the impostor, so this is definitely a loophole that needs to be filled for a long time.

At that time, we can also legislate that anyone who impersonates and takes part in the imperial examinations will be punished with a death penalty. In fact, according to the current Ming law, cheating in the imperial examinations is a capital offense.

And impersonation is naturally a fraud, so he knows that although the hospital examination this time is a bit rough, there is probably no one who dares to impersonate.

Because everyone didn't dare to think about it at all, let alone do it. This is the deterrent produced by the court's long-term severe punishment of imperial examination fraud.

In order to test a scholar, it is not worthwhile to risk the beheading or even Zhulian's family members.

So even though Zhu Cihong said that he wanted to govern the country with humanity, under the current technical conditions, there are many things that must be prevented and deterred by severe punishment.

For example, private counterfeit currency, fraud in imperial examinations, and some things that cannot be completely eliminated by technical conditions, violators must be beheaded and sentenced to death, and even their family members will be implicated and exiled.

Immediately, Zhang Yan raised some other questions about the imperial examinations. Whether the imperial examinations will continue to be conducted by the royal family with the assistance of the Ministry of Rites, or should the Ministry of Rituals be in charge, and the royal family will only supervise, and the construction of examination rooms in various places, etc. Zhu Cihong also agreed. One gave instructions.

Just as the matter of the imperial examination was over and Zhu Cihong wanted to learn more about maritime trade and business matters, Xu Lan outside reminded him that it was time for lunch.

The two suddenly realized that it was already noon before they knew it.

"Xiao'er, there's no need to rush these matters. You didn't sleep well this morning. You'd better go and rest after lunch. It's not too late to talk about it tomorrow."

Zhang Yan got up and said.

But Zhu Cihong waved his hand: "No need, let's just eat something casually in the Imperial Study Room, and then talk about it."

"OK then!"

Zhang Yan also smiled wryly. Lang'er was indeed lazy, but once he got serious, he was no worse than his father.

In fact, how did Zhang Yan know that Emperor Xiao Zhu just took one day to deal with all the matters that should be dealt with, and then went to the shipyard, the salt factory and the shipbuilding department in various places.

This not only ordered Xu Lan to bring in all the food, but also asked her to send someone to call Chen Yuanyuan and the three daughters to the palace first to wait for their summons.

Of course, the reason why Zhu Cihong wanted to deal with everything in one day was because of the queen mother Zhang Yan.

He just needs to solve some things that Zhang Yan can't solve, and then get a general understanding of the situation in all aspects, and convey his thoughts to Zhang Yan, and she will naturally know what to do.

If it wasn't for the business matters that Princess Kunxing was in charge of, and Fengyue Division and Propaganda Supervisor Zhang Yan wouldn't intervene, he wouldn't need to summon anyone at all.

(End of this chapter)