Red Mansion, Ningfu Scholarly Family

Chapter 276 The Ceremony of the Passion
……

Emperor Anping smiled and nodded.

He had carefully selected the topics for this palace examination in order to discover talent among them. If anyone could solve the problem of the empty treasury, he would not mind promoting him or her.

Full of anticipation, Emperor Anping solemnly took the first essay on the top. Logically speaking, this was the top-ranked paper recommended by the examiner, and it was all marked with the examiner's personal comments, first class.

The article is indeed brilliantly written, with a variety of flowers and extraordinary writing style.

but……

This is not what Emperor Anping wanted.

Then, Emperor Anping looked at the second copy below.

It is also a eulogy, the article is very exaggerated and has no practical effect.

It is true that the greater the expectations, the greater the disappointment.

It seems that I have been thinking too simply. It is a joke to expect a mere scholar to solve a problem that none of the civil and military officials in the court can solve.
The first two were so bad, what good could the next ones be? Emperor Anping had almost given up hope and casually picked up the third one to read.

"what."

It makes some sense.

Perhaps because of the disappointment of the first two articles, although this article did not fully meet the Emperor Anping's wishes, it finally contained something useful and was not full of empty talk and eulogies.

"If many produce it and few consume it, the state will last forever."

well said!
But now in my country, there are few people who live in it, but many people who eat it!

This person saw the shortcomings of the imperial court.

This is definitely a person with aspirations!

Although there were some parts of this article that he didn't like, such as this sentence: The reserves in the inner and outer treasuries will be drawn upon and will never run out.

Damn, are you eyeing my inner treasury? And you even put the inner treasury ahead of the outer treasury!
What? Is there anything you want to do in advance?

Summary: This person can be used, or even reused, but he is not one of us after all.

You can go aside after using it.

What Emperor Anping didn't know was that Jia Rong was also helpless.

Without these few sentences, this article might have been ranked behind the top 100 in the palace examination, even though he won the first place.

Who made Li Minzhi the chief examiner?
If Li Minzhi couldn't even pass that test, what was the point of the emperor liking him? Could Emperor Anping really read all 300 palace examination essays carefully and then promote his essay to the first place?
Although Emperor Anping's diligence was recognized by everyone, Jia Rong did not dare to gamble.

What if this is just a rumor? The emperor is always surrounded by flatterers.

What does a tyrant like to hear most?
Of course I like to praise him for his kindness.

There were so many people praising him, and outsiders who didn't know the truth naturally thought he was a benevolent king.

Similarly, what do disobedient and unfilial people like most?
Of course people praised him for being filial.

When his reputation for filial piety spreads far and wide, he becomes a filial son.

In particular, Emperor Anping was praised for his diligence but also his filial piety.

He is so filial that he practices Taoism to show his filial piety to his father.

You must have been serving me a lot of pills, right?

Wearing sackcloth and smiling.

……

It has to be said that Jia Rong was simply judging others by his own standards.

Who is Lee Min-Chi?
A famous scholar known far and wide, respected by everyone!

Would he damage his reputation just because of the review of the palace examination papers and throw the top scorer to the 200th or 300th place?

Of course it's impossible.

Although Jia Rong deliberately changed some of his handwriting, it seemed more like a show of skill before an expert in the eyes of people like Li Minzhi.

There is a reason why there is no transcriber in the palace examination.

The examiner needs to know the candidate's handwriting so as to know the candidate's ranking in the preliminary examination, and use this to determine the candidate's ranking in the palace examination. As for covering the name... that is just to give the candidate psychological comfort.

What's more outrageous is that there is a rumor that if you have a nice name, you can be promoted to the top scorer.

Li Minzhi personally arranged for Jia Rong to be ranked third.

Originally, Jia Rong should have been ranked tenth.

There was just a sentence in the article that made Li Minzhi feel comfortable.

"If the people are satisfied, the king is also satisfied!" What do you call this?
Keep wealth in the hands of the people!

If the people become rich first, how can the emperor not be rich?

“It’s called the Great Way!”

These four words in particular carry a lot of weight.

I didn't expect that the grandson of Lord Jia would have such insight. If he didn't have the teachings of sages in his heart, he wouldn't have been able to write these words.

Combined with the previous sentence "The reserves of the inner and outer palaces will be drawn from them without exhaustion." It is not difficult to see that Jia Rong is a talent. Although he was born in a noble family and has the shadow of nobility, his two generations of Jinshi are already qualified to integrate into their circle of literati.

Of course, there is the most important point.

We have to give face to Lord Jia.

Lord Jia is going to the south of the Yangtze River to reform the commercial tax, and he will definitely punish a few companies as an example to others.

Their Li family has also acquired tens of thousands of acres of fertile land in Jiangnan over the years...

It’s not that he is greedy!

Actually, those were all done by his relatives.

He had no prior knowledge of this.

We only found out about it recently, and have already severely punished those people!
……

The third day after the joint examination is the ceremony of announcing the results of the examination, which is the highest level ceremony in the country and also the highest honor for scholars.

On this day, one also had to get up early and gather at the Ministry of Rites to receive official uniforms, change clothes, and then learn the palace etiquette again.

You have to study hard this time. It's understandable to make a fool of yourself the first time you enter the palace, but it would be a joke to make a fool of yourself at the ceremony.

The top 20 candidates for the imperial examination were given important instructions on how to kneel and kowtow when leaving the examination room, how to express gratitude, and not to look the emperor directly in the face.

It doesn’t matter afterwards.

The second and third class students just need to stand still.

It is also an honor to be able to kneel forward, after all, it means showing up in front of the emperor.

This went on and on, and by the time all the instructions were completed it was almost noon.

"Come with me quickly, don't delay any longer." Minister Liu of the Ministry of Rites said in front with a serious face.

Everyone was speechless.

Weren't you the one who was talking nonstop just now? Are you anxious now?

Everyone walked quickly, passing through the palace gate, the Jinshui Bridge, the outer hall, and the palace corridor, and arrived at the Huangji Hall on time without any danger.

"How come?"

Jia Rong heard Li Minzhi asking questions in front of him.

Minister Liu said awkwardly, "There are a few that I really can't learn. I was afraid of making a fool of myself here, so I taught them a few more times."

Li Minzhi nodded and said nothing more.

After a while, the young eunuch shouted loudly: "The emperor has arrived."

"Long live my emperor."

All the civil and military officials kowtowed in unison, and the newly-appointed Jinshi naturally followed suit. Everyone was very careful, fearing that they would make a mistake. One old Jinshi was so excited and nervous that he couldn't get up. It might also be that his legs and feet were not flexible due to his age. Fortunately, there were too many people and they were not in unison, so it was a mess with some people getting up and some people kneeling down. The censor could not keep track and got away with it.

"Everyone loves you."

Emperor Anping walked to the dragon throne and said something with a smile. When he looked at the ministers below, his eyes became more gentle, giving people a feeling of being bathed in spring breeze.

People stood up one after another.

At this time, Emperor Anping nodded to the side, and immediately an official from the Honglu Temple came out holding the golden list, and the Minister of Rites Li Minzhi read the imperial proclamation:

"On March 16, the seventh year of Anping, the imperial examination was held nationwide. The top three candidates were awarded the title of Jinshi, the second group of 77 candidates were awarded the title of Jinshi, and the third group of 220 candidates were awarded the title of Tong Jinshi."

really!

Everyone thought to themselves, "Although it seems that the emperor has shown great favor and increased the number of Jinshi candidates, the increase is only in the third class of Jinshi candidates. The number of first and second class candidates has hardly increased compared to previous years."

Tongjinshi here does not mean the same as Jinshi.

But, different.

After the announcement, the official in charge of announcing the names of the successful candidates from the Honglu Temple began to call out the names of the successful candidates. All the civil and military officials pricked up their ears to listen. Jia Jing was particularly excited. At this time, whether he was cunning or not was not so important. It would be abnormal if he did not show some excitement at the ceremony of announcing the names of the successful candidates in the imperial examinations of his eldest grandson.

……

(End of this chapter)