I will never be Renzong

Chapter 137 Grace and interception
On the sixth day of March in the fourth year of Tiansheng, the Ministry of Rites held an examination for officials of noble children.

At first, the noble children thought it was just a formality, and many of them had already obtained the test questions issued by the official department, so they were already confident, but when it came to the day of the real test, they suddenly found that the test questions had changed, and it was still The questions were asked by the officials themselves.

The questions Zhao Zhen asked were not difficult, and compared to the imperial examinations, they were much simpler. After all, Zhao Zhen didn't want to offend all the nobles to death with a stick.

But the invigilator is Zhao Yuanyan, the eighth king. With a big mouth, he yelled loudly at embarrassing his ancestors, and finally kicked and kicked him out of the examination room.

Some people who wanted to fish in troubled waters felt so angry when they saw this iron-faced king of hell being so angry. Their official positions basically came from kindness. Officials in the Song Dynasty had very high salaries, which were the highest in all dynasties. But with official positions, many of them Things are much easier to handle, so no one wants to lose their official position for no reason.

They thought that sending the Eight Great Kings to invigilate the examination was just a formality, but they didn't expect the Eight Great Kings to be so vigorous and resolute. There were 308 noble children who participated in this assessment, and there were more than 60 people who were beaten up. Hundreds of people were scared away, and only 28 people passed the assessment.

Inside the Chongzheng Hall, the important officials of the imperial court gathered together.

Zhao Zhen glanced at the ministers and said angrily, "Out of the 308 people who participated in the assessment, only 28 passed, and the pass rate was less than one-tenth. Is this the result of the court's favor?"

The Eighth King Zhao Yuanyan bowed and said: "Officials! I didn't expect these noble officials to be so ignorant. I personally invigilated the exams, and those who couldn't answer a single word, I slapped them like pigs in public. They are all well-known ministers and generals of my Song Dynasty, but I didn’t expect that they are all crooked melons and cracked dates in this generation, really discrediting the ancestors!"

The privy envoy Cao Li paid homage: "I heard that the test questions have been set, but the officials suddenly changed the test questions in the end. I am thinking, are the test questions too difficult? I thought it would be better if the officials were not involved in the test." If it is held once, there must be more than this number of people who pass!"

"Lu Yijian! Tell me, are the test questions I gave myself difficult?"

Zhao Zhen said to Lu Yijian, who was in charge of political affairs and led the Ministry of Officials.

Lu Yijian bit the bullet and replied: "Report to the official! I have read the test questions given by the official with a few ministers, and the difficulty is less than one-third of the questions given by the official department."

Zhao Zhen continued: "The test questions are so simple, but these noble officials cannot answer them. What does this mean? On the surface, these noble children are ignorant and incompetent, but I think these are all secondary reasons. In the past few days, I have I have been thinking about what makes today’s aristocratic officials so unlearned and unmotivated. All the ministers are important officials in the court and well-read poetry and literature. Can anyone answer this confusion for me? "

Prime Minister Zhang Zhibai said: "Officials! Most of the official positions of noble children come from the favor of the court. They are different from those scholars who studied hard for ten years. If they didn't suffer that hardship, they would naturally not cherish what they got!"

Zhao Zhen replied: "One porridge and one meal should be thought of as hard-won, half a thread, and constant memory and material resources. Only by suffering and suffering can one be a master. The foundation created by the ancestors is not left to the unfilial. The descendants will be ruined, but it will be passed down from generation to generation."

"The grace system has been corrupted to this point, so I plan to abolish the grace system!"

Zhao Zhen suddenly said firmly.

Cao Li hurriedly bowed and said: "Guan family! Our court treats literati preferentially, and the system of favor and kindness can never be abolished!"

Lu Zongdao said: "Officials! The system of favor and shade is the ancestral system. What the officials have done is against the ancestral system. Please think twice!"

"Please think twice, officials!"

Except for the prime minister Zhang Zhibai, all the important officials of the court who were present advised and advised.

Zhao Zhen said angrily: "The Great Song Dynasty has not been established for a hundred years, and the noble family has only three generations, and it has been corrupted to this point. What is the use of such kindness? I am very dissatisfied with the current situation of the kindness officials. Since All the ministers think that I should not abolish the grace system, so go back and think about how to change this situation. As for the innocence of strict discipline on noble children, don’t write it into the letter. Already!"

"I'm waiting for orders!"

One of the three major problems in the Song Dynasty, redundant soldiers, had been basically solved after more than a year of army reorganization. After Zhao Zhen took control of the military, the second problem to be solved was redundant officials.

There are two reasons for the redundancy of officials in the Northern Song Dynasty. One is that the scope of the imperial examinations in the Song Dynasty was expanded, that is, the expansion of college enrollment caused employment difficulties.

The other is caused by the proliferation of the shade system.

Yin can also be called Renzi, Menyin, Yinbu, and Shishang, which is a disguised form of the hereditary system in ancient China.It refers to the treatment given to the younger generation to enroll as officials because of the meritorious service of the older generation.In a broad sense, favor refers to the fact that due to the status of ancestors and fathers under the feudal system, descendants enjoy special treatment in schooling, officialdom, etc., which is called "favor".In the narrow sense, "Enyin" refers to a unique system of family yin that emerged after the Song Dynasty, called "Tui En Yin Bu", and it was shortened to "En Yin" in Song Dynasty.

Due to the ancestral system of favoring literati in the Song Dynasty, if an official reached the rank of bachelor or above, he could obtain the establishment of twenty Beijing officials through Enyin in 20 years. Some official families did not have so many children to use Enyin. , so I recommend relatives and even diners to come and make up the money. After all, don’t give up for free.

But relatives and retainers want to be kind, and of course filial piety is indispensable, so it forms a disadvantage similar to selling an official.

So you will find that the officials in the Northern Song Dynasty had a very serious patriarchal thought. The bigger the scholars and officials were, the more they wanted to have sons, because only sons can be used for grace.

Yan Shu, a songwriter of a generation, had seven sons, Fan Zhongyan, a famous minister, also had four sons, and Wang Anshi, who later presided over the reform, also had three sons, but there are exceptions. Wang Anshi fought to the end.

The Grace System of the Song Dynasty mainly included:

It is held every year on the emperor's birthday.Dali Yinbu is held every three years in the suburbs.

When the officials retired, the Yuan Dynasty followed the son-in-law system in the early Ming Dynasty, and all civil servants above the seventh rank were given a son to receive the salary in the world, which is called Enyin Sheng.

Make up for the lost watch, and the official will wear the lost watch once when he dies.After the death of the hero, there can be more than 20 tweets.

In fact, at the end of Song Renzong's reign, the ministers also realized that if the Enyin system continued to play like this, the country would end sooner or later.

Zhao Zhen was furious on the surface and wanted to abolish the Enyin system, but he also knew in his heart that this kind of system was impossible to abolish. The reason why Longyan was furious was just a bluff, and he wanted to set the tone for the reform of the Enyin system That's all.

In Pinglu County outside the city of Shanzhou, a caravan of 30 people was walking on the winding mountain road. The fourteen characters of the Royal Chamber of Commerce were hung above the carriage. Except for one carriage, the rest were dela All of them are gold, silver and copper coins, totaling 30 guan, which were used by Shen Moran to reform the salt industry.

The caravan must go through Tu'er Mountain to go to Jiezhou, and fifty or sixty dead men have already ambushed on both sides of Tu'er Mountain Road.

"Boss, the caravan is still twenty miles away from us. The weather is bad today. Do you want to start early!"

A spy quickly ran to Qiu Ba and said.

Qiu Ba looked up at the cloudy sky, and said: "If it rains, the mountain road will be even more difficult to walk. It must be night when the caravan arrives at Rabbit Mountain. By then, people will be exhausted. We will take advantage of the night to sneak attack. I was able to capture the president of the Royal Chamber of Commerce alive!"

"Boss, I heard that the president of the Royal Chamber of Commerce is a great beauty. When the time comes, the boss will let you eat meat, can you let the younger ones drink some soup!"

A dead man with a wicked eyebrow and a mouse eye said flatteringly.

It is true that they are dead men, but it depends on who trained them. Every time before Qiu Ba took them on a mission, he would go to the brothel to have a good time. Violent hands.

But this time Qiu Ba didn't let them enjoy it and came out to perform the task.

"You are so rigid, you are still thinking of women at any time. If you continue to inform, no one can be tempted by the woman in the carriage. Tell the brothers that as long as the woman in the carriage is captured alive, each person will be rewarded with a thousand taels of silver after returning. At that time, buying ten girls is enough!"

Qiu Ba reprimanded loudly.

Sure enough, when the caravan arrived at Rabbit Mountain, it was already raining heavily. It was less than [-] miles away from Liezhou, but in the wilderness, there was naturally no post station, so the caravan had to set up camp in the rain. Well, it was already late at night in the tents, and everyone was too tired to get up.

As soon as midnight arrived, Qiu Ba led people to attack the caravan at night, but all the guards were from Jinyiwei, and they were all from the Lian family, so they were not afraid of this group of dead men. During the fierce battle between the two sides, Qiu Ba took the opportunity to control the carriage , kidnapped the people in the carriage, and then left half of the dead soldiers to resist the guards, while he led the rest to leave in chaos.

After all the guards killed all the dead soldiers, they found that the president had been snatched away long ago. They wanted to chase but all the brothers were wounded and had money to take care of. However, the county magistrate of Pinglu did not expect that under his jurisdiction, there would be such a bandit who would dare to kidnap the president of the Royal Chamber of Commerce. While sending officers and soldiers out of the city to hunt him down, he would report to the magistrate of Shanzhou.

Qiu Ba led the remaining dead soldiers to escape to Jiezhou and then breathed a sigh of relief. Qiu Ba glanced at the woman who was knocked unconscious by her on horseback and said: "This woman is quite handsome, but she is still much worse than the young lady." .”

At the same time, in Jiezhou territory, Shen Moran led four female guards to hurry to Jiezhou city.

At first, when she arrived in Shanzhou, she found some local salt merchants to inquire about the news, and accidentally learned about the personality of Qian Wenguan, the governor of the state, so she kept an eye out, and the caravan split into two groups. The vulgar maid walks the path, while her personal maid Xiaoqing pretends to be her as a carriage to follow the official path with the brigade.

"Help me~"

A woman's cry for help came from the woods not far away, Shen Moran hurriedly stopped the horse, and said to the female guard beside him: "Xiaomei, Xiaolan, go and see what happened!"

"Yes!"

The two female guards quickly dismounted and walked toward the woods in search of the sound.

After a while, a disheveled middle-aged government servant was escorted out by Xiaomei with a knife.

"Little lady, please forgive me! I don't dare to do it anymore!"

The middle-aged yamen servant scrambled and ran to Shen Moran's horse.

After a while, Xiaolan walked out with the help of a middle-aged nun with torn clothes and scars on her body.

Shen Moran immediately understood what happened, and said angrily, "Kill!"

"Yes!"

After Xiaolan took the order, she was killed with a knife.

Seeing this, the nun on the side quickly knelt down and kowtowed to Shen Moran: "Thank you benefactor for saving my life!"

Shen Moran got off his horse and helped him up, and asked: "Master, look at his clothes, this man is a servant of the government, but why would he do such a thing that damages the majesty of the court? Insulting women is a capital offense!"

The middle-aged nun hurriedly said: "The benefactor doesn't know something. This official is the confidant of Lord Zhizhou. The nuns of our Yutou nunnery go to Jiezhou City for alms. When they come back, they will be deceived by this official to insult here under the pretext of escorting them. There are already quite a few older sisters who have hanged themselves after returning home unbearably humiliated!"

"Since that's the case, why did the teacher still come to this city for alms?"

Shen Moran asked puzzledly.

"One is because the sisters on the mountain want to survive, even at the risk of being bullied by gangsters, they still have to go to the city to seek alms, and the other is that I heard that the president of the Royal Chamber of Commerce is coming. We women fight against injustice, so the poor nun wants to go to the city to see if he can meet her, and let her be the master and avenge the nuns of Yutou Nunnery!"

The middle-aged nun shouted loudly.

Seeing that this nun didn't look like a fake, Shen Moran said: "Master! To tell you the truth, I am the president of the Royal Chamber of Commerce. If you have any grievances, just tell me straight up, and I will definitely avenge you."

"Are you the president of the Royal Chamber of Commerce?"

The middle-aged nun obviously didn't believe it.

"Like a fake replacement!"

Speaking of Shen Moran, she took out a special gold medal from her bosom. The middle-aged nun didn't know what the gold medal was, but if she thought about it, she would definitely not be able to fake it if she dared to directly execute the official. Enter the city! Master Zhizhou is going to murder you?"

"How do you say that?"

Shen Moran frowned and said.

The middle-aged nun then told Shen Moran everything that had happened in the past few days. It turned out that although Liu Ruoyun had killed the government servant who wanted to misbehave with her, the official channels had been blocked. She was a weak woman. It is unlikely to escape, so I went to Yutou Temple, and after telling my story, I got sympathy from the masters, so I have been hiding in Yutou Temple.

"Is Miss Liu still in Yutou Nunnery?"

Shen Moran suddenly realized that Mrs. Liu, who had escaped from the government office, must know something, otherwise she would not have attracted a full manhunt.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Benefactor Liu has been hiding in the cellar of our Yutou Nunnery. Even if the officials went up the mountain to search a few days ago, they still couldn't find Mrs. Liu!"

The nun hurriedly replied.

"Xiaomei! Xiaolan! You two stay here to dispose of this corpse. Master Lao will lead the way!"

Shen Moran immediately decided not to enter the city, but to go to Yutouan to meet Liu Ruoyun who escaped marriage.

(End of this chapter)