My life skills in Daming Liver

The chief envoy of Fujian received a transfer letter from Tao Gonggong, and his heart was broken.

You're a eunuch, why don't you blackmail the place? Why repair water conservancy?

Is this water conservancy something you, a eunuch, can fix? How many literati who have read poetry and books can't understand things, you, a eunuch, want to play?

But Eunuch Tao is the imperial envoy of the emperor, and it was also stated in the previous imperial decree that Fujian should cooperate with Eunuch Tao to rectify money laws.

In this article, the purpose of repairing water conservancy is to "unclog the money law". Fujian's chief envoy Wang Guojia could only call his staff and officials from the chief envoy's yamen to discuss Tao Gonggong's move.

After reading the article, the close subordinates said: "Master Daotai, in view of his humble position, he should follow that Eunuch Tao."

The territory of Ming Dynasty was divided into two capitals and thirteen provinces, with Zhili in the north and south as Beijing, and other provinces as Tao.

The Chief Envoy is the civil servant of a province, also known as the Daotai.

Another staff member of the Wang Buzheng spoke up, and this old scholar with a white beard said:

"This Eunuch Tao is appointed by the emperor and has the emperor's will. If he blatantly disobeys orders, he may be impeached by him."

When Wang Buzheng heard this, he immediately panicked.

Although administratively speaking, Wang Buzhengshi was the great official of the Ming Dynasty, and he was a proper second-rank high-ranking official, but Mr. Tao is qualified to reveal it secretly!

If you become an official and reach the level of a province, you will only have six ministers or enter the cabinet if you are promoted.

In this step to the sky, the ability of officials and the results of the assessment are no longer important, the most important thing is the emperor's thoughts.

If the dead eunuch took the eye drops and influenced Mr. Wang to go further in the future, then he would not regret taking the drugs.

Emissary Wang Buzheng nodded, which seemed to set the tone.

Now many staff and subordinates know what to say.

The history of water conservancy facilities in the chief envoy’s yamen says:

"Lord Daotai, the biggest problem with water conservancy repairs is spending money. Since Eunuch Tao is willing to pay, we only need to issue an official document in the office of the chief envoy."

The Chief Envoy Wang also nodded. In the past, when there were father-in-laws who came to handle errands, the Chief Envoy would prepare a large sum of money to bribe them. Originally, the Chief Envoy Wang was prepared to bleed.

Unexpectedly, Eunuch Tao never came to Fuzhou City at all, but just wrote a letter to ask Fujian Jiesi to send the copper deposits to the Nanping mine, and did not blackmail other yamen, but just hid in the mountains to play with copper at ease.

Now Eunuch Tao just asks the chief envoy to issue an official document to recruit people from all over the country to build water conservancy projects. The money does not need to be paid out of the province, so what can we complain about?

Wang Guojian suddenly realized, yes, it is enough to cooperate with such a simple matter, and he does not need to pay for it himself anyway.

The chief minister of the king immediately asked his subordinates to draft the order, and then stamped the official seal of the chief minister's office and distributed it to each government, and then the government office of each government quickly sent it to the counties for execution.

The government office and the county office were also puzzled when they received this official document.

Your father-in-law Tao made money well, but why did you get involved in water conservancy?

But the thinking of the government office and the county office is similar to that of Wang Buzhengshi. Anyway, the work assigned to me should be distributed according to the requirements.

In this way, on the wall outside the county government in Nanping County, a notice was posted on the wall of the county government to recruit civilian husbands to rebuild the embankment of the Minjiang River.

What is different from usual is that this time the government did not apportion corvee, but recruited civilians for a fee. Not only the monthly salary was stated on the notice, but also the project deadline, and even the number of civilians needed. Clearly.

The people in Nanping County were skeptical, but soon news came from the county that more than 50 young and strong people from Beishan Village applied to the county government, willing to build the Minjiang River for the people of Nanping.

Immediately afterwards, several villages and towns near Changningwei also signed up, and in this way, the number of people needed to start work was gathered.

The situation in other counties is similar. There are always some people who can't make it through to sign up for money, and once someone signs up, someone else will sign up.

Naturally, this is also the method Su Ze set up for Eunuch Tao.

A project is divided into many sections, and the first batch of construction is only a small section of the whole project.

But as long as these people get the money, it will be easy to recruit other segments of civilian husbands.

"Lord Bai, we have recruited the men needed to build the embankment of the Minjiang River."

The person in charge of this matter was Lin Xianda, a scribe of Chengfa Department. After hearing this, Bai Zhixian nodded, put down the "Guwen Guanzhi" in his hand and said:

"Let's prepare everyone, this Eunuch Tao is really strange, is this some new way to make money?"

Lin Xianda also smiled and said: "My lord, the county has prepared people well, no matter which side can find fault."

Bai Zhixian nodded and said: "You ask Qufang to push two people out, and deal with the higher-ups first."

Bai Zhixian put down the book in his hand and said, "Has Su Rulin arrived in Fuzhou safely?"

Lin Xianda immediately said: "Brother Aze just sent someone to deliver a letter a few days ago, and he has already applied for the rural examination."

Bai Zhixian nodded and said: "I have also heard from Haijiao that Su Rulin is the most promising candidate in this subject. If you Changningwei can produce a candidate, it will be regarded as the glory of the ancestors."

Lin Xianda said hastily: "Brother A Ze said it before the exam, thanks to the county magistrate who promoted him to be the chief of the case, if he is really successful, he will definitely remember the magistrate's kindness."

Bai Zhixian was happy in his heart, but said coldly on the surface: "The test papers are all vague, and Su Rulin got the capital of the case because of his ability."

It has been a long time since Nanping County has had a candidate. If Su Ze can win the exam, doesn't it mean that Nanping County has done a good job in cultural and educational work?

Moreover, Su Ze is still a junior Sanyuan ordered by Baizhi County. The better his grades, the more discerning Baizhi County will be.

Regarding Tao Gonggong's water conservancy work, the yamen in various places basically have this attitude.

It's just that Lin Xianda took this matter to heart, and found two officials who knew water conservancy from the canal room, and asked them to lead the team well.

On the seventh day of August, Wang Daokun, the magistrate of Fujian Province, led all the officials participating in the provincial examination to worship the Confucian Temple first, and pray to the most holy teacher of Dacheng and the sages of the past dynasties for the prosperity of Fujian's culture.

Immediately afterwards, Wang Daokun unlocked the door of the tribute courtyard, and all the officials lived in the tribute courtyard with Wang Daokun.

Wang Daokun handed the test papers to Zhang Sijing, the paper printing officer, and Zhang Sijing took the test papers. He needed to print the papers for 3,500 candidates in the printing workshop next to the Gongyuan.

Zhang Sijing took the papers and left, and Wang Daokun began to inspect the tribute courtyard with his fellow examiners and invigilators.

The Gongyuan in Fujian is very large, and it is divided into four areas according to the heaven and earth, because there are too many test sheds, and it looks very depressing when they are densely packed.

A movable wooden board can be used as the door of the test booth. After entering the test booth, candidates will put down the board at the entrance, and this board will become a desk for answering questions.

Wang Daokun looked at the endless examination booths, and thought of the scene when he took the provincial examination in Nanzhili. The imperial examination was getting more and more complicated.

There is no way, with more and more scholars, the depreciation of academic qualifications in the Ming Dynasty has become more and more serious.

In the early days of the country, as long as you were a scholar, you could become an official, and you could be awarded the post of county magistrate by juren, and there were many people who held high positions in the imperial court.

But now Juren can only be an academic officer, and they are all academic officers in relatively backward areas.

The same is true for Jinshi. The top three Jinshi can be county magistrates, but they have to register and queue at the Ministry of Officials. Only when there is a vacancy in the local area can they have a chance to fill.

However, the number of imperial examinations was rapidly expanding. Wang Daokun had read the records of the Gongyuan in the past. When the emperor first came to the throne, less than 2,000 people participated in the Fujian provincial examination.

Today is the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing, and this number has swelled to 3,500.

So much so that some scholars sighed, "It's better to be born early than to be good in the exam."

Putting away these emotions, my job is to select qualified talents among the 3,500 people.

The figure of Su Ze flashed in Wang Daokun's mind. That young man should take the provincial examination, right?

Wang Daokun also began to look forward to Su Ze's exam papers.

In the printing workshop next to the examination institute, the clerk handed over the examination papers that had just been engraved and printed to Zhang Sijing, and handed them over to him for final approval by the school team.

While reading and writing down the contents of the examination paper, Zhang Sijing confirmed that the examination paper was correct, and his subordinates began to print the examination paper.

After the little official went out, Zhang Sijing picked up his pen and began to silently write the questions for the imperial examination.

After finishing writing, Zhang Sijing wiped the sweat from his forehead. This was the first time he cheated in the imperial examination, so he was naturally extremely nervous.

When he took part in the imperial examination, Zhang Sijing naturally hated this kind of cheating in the imperial examination.

However, after being relegated from the capital, a generation of proud sons of heaven became officials in remote areas. Zhang Sijing built a shabby pavilion, and only when he was surrounded by scholars such as Huang Shixing could he feel better.

After arriving at the place, Zhang Sijing quickly lost the ambition of incorruptibility that he had just set up after becoming a speech officer.

Zhang Sijing didn't dare to think about how he got to where he is today step by step.

He collected his thoughts, waited until the ink was dry, rolled up the roll of paper, and according to the agreement with Huang Shixing, threw the roll of paper outside the Gongyuan.

Huang Shixing, who had already been waiting outside, immediately picked up the ball of paper, and then quickly returned to the Kuixing Building where he was staying.

Can't wait to open the ball of paper, seeing the densely packed questions on it, Huang Shixing began to try to answer.

There are three exams in the township examination, the first one is the most critical.

However, compared with the county examination, the rural examination is much more difficult.

The difficulty is not only in the difficulty of the test questions, but also in the number of test questions.

The county test only needs to take one piece of Four Books and one Five Classics, and two stereotyped essays for a whole day, and there is plenty of time to polish it slowly.

And the rural examination is to test three articles of the Four Books and four articles of the Five Classics!

The number of words in each article is between 200 and 300 words. It must be a strict stereotyped essay, and there is only one day to answer the questions.

This is not writing a novel in hydrology, but an official article with the intention of correctly citing classics.

Only a small number of candidates can answer all the questions within the allotted time.

Ninety percent of the candidates were eliminated in terms of answering speed.

So Huang Shixing was able to get the test papers in advance, which already took a considerable advantage. As long as he finished the essay today, he could just write it silently when he entered the test room.

But just after reading the first question, Huang Shixing encountered a difficulty.

He couldn't think of a way to solve this problem.

After thinking hard for a long time, Huang Shixing could only copy down this topic first, and write other topics first.

While doing this, another problem arose. Huang Shixing copied it down again. He was so heartbroken that he took out these two questions. He didn't care about the agreement with Zhang Sijing, so he could only ask someone to solve the problem first. the way.

Zhang Sijing in the tribute courtyard did not expect that Huang Shixing, who was praised by everyone on weekdays, would be such an idiot, and Huang Shixing would ask others for a few simple questions in his opinion.

Huang Shixing finally had some brains, so he asked two people to ask for advice. He quickly wrote down the article and memorized it, and then went to bed.

On the eighth day of August, the gate of the Gongyuan was crowded with people.

Su Ze lined up in the queue of candidates from Nanping County and entered the arena in order.

Su Ze also saw Huang Shixing in front of the team. He had a winning expression on his face, accepting the compliments from his followers.

Huang Shixing also saw Su Ze, showing a provocative look.

Su Ze felt baffled. In all fairness, he didn't offend Mr. Huang, but he just robbed him of the limelight a few times.

But this Mr. Huang is so hostile to him, he always regards himself as a competitor.

Su Ze walked into the front of the tribute courtyard with a test basket.

The small square in front of the tribute courtyard was crowded with examinees, and the supervisor read out the records of the examination room, and then the supervisor led the scholars to swear an oath.

Then divide into multiple teams and accept the strict inspection of sentries.

Scholars in the Ming Dynasty were somewhat respectable, and the body search was only a touch. When it came to the later dynasty, they would be checked naked.

After the inspection, Su Ze finally entered the Gong Yuan.

The ten co-guarantees drew out their respective seat numbers together, and Su Ze got his own examination booth, the Xuanjia Shenshu number.

Immediately after the yelling of the sentry, the candidates were driven to their respective examination areas.

Su Ze found his test tent, but saw Huang Shixing not far away from him.

Huang Shixing also saw Su Ze, and looked away guiltily.

With a bad word in his mind, he put down the test basket and began to recall the answers he had prepared.

Su Ze put away his test basket with a relaxed expression, and began to close his eyes to rest his mind.

The rapid bang sounded, and all the candidates put down their baffles, and the Fujian provincial examination in the 34th year of Jiajing began.

In the mint of the Nanping Mine, bright new coins were put into cloth bags, and the first batch of new coins minted by Eunuch Tao was finally completed.

It’s been so bad lately, oh