Quickly wear it and insist on being an old man forever

Chapter 340 I Really Want to Live Another 12 Years ()

At the beginning of May, Princess Taiping finally finalized the general process of selecting talented women, and took the memorial she had written to the palace to meet Bai Sheng and submit it.

After taking a look, Bai Sheng was speechless.

The girl didn't seem to understand what she meant. What was the selection and assessment about? Was dancing, singing, and playing the piano necessary? They were selecting female officials, not concubines.

If we get a group of young handsome guys together to select talents.

This is about the right choice.

It's just right to fill the vacant Crane Control Station.

"Taiping, do you remember what I said, that the talented women selected this time will enter the government? When I say enter the government, I don't mean to just let them enter the palace as female officials. Some of them can be sent to the palace as female officials, but for the rest, I want to arrange for them to enter the court and become real officials.

So you need to examine some useful content.

The way to govern the country, govern the people, keep them safe and enrich them."

There are some things that even for Bai Sheng, the emperor, cannot be made too obvious, otherwise there may be a large number of people causing trouble, such as the selection of talented women.

If Bai Sheng had stated directly at the beginning that they would be allowed to serve as officials in the court after passing the selection, rather than being court ladies in the palace, who knows how much trouble and danger would have arisen. These talented women would probably have encountered countless ambushes, sniper attacks, and even disasters on their way to the capital.

Never underestimate the malice of some people.

Once their interests are violated, they will never hesitate to do something extremely vicious.

The main reason why it was not done was because no one realized that what Bai Sheng meant by entering the officialdom was to become an official in the court. They just thought that she would still be a female official, and being a female official didn't matter, it was just a change in the selection method.

Naturally there is no need to obstruct.

But Bai Sheng thought that her daughter should be able to understand, but now it seems that she does not understand. After all, her ability is limited. She can only play in favorable situations and it is difficult to replicate the glory of the original body. No wonder the original body hesitated again and again, and finally skipped this daughter and made his existing eldest son Li Xian the crown prince. It is estimated that he felt that even if he forced this daughter to be the crown princess, she would not be able to stand, and she might die even more miserably.

So they had no choice but to compromise and return power to Li Tang.

If only this daughter could be a little more capable.

The original body should be willing to take a gamble.

"Great Lord, you mean that Shangguan Wan'er will no longer be an exception, but all talented women can become officials, etc. Then this so-called women's selection is actually equivalent to the women's imperial examination.

It is not similar to the imperial examination for women as previously rumored.

And it is the imperial examination for women?"

Ever since Bai Sheng clearly stated that she was the reincarnation of the Queen Mother of the West, her honorific title changed. Generally, all officials, including her children, respectfully called her the Great Celestial Lord. Her full name was too long, so she could only be referred to as the Great Celestial Lord.

After hearing Bai Sheng's remarks, Princess Taiping was undoubtedly quite surprised, because she really had never thought that her mother's ambition was so big. If things continued to develop in this way, officials in the court would be equally divided between men and women in the future, which would be truly unprecedented.

But it doesn't seem too outrageous. After all, it was unprecedented for her own mother to ascend the throne.

Thinking of this, she felt she could accept it.

"That's true, but don't tell anyone about it for now. Wait until the selection is over, so all of your current selection items are not acceptable. Another thing you need to note is that I need talent, not the other person's family background or appearance. Even if the person is plain-looking, as long as he has talent, he must be successfully selected.

Talented women, talented women, only the talented are selected.

This time, you must uphold the principle of fairness. No matter who gives you gifts or who asks for favors, it cannot affect fairness. I will set this selection of talented women as a benchmark, and use it as a standard to reform the imperial examination in the future. This is also a test I set for you. If you still cannot be fair despite what I have said so clearly, then you will leave the court and become Princess Taiping from now on.

The peace here does not refer to your title.

In addition, if the result satisfies me, I can consider rehabilitating Xue Shao. Do you understand my intention?"

Both Bai Sheng and the original body knew that Princess Taiping had deep feelings for Xue Shao. After all, Xue Shao was her dead white moonlight. Bai Sheng was not sure about resurrecting Xue Shao, or summoning his soul. After all, Xue Shao died too early, and it was a question whether his soul was still there.

So I could only promise to vindicate him.

In fact, Xue Shao was simply implicated in the incident and could be killed or not, but he just needed to establish his authority at that time.

She needed to let others know that no one would have a good ending if they went against her, but if she were asked to kill her sons and daughters, she would not be willing to do so, so she could only do it to her sons-in-law and daughters-in-law. For example, Princess Taiping's first husband, Xue Shao, was starved to death by her, and Li Longji's mother was also killed by her.

Being the original body's daughter-in-law is indeed a dangerous job.

This time, Princess Taiping continued to look up at Bai Sheng in disbelief, with complicated emotions. Xue Shao was an old wound that she didn't want to mention, and now it was cruelly torn open by her mother, but she was given hope for redress, which made her not know whether to be happy or angry.

But no matter what, if it can be vindicated.

At least her two sons should be happy.

So in the end, Princess Taiping nodded and agreed to this matter, and said that she would set new assessment standards as soon as possible. Then she stood up, saluted, and left.

After that, Princess Taiping would go to the palace every three days to discuss the specific assessment content with Bai Sheng. This continued until the beginning of June. It took a whole month before the specific assessment content was finally finalized.

Of course, the assessment will start immediately.

After all, three full months have passed since the announcement of the talent selection. Although some people may not have decided whether to come or not, or because they made up their minds late, they may still be on the way.

But we can't just keep waiting like this?

Anyway, Baisheng is not going to hold the event only once. If they arrive too late, just let them stay in Shendu first. At most, they can get food and lodging. Moreover, these days, there are girls who can receive education and whose parents are willing to let them come to participate in the selection.

The family background is generally not too low.

At the very least, he came from a good humble family.

The Han family is not poor, but just a temporarily declining aristocratic family. If you calculate it literally, their status may be slightly higher than the so-called farming and reading family tradition since the Song Dynasty.

The poor families after the Ming and Qing dynasties were really poorer.

But it’s not so cold that you become penniless.

So even if they missed this time, it wouldn't hurt them too much, at most they would just be a little disappointed.

In addition to this factor, another more important factor is that a month ago, someone had been trying to find out the specific test content. They might have thought that knowing the test content in advance would allow them to prepare more and increase their success rate, or at least have a precise direction for preparation.

Recently, some people were even bribed to steal the questions. Princess Taiping was worried that the longer the time was delayed, the greater the possibility of the questions being leaked, so she consulted with the White Saint Queen and decisively started the examination.

Don't give them the opportunity to do anything tricky or to take a roundabout approach.

There were a total of 3,760 women who finally participated in the test. After going through a series of procedures such as a simple body search, showering, changing into uniformly distributed clothes, they finally arrived at the examination venue. After seeing the test papers distributed uniformly, most of them were stunned, and only a few showed surprise.

Because there was not a single sentence on the test paper related to women's precepts or the books that women usually study. The most basic ones are the Four Books and Five Classics, followed by various arithmetic problems. There was also a brief analysis of the internal and external troubles of Wu Zhou at that time. If you were the magistrate of a county, how would you govern the people according to the local conditions?
There are many similar questions.

Two or three papers cover many aspects.

It's not that Bai Sheng deliberately made things difficult for them, and the final assessment was not based on their total scores. Although the content of the assessment was very diverse, it still depended on each person's answer in the end. If someone's other answers on the paper were not very good, but she was quite good at arithmetic questions, then she could be arranged to the Ministry of Revenue to calculate tax revenue and expenditure.

If many people are good at arithmetic, you can arrange a unified arithmetic test for them.

We will select the best one when the time comes.

The remaining ones that are not so good can be further cultivated.

The main reason is that there are so few people taking the exam, so there is really no need to divide the exam into subjects. Just give them more questions and let them all answer them. At least it will be possible to see which ones are truly knowledgeable and have real ambition and ability.

A woman who only reads books like Women's Rings and knows nothing else is obviously not the talented woman that Bai Sheng needs.

What she needs now is rebellious, brave, talented and ambitious people. In this era when the mainstream is that women need to take care of their husbands and children, they can master arithmetic problems through self-study or home teaching, or understand some of the internal and external troubles of Wu Zhou. This is enough to prove that they are not content with the status quo and have their own ideas in their hearts, but they just lack an opportunity.

All Bai Sheng needs to do is give them this opportunity.

However, there are very few all-rounders after all, and they don't know that Bai Sheng was just too lazy to divide the subjects into different exams, so he mixed a lot of questions together. As a result, many people became more and more anxious as time went on, and there were very few people who could remain calm.

Some even burst into tears on the spot.

No, there are too many no's!
Some people even broke down and asked if there was something wrong. Why did so many tests need to be taken in the selection of talented women?

Some of the topics are high-ranking officials in the court.

Not all of them can answer this, okay? Wait.

In response, Princess Taiping even showed up to explain to them: "Don't be too anxious.

For this assessment, except for the basic fill-in-the-blank questions from the Four Books and Five Classics and arithmetic questions, there are no standard answers for the other questions. You are not required to answer all of them correctly. You only need to answer the questions you are good at. You can answer the questions you are not good at or not, it is up to you.

There are many directions to enter the officialdom.

Isn’t the imperial examination also divided into subjects?
It’s just that the time is too tight and the number of applicants is not that large, so we did not choose to take the exam in different subjects. Instead, all the questions were integrated together. Those with limited abilities can only choose to answer the questions that they are good at.

If you feel that you have good abilities, write more.

It never hurts to write more! "

It was difficult to say more, so Princess Taiping sat down again after saying this. Later, she felt a little tired, so she replaced her confidant to continue to be responsible for invigilating the exam.

In addition, food, washing and resting places, etc. are specially arranged for all the examinees. After all, there are many questions and the exam will take about three days. Whether eating, sleeping or washing, it is all under the supervision of female officials, which can basically eliminate cheating.

After all, there are female officials watching inside all the time.

There are imperial guards guarding outside.

At the same time, most people don’t even know what specific questions will be asked, so how can they cheat?
Three days later, when the test papers were collected, it was time for the candidates to leave. Some of them burst into tears before even leaving the examination room, some fainted on the spot due to excessive emotional fluctuations, and some looked dazed. In short, it was almost impossible to see anyone walking out of the examination room with confidence. The best case scenario was that they looked like normal people.

Then about half an hour passed.

The content of this talent selection exam gradually spread out and quickly swept the capital!
"Have you heard? This time the selection of talented women is more difficult than the previous imperial examinations. There are more than a dozen policy essays alone. Is this to intimidate those talented women?"

"It's boring to just talk about these. Can you tell me the specific questions? I'm really curious about how difficult they are."

"I know. I just got the news that the first question of the policy essay is to simply analyze the internal and external troubles of the dynasty. This is simply embarrassing. How would those women know what internal and external troubles are? They may not even know about the Tang Dynasty. Oh no, they may not even know which neighboring countries are near our dynasty. How should I answer?"

"It's hard to answer even if I know..."

"That's true. I'll just mention two points. They're not very important. If I say too much, I'll offend too many people. It might even indirectly show that our dynasty is facing many internal and external troubles, rather than peace. It's not easy to write about it!!"

"It's really strange, these questions are considered difficult even if they are taken in the formal imperial examination.

What exactly do the Great Lord of Heaven and Princess Taiping want to do?
Is it necessary to make the test so difficult to select talented women? "

"Wait, you said these questions are difficult even for the official imperial examination. I have a bold guess. Could this so-called selection of talented women be a precursor to the official women's imperial examination?"

"No way, this is too..."

"Damn it, we got it wrong. This is not a selection of female officials at all. In other words, Shangguan Wan'er's official appointment as prime minister was already a test."

"According to this, female officials in the future may no longer be limited to the inner court of the imperial palace. Female county magistrates and the like may also appear. This... this is really outrageous."

"You guys are overreacting. We already have a female emperor and a female appearance, so it's not surprising to see a female anything else."

"That's what I said, but..."

"It is very difficult to change the decision of the current emperor!"

As these questions came out, Bai Sheng's deep meaning became difficult to hide. Many smart people quickly connected the events of the past period of time and deduced Bai Sheng's purpose.

Then the public opinion in the entire Divine Capital became even more chaotic.

The opposition is huge.

There were not many official positions in those days, and many Jinshi candidates had to wait for the court to assign them official positions for seven or eight years after they passed the imperial examination because of their poor family background and lack of connections.

It can be said that the competition is already fierce.

If we add the imperial examination for women to the mix, things will be even more dire. The intensity of the competition will definitely be raised to a higher level.

How could they not oppose it? This actually has nothing to do with gender. Even if it was not an imperial examination for women, but an imperial examination specifically for poor families, there would still be a large number of people opposing it.

It's purely a matter of interest!