My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 419 Exam Questions
In the second year of Emperor Rong Xinyuan’s reign, on the fourteenth day of the eighth month in autumn.

There were only six days left until the first Autumn Examination in Chinese history, and the location of this examination was finally determined.

According to the official plan drawn up by the court, the examination will be divided into three rounds, to be held on the 20th, 23rd, and 28th of August in autumn.

The examination location was divided according to the size of the examination rooms in the Neishi Yamen, which had not yet been officially split up.

Examination Hall A was located in the western suburbs of Chang'an, outside the Shanglin Garden, in an abandoned old military camp, accommodating a total of 2,000 examinees.

The three examination venues B, C and D are all located near Lantian County.

As a large military town that was never abandoned but was not in daily use, the military camps and parade grounds in the Lantian area undoubtedly perfectly solved the venue problem for this imperial examination.

The three examination halls are located on the east, west and north sides of Lantian County, and are military camps used for large-scale military assembly in "extraordinary times".

These three examination halls accommodated a total of 9,000 candidates.

At this point, the four examination rooms A, B, C and D have already accommodated 11,000 candidates.

However, there are still some candidates who have not yet completed their arrangements.

Therefore, the Neishi Yamen had to write to the emperor and borrow an old military camp in the southern suburbs of Chang'an, which originally belonged to the Southern Army.

Once upon a time - during the reign of Emperor Taizu Gao, the Southern Army, with its five colonels and a total of 10,000 soldiers, was a royal guard that was comparable to the seven colonels of the Northern Army.

However, after Empress Dowager Lü passed away, the Lü clan caused chaos in Chang'an. Taiwei Zhou Bo said, "Liu clan favors the left," and led the northern army to attack the southern army guarding the Weiyang Palace.
Especially after the Northern Army led by Zhou Bo finally won and became the "royal army to quell the rebellion", the Southern Army not only suffered heavy casualties but was also judged as the remnants of the rebels who "aided and abetted Zhou's evil". The Southern Army, known as one of the two imperial armies in Chang'an, was actually no longer the same as before.

During the reign of Emperor Taizong, the Southern Army, under the conscious or unintentional promotion of the entire power decision-making level, gradually developed into a concentration camp for the Fengpei Yuancong and Shandong elders to arrange their disdainful children.

To this day, the old Fengpei Yuancong group has basically formed an inherent concept.

——The children of the mortal clan who are able should learn the art of war, and those who are not talented should learn martial arts;

If you don’t have talent for martial arts, just start with literature.

If all else fails, they would be stuffed into the imperial palace to become a "lang" (a position that is hidden in the imperial palace), get gilded with gold, and then work their way into officialdom.

It really is no use - none of the above paths work. I can't understand the art of war, I can't practice martial arts, and I can't learn literary talent.

Even high-purity trash who don't even have the basic social skills and can't read people's expressions can only be stuffed into the Southern Army to muddle through.

This made it inevitable that the Southern Army, once an elite imperial guard on par with the Northern Army, would become increasingly lazy and slack.

Let’s not talk about their combat effectiveness for now - there are thousands of people in the entire military camp, and it’s hard to find a few who are not troublesome.

It has been developing like this for several decades, and now that Liu Rong has come to power, the Southern Army is basically no longer worthy of being called an "army".

The original organization of the five colonels has changed from each colonel having an over-staffing of 2,000 men, totaling 10,000, to now having only one colonel having a full staffing of 1,000 men, while the remaining four colonels can only muster less than 2,000 men in total.

The Southern Army Camp, which could originally accommodate 10,000 people, now has less than 3,000 of the Shandong elders and the dandy young men of the Fengpei Yuancong family, so naturally more than half of the camp is empty.

There is nothing wrong with temporarily recruiting half of the area and cramming 3,000 candidates into it.

Including these three thousand, the total number of applicants for this examination has reached fourteen thousand.

It's basically reached the top.

As for the candidates who have not yet arrived in Chang'an and will arrive in the next three days, the Neishi Yamen did not adopt a one-size-fits-all approach, but set up a "preparatory examination room" in the Bashang camp, which was originally part of the Bashang army, in the Bashang generation on the eastern outskirts of Chang'an City.

If the number of additional candidates exceeds 500 in the next few days, this examination room will be activated.

If the number of people does not reach 500, they will be arranged to a temporary examination venue in an unloading area belonging to the Shaofu outside the west gate of Chang'an.

In general, the time and place have been arranged.

Only the test questions caused quite a stir in the court.

In the end, Liu Rong overruled all objections and personally determined the composition structure and difficulty levels of the three rounds of imperial examinations.

The first round of examinations is divided into three modules: written, arithmetic, and self-description.

The narrative module, as the name suggests, is to make a summary of the content given in the test questions.

It is roughly like this: the test question describes the specific process of an event, and requires the candidates to organize their own language and use the most concise words possible to describe what happened, when, where, and between which people.

Obviously, this is a literacy question.

As long as you can recognize words, understand the questions, have some language organization skills, and can express the organized language in words, you will have no problem with this question.

This module consists of two questions, each worth fifteen points, for a total of thirty points.

The second module: arithmetic, needs no elaboration - it is based on basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, divided into ten questions, each worth three points, for a total of thirty points.

The last module is the only question in the first round of imperial examinations that is somewhat difficult, and it is also the only question that can reflect the differences in the candidates' literary literacy.

——Self-narration.

It is divided into three questions - self-introduction, family background introduction, and telling a random past event.

There are three questions, the first two are worth 10 points each, the last one is worth 20 points, and the total score of the module is 40 points.

The total score of the first round of examinations is 100, with 60 points as a pass and 90 points as an excellent score.

Liu Rong has given careful consideration to the composition of this score.

——If you get 60 points out of 100, you will pass and enter the next round;
This means that candidates can have no knowledge of arithmetic, give up all 30 points in the arithmetic module, and get 60 points out of the remaining 70 points.

Or, if a candidate’s language organization ability is too poor and he or she cannot get high scores in the written and self-narrative modules, he or she can completely make up for the gap by relying on arithmetic.

In general, the first round of exams is basically a literacy test.

Only illiterate or quasi-illiterate people will fail this round.

If you can write and read and have a bit of brains, there's no way you can fail - it's even impossible for the score to be lower than 80 points.

On this basis, Liu Rong also added clauses to care for special groups.

The sons of the nobles of the title of Marquis of Guannei and above, and officials with a rank of 1,000 stones or above, passed the first round unconditionally;
If the score of the first round paper is higher than 60, ten extra points will be added unconditionally in the second round. If the score of the second round paper is higher than 60, ten extra points will be added unconditionally in the third round.

Translated into plain language, it means: Even if you are a waste, as long as you are not too wasteful, I am willing to allow you to pass three rounds of exams in a row for the sake of your parents. Logically speaking, such a preferential policy should not be given only to the children of dukes and nobles.

Liu Rong should have also taken into consideration the remains of the heroes who died for the king, and the survival of the descendants of meritorious officials.

But in the end, Liu Rong still insisted on treating this seemingly glorious but actually contemptuous care policy as an insulting care unique to the children of the nobility.

The reason is simple: other groups don't need such policies at all.

——This is the Han Dynasty!

It is the Han Dynasty that can truly put the six words "A gentleman will die for his friend" into practice!

Not to mention such care, it is common in this era for any neighbor to slander someone and cause him to commit suicide to prove his innocence.

This is the case among the common people, not to mention the higher-ups in government.

There is no need to talk about anything else, just one point: why did the prime minister of the Han Dynasty have only two endings: dying of old age in office or being brutally dismissed?

Why can't there be a third option, such as a prime minister who is not on good terms with the emperor tactfully asking for his death, or the emperor negotiating with him in a friendly manner to complete the replacement of prime minister's power in a relatively peaceful manner?

The answer is the word "integrity", which is incomprehensible to future generations but is very common in this era.

To put it bluntly, it's all about face.

——Since the Han Dynasty, starting with Prime Minister Xiao, all the prime ministers of the Han Dynasty were either in office or dismissed and demoted!

Why should you beg for death or "retire honorably" when you come to me?
No!

Absolutely not!

Or, let me work till I die like Xiao He and Cao Shen;

Otherwise, let me be like Prime Minister Zhou Bo and Prime Minister Zhang Cang, who were deposed by the tyrant monarch because they were not afraid of power and did not flatter the emperor!

There is absolutely no third way!
Otherwise, if this matter gets out, how can I live my life?

Someone with a bit of moral integrity might say that I am "not talented enough" and unworthy of serving as prime minister for the rest of my life.
If I meet someone who has a grudge against me, they can demote me to the point of "not even worthy of being deposed by the emperor himself" in just a few words, and even say that I am a villain and a coward who does not have the backbone to go against the emperor and can only beg for death by being submissive!
After all, a prime minister like Tao Hou Liu She is one of the rarest not only in the current Han Dynasty, but also in the entire Chinese history of five thousand years.

He can be shameless;

The Taohou family has the capital to be shameless.

The three words "shameless" can indeed bring much greater benefits or compensation to the Taohou family than "shame".

But in this era, there is really no other Gonghou family as shameless as the Taohou family.

In this era where everyone cares about face and values ​​reputation more than life, performing a caesarean section in public just to prove that one only ate a bowl of noodles - such an incredible thing would not arouse anyone's doubt.

In this era, if you want to prove that you only ate a bowl of noodles, you should take out your intestines!
The slightly different thing is that after the proof is given, this person who really only ate one bowl of noodles and would undoubtedly die from the cesarean section will become a legend in the hearts of people all over the world.

As for the villain who slandered this person for eating two bowls of noodles but only paying for one bowl, he will be nailed to the pillar of shame in history, and his ancestors and descendants will never be able to turn over a new leaf.

Therefore, even a hexagonal all-round warrior like Liu Rong who had no problems himself - solid legal principles, a stable position, power in his hands, and no major character flaws - often did not dare to say anything too harsh when facing important officials in the court.

This is like the so-called "three-part responsibility on the road" in later generations, no matter what the facts are or how the responsibility is divided, as long as the car driver hits and kills a pedestrian, he must bear part of the responsibility;
The same principle applies - no matter whose fault it is, no matter whether Liu Rong wrongly accused the other person of eating two bowls of noodles or not, as long as the other person committed suicide in the end, Liu Rong would have to suppress his nausea, accept the universal value of "three-part responsibilities after ascending the throne", and shed two crocodile tears for the scum and traitor who deserved to die.

Just like Emperor Taizu Gao, who once cried for Liang Wang Peng Yue, "He was a hero, but I regretted following the Queen's advice and killing him with the villain's tactics";
For example, Emperor Taizong Zhao Wen once cried for Liu Chang, King Li of Huainan: Emperor Taizu had eight sons, and now only I and Huainan are left.

Now that Huainan has suddenly passed away, I am heartbroken and feel that I am now alone and helpless...

If this isn't abstract enough, here's the most abstract one.

——The late emperor cried more than King Liu Bi of Wu!

That’s right;

It was the late Emperor Xiaojing who smashed the crown prince to death with a chessboard. He also cried and mourned for the instigator of the Wu-Chu Rebellion after the rebellion of the Seven States of Wu and Chu was quelled!
As for the reason, it still goes: the sky is big, the earth is big, but human life is the most important.

The emperor of the Liu family and the common man of the Liu family are definitely as different as heaven and earth, there is no comparison at all.

But within the Liu family, when clan members confront each other, the most important issue is no longer right or wrong, but often the four words "the dead are the greatest".

Of course, the late emperor was "right", just and sacred.

But Liu Bi died.

Regardless of what he did, or the Wu-Chu Rebellion - the key point is that he died.

Even if the rebellion failed and someone took his life after he fled, he was still dead after all.

Since he was dead, even if the late emperor issued the bloody core policy of "going deep and killing as many as possible" to the various armies to suppress the rebellion, he had to wipe away his tears hypocritically and sigh a few words: Wu Wangbi is an elder of the clan;

When he passed away, I was overwhelmed with grief, thinking that the country had lost a pillar...

It’s so abstract!

Although it's not to the point that whoever dies is right, it is at least a situation where "the one who dies is three points more right, and the other party is three points more guilty for being alive."

Under such circumstances - in this era of strong morals, only those nobles who are like termites, sucking blood from the country, would feel that this is an honor.

Furthermore, other groups do not need to go through the imperial examination system to achieve their personal ambitions.

The Han family also did not need to take care of other groups in the imperial examinations - for these groups, the Han family had countless other channels to provide them with more decent and respectful care.

For example, the orphans of martyrs - the commanders of Liu Rong's Yulin and Huben divisions, still maintain a single source of soldiers, which is only the descendants of heroes.

The remaining groups also have their own corresponding channels for care that suit their identities.

As a result, the matter was settled while everyone inside and outside the court pretended not to notice it, and the nobles were complacent about it.

As expected, Liu Rong took on all the questions in the next two rounds of imperial examinations.

——The second round of imperial examinations mainly focused on further literary literacy and the application of arithmetic in specific government operations.

The third round is even more famous in history: the palace examination...

(End of this chapter)