My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 412: Problems Come One After Another
"Tell the Prime Minister that you don't need to ask me for instructions again."

"For all candidates, regardless of their background or experience, their performance in the examination is the main consideration."

"——The sons of noble families and relatives of meritorious officials have passed the first round unconditionally;"

"Those who pass the first round based on their own knowledge will get an extra 20 points for the second round, and those who pass the second round based on their own knowledge will get an extra 10 points for the third round."

"Those who have passed the three rounds by their own talent and knowledge, the solo and I know."

...

"In addition, the names, places of origin, subjects of study and teachers of the candidates are all to be recorded in the book."

"In this way, all knowledgeable people in our Han family will be included in a separate book and known to the court."

Having said this, Liu Rong handed the list back to Ji An and returned to the work of reviewing the memorials in front of him.

Looking for historical celebrities from the list of applicants is of little significance to Liu Rong.

Because people with real talent, regardless of whether they will be remembered in history, will appear on the final list of passers-by;
Those who failed to pass the exam, even if they were historical celebrities, were definitely fakes whose fame was greater than their ability.

After all, the questions Liu Rong asked in this exam were not difficult.

Especially the first round, it was more of a screening to distinguish between educated people and illiterate people rather than an examination for intellectuals.

Anyone who is truly educated and has basic reading and writing skills will not fail the first round.

Even the second and third rounds were all fairly basic cultural tests, testing nothing more than document comprehension, summarization, basic arithmetic, and basic argumentation.

Liu Rong couldn't believe that someone who could go down in history for his literary talent could not even pass this third-grade exam.

While sorting out the memorials, Liu Rong did not forget to add some details regarding the upcoming imperial examination.

"Also, tell the Prime Minister."

"——Those who are of Confucian origin, native to Lu, and who study the Zhou Li will not be included unless they are extremely talented;"

“——Those who study the Zhouyi, as long as they have a teacher, all of them will be recorded;”

"——After Mozi, all those who have achieved academic success were appointed as Shaofu."

"——Shen Shang, Huang Lao and other schools of thought ..."

Halfway through his words, Liu Rong paused with some hesitation.

In the end, he shook his head as if relieved.

"That's all;"

“No matter his origin, teacher, or what he has learned, let his true colors shine through in his writing.”

"All those who pass the exam will..."

"——Ahem, it's better not to hire the Lu Confucian who studies the Book of Rites."

"As for the rest, just follow the rules."

After saying this, Liu Rong raised his pen without even looking up, signaling Ji An to leave.

With the scientific expedition approaching, Liu Rong has a lot to do.

Even if we put aside other matters in the court - such as the reform of the ministers and the reform of the imperial guard system, Liu Rong had a lot to do with the imperial examination itself.

For example, the examination room;

This time, from the announcement of the exam date to the exam day, it took less than two months;
Theoretically, the scholars from areas far away from Chang'an, such as Jingwu and Changsha in the south, and Yan and Dai in the north, would not have enough time to get to Chang'an.

If Liu Rong had not used the 800-li express military information network to spread the news of the "Autumn Examination", the candidates in these areas would not have been able to arrive in Chang'an on time.
——Maybe they won’t even receive any news after the exam is over.

Therefore, Liu Rong had previously roughly predicted that the number of candidates for this examination would be around 5,000 to 6,000.
If we can eventually recruit about 1,000 grassroots officials, it will be a great success.

Liu Rong's inference is not based on pure guesswork, but is supported by certain data.

——During the reign of the previous emperor, there was a discussion in the court regarding the group of scholars and elite intellectuals.

During that discussion, a conclusion was reached which might not be accurate, but was probably pretty close.

That is: the "absolute" illiteracy rate of the Han Dynasty today, that is, people who do not know a single word, is about 95%;

If those who know a hundred or eighty words, can read and write some simple sentences but cannot read or write a letter are also considered illiterate, the illiteracy rate will definitely be higher than 99%.

That is to say, according to the most optimistic estimate, there is only one barely qualified "intellectual" among every hundred people in the Han Dynasty.

This intellectual does not refer to the elite who are well-read and knowledgeable, but those intellectuals who can read and write a simple letter and are considered to be "literate".

There are now a little over 30 million people in the Han Dynasty, and the number of people like this who can "read" does not exceed 300,000 at most.

Among them, excluding officials in office, elderly people, merchants and low-income people, as well as nobles and their vassals, the number of people in the community who can "read" is roughly around 200,000.

At most, at most two hundred thousand - there is a high probability that it is less than two hundred thousand, and it is impossible for it to be much more than two hundred thousand.

Among them, the number of literati who can be called "having a certain cultural literacy", that is, scholars in the popular sense, is probably less than 100,000.

It sounds exaggerated, but it was the norm in most feudal dynasties.

——During the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, the illiteracy rate was as high as 94%;

——The Song Dynasty can be said to be a country founded on literature, and its illiteracy rate reached over 90%.

Except for these two dynasties, the illiteracy rate in other dynasties was almost fixed at 98% or even 99%.

Today, the Han Dynasty is no exception;

With a population of 30 million and 300,000 people who can "read", the number of educated people who can really become candidates for bureaucratic selection is no more than 100,000 at most.

It is no wonder that the scholars and even officials of this era were arrogant and felt that without them, the world would not keep turning and the country would be doomed - the government would not be able to function properly.

The choice is so narrow;

There are less than 100,000 scholars to choose from, but they have to contribute at least 20,000 bureaucrats to the hundreds of counties and kingdoms, thousands of counties, and the entire Chang'an court of the Han Dynasty.

This reminded Liu Rong of a famous saying about Chinese football in later generations.

Among the 1.4 billion Chinese people, can’t we pick out 11 who can play football?
However, the fact is: there are 1.4 billion Chinese citizens, and the total number of registered players of all ages is less than 7,000.

Excluding the youth age group, there are only more than 1,500 adult professional football players.

Based on the basic configuration of about thirty people in each team, there are more than 1,500 people, which can only form about fifty professional football teams in total.

Fifty professional teams can barely form three levels of professional leagues - even then, college teams and national youth teams have to be brought in to make up the numbers.

With such a large football population base, it is not as simple as selecting eleven people who can play football from 1.4 billion people.

Let's say we have to select a national team from these fifty professional teams;

This means that as a professional player, you only need to play for the top 20 teams among the 50 teams, that is, one of the teams in the highest level league, to become the 'one twentieth' considered by the national team.

As long as you compete with 30 or 40 other players, that is, players of the same position from 19 other teams, and become the best two among the 40, then congratulations, you officially become a Chinese international player. On the other hand, what is the ratio in other countries where football is well developed?

——German Tank, with 630,000 registered professional players!

——Our next-door neighbor, the birthplace of modern football, 'Daying', has millions of registered professional players!

From the highest level Super League, to the second level Champions League, the third level A, and the fourth level B – ninety-two teams in total;

Further down, there is the fifth-level 'National League', the sixth-level 'National League South/North Division', and the seventh-level 'Regional Super Group League' - a total of one hundred and fifty-six teams;
The eighth level, the 'Regional League' - seven groups of twenty teams each, a total of 140 teams;

The ninth level, the 'Regional Division League' - 20 teams in each group, 14 groups in total, 280 teams in total;
The tenth level of the 'amateur league' - 20 teams per group, 20 groups in total, 400 teams in total;
Eleventh level 'Amateur Division League' - 20 teams per group, 47 groups in total, 940 teams in total...

There are eleven levels of leagues in total, and the total number of participating teams alone is as high as more than two thousand!
And these more than 5 teams only absorb of the country's millions of professional players - less than %.

This is exactly where the gap lies.

There are 1,500 Chinese professional football players, 30 of whom are on the national team;

That is: as long as you become the top 2% of the best Chinese professional players, you can enter the national team and become a national player;
There are 50 Chinese professional football teams, 20 of which are in the top league;

In other words, as long as you are in the top 40% of Chinese professional players, you can play in the highest level league.

On the other hand, in the UK, the competition is outrageously cruel.

——Of the millions of professional players, only the top 5% can enter the country's eleventh-level 'community league'.

Only the top 0.05% can play in the highest level leagues.

As for joining the national team and becoming a national player?

Sorry - you have to be one of the best thirty out of the millions of professional players, the top 0.003%.

On one hand, the national team players are selected from 1500 people, and on the other hand, the national team players are selected from 1000000 people.
On one side are fifty professional teams, and on the other side are more than two thousand teams of all levels;
The scope of choices and the intensity of competition are simply not at the same level, so the talents selected in the end are naturally worlds apart.

Let’s get back to the present.

Now in the Han Dynasty, there are less than 100,000 intellectuals of appropriate age, but they have to select more than 20,000 of them to fill the huge bureaucratic system - on average, one out of every five people must be selected!
This ratio, let alone "selecting" talents, is already remarkable enough to screen out those dregs who are just filling in the gaps and nerds who only know how to read books.

Moreover, in this era, being an official is not only about talent;

They also have to conduct a political review to see if their family background is clean and their morals are corrupt, and they also have to interview to see if they have good looks and a good figure...

It is precisely for this reason that the Han Dynasty - and even all dynasties, generations, and countries in the past and future - are using every possible means to "invent various pretexts" and select people from the people to be officials.

I heard that you are very filial?

——Select filial and honest people to become officials!

I heard you are good at farming?
——Work hard in the fields and become an official!

I heard you can read?

——Come and be a clerk!

Can you count?
——Come, be the chief clerk!

Hot temper?
——Be a jailer!

strong?
——Be a yamen runner!

Even if you don't know anything but have good-looking facial features and a good image and temperament, you still have the opportunity to be appointed to a certain position and serve as the face of a place under certain special circumstances.

In a nutshell: as long as you have any skill that "ordinary people" don't have - that is, a skill that most farmers don't have, you can definitely become an official.

Just don't worry about this official's defecation and urination.

Back then, Liu Ji, a notorious gangster leader in Fengpei area, was appointed as a pavilion chief because of his local connections.

Back to the present, the imperial examination is approaching.

The main reason why Liu Rong wanted to conduct the imperial examination to inject fresh blood into the bureaucratic system was that he was increasingly unhappy with the arrogance of the bureaucratic group that "you Han family cannot do without me".

Therefore, based on the principle of "if you don't do it, there are plenty of people who will", Liu Rong decided to absorb a group of fresh blood to urge the existing bureaucratic system: Be careful of the last place elimination, dear~
However, the extremely high illiteracy rate of this era, and the narrow choice of no more than 100,000 people in the world, still made Liu Rong unable to solve the problem fundamentally.

——There are only so many people who can be officials;

The total is less than 100,000.

Eliminate the ugly, short, misshapen ones, traitors with dirty ancestors, and then eliminate a group of nerds. Almost everyone who is left has an official position!
Liu Rong has no way to solve this problem for the time being and can only use long-term policies to promote the slow growth of the ranks of intellectuals.

As for this imperial examination, there were less than 100,000 intellectuals in the country, and this was the first time in Chinese history that an imperial examination was held.
As time was limited, Liu Rong inferred that the number of people who would eventually come to Chang'an to take the exam would be roughly five to six thousand - or at most eight thousand.

As a result, when scholars from all over the country began to flock to Chang'an, Liu Rong was caught off guard.

There are still more than ten days until the exam begins;

Taking into account that most of the scholars in the Kanto region had guessed the news more than ten days in advance, the number of candidates rushing to Chang'an in the next ten days may be as high as half of the total number of candidates.

And now, there are already 7,000 candidates for this year's exam gathered in Chang'an City...

If Liu Rong's inference is correct, the number of candidates taking the imperial examination may very likely reach 15,000!
With so many people, the examination venue alone is a big problem.

——A place that can accommodate 15,000 people for examinations?
Even if it was the largest examination room Liu Rong could think of: the military training ground, these 15,000 people had to be divided into seven or eight examination rooms!

Furthermore, the permanent population of Chang'an City on weekdays is roughly within 200,000.

Among the 15,000 candidates, there must be some wealthy and aristocratic children who come with their families or have a large following.

The sudden influx of twenty or thirty thousand people made Chang'an's population suddenly increase by more than 10%!

Liu Rong had to worry about the corresponding allocation of daily necessities and housing issues.

And the most terrible thing is: with more than 15,000 candidates, how many should be admitted?

If the number of admitted students is small, the imperial examination will be considered to have a "bad start", which will lay hidden dangers for the normalization of the imperial examination in the future;
With so many admissions, where will the people be put?
Although the bureaucracy is short of people, it is basically one person per job - there are indeed empty positions, but there are definitely not tens of thousands of them;

How to solve this problem?

Will tens of thousands of new jobs be created?
Or should we eliminate thousands of people from the existing bureaucratic system?

Obviously, neither works.

And this problem also needs to be solved by Liu Rong.

"The real problem is not Jinke."

"——What should we do next?"

"Every three years, there is a test, and the number of Nashi is at least hundreds or thousands;"

"But now, there are no more than 20,000 bureaucrats in the world, and no more than a hundred of them die of old age or are dismissed from office due to crimes..."

(End of this chapter)