The revival of the Han Dynasty must start with Dong Zhuo

Chapter 222 Volume Number One Scholar
The imperial examination papers were submitted to the Secretariat and the Censorate for joint review. Jia Xu, Cai Yong and their staff worked non-stop for three consecutive days and nights, and finally revised all the papers and presented them to the emperor.

Because 50 points of the test were related to reciting laws and regulations, and the following questions could also score some points, Liu Xie simply discarded the papers with less than 60 points and only decided to appoint officials among the candidates with more than 60 points.

According to statistics, there were more than 1,300 scholars with scores above 60.

In other words, the admission ratio of the Han Dynasty's first imperial examination was nearly seven to one.

This ratio is indeed not low.

Compared with the pitifully small number of filial and honest officials and scholars in the past, the fact that more than 1,300 scholars were recruited as officials at the same time was simply unheard of!

If this data were to spread among the people, it would probably cause another wave of enthusiasm, prompting people to spontaneously learn to read and write.

Moreover, with the people's usual simple and practical style, they will soon realize that the court still attaches importance to the law, and will take the initiative to study the "Jian'an Code".

In this way, it is actually equivalent to a legal education activity, which is beneficial to the court without any harm.

Moreover, most of these 1,300-plus scholars will be sent as grassroots officials. This will be another wave of strong propaganda. Why should we worry that the Han Dynasty's education will not flourish in the future?
The most important thing is that most of these more than 1,300 scholars were actually from government soldiers and came from poor families.

Letting them serve as grassroots officials is like scattering a handful of stars in every corner of the Han Dynasty, illuminating and removing the filth therein.

Even if there are inevitably some people who are incompatible with the emperor, they can still disintegrate some stubborn forces in the local area and strengthen the centralization of the court.

If the system previously implemented by the court gave the Han Dynasty a new skeleton, then these poor scholars selected through the imperial examinations were the blood flowing in the Han Dynasty's body.

When they become more and more and converge into rivers and seas, they will surely awaken the long-sleeping heart of the man and make the sound of an engine roar!
Among these 1,300 scholars, there were more than 100 particularly outstanding candidates.

Their scores were all above 80 points, so the papers of these more than 100 people were selected separately and presented to the emperor.

In addition, there were three test papers stacked together.

Liu Xie, a very honorable zero score, after all, he didn’t write a single word.

Dong Bai... as expected, performed extremely steadily, with only a pitiful three points. Cai Yong was so angry that he wanted to break into Changle Palace and make Dong Bai copy the "Jian'an Code" eight hundred times as punishment!

However, Cai Yan's score was obviously beyond everyone's expectations, and she actually got a high score of 87 points.

Even among these one hundred people, he is enough to be ranked in the top ten. He is truly a great talent.

Liu Xie held Cai Yan's test paper and felt a little regretful for a moment.

"Cai Zhongcheng, it's such a waste for me to marry Cai Dajie! If such a great talent were in the officialdom, he would at least be a high-ranking official with a salary of 2,000 shi in the future."

Cai Yong claimed that the emperor favored Dong Bai and said that women should not show off their talents and virtues. Then he turned around and advised Liu Xie to make sure that Dong Bai read more and read good books!
after all,

The Queen of the Han Dynasty can’t be a fool!

Liu Xie laughed and said, "Cai Zhongcheng is too harsh on the queen."

"The Queen is still virtuous after all. I remember that after the imperial examination, she went to the market and bought a gift for Cai Zhongcheng. I wonder if Cai Zhongcheng received it?"

It would have been fine if this had not been mentioned. Once it was mentioned, Cai Yong became even more furious.

"I haven't even mentioned Your Majesty! How could Your Majesty be so frivolous? He actually went out with the Queen secretly. Where did he put the court etiquette..."

Barabara...

Barabara...

Ever since he became the Chief Censor, Cai Yong's temper has become worse and worse. In the past, he did not dare to discipline too strictly in front of the emperor, but now he is "scolding people on the emperor's orders" and has completely lost all restraint.

Liu Xie was so annoyed that he quickly crumpled up his and Dong Bai's test papers and threw them away, as if they had never appeared in this world, and naturally moved on to the next topic.

"The first one hundred scholars are all outstanding people, so they should be treated differently."

"Write his name in large characters on the gold list and display it in Baqiao, to convey the meaning of being on the gold list."

"I will also host a banquet in Weiyang Palace and discuss this with him in detail."

Jia Xu agreed to these things, but put the three test papers in front of Liu Xie separately.

"There is one more matter that needs to be decided by your majesty personally."

"Although we have to grade them according to the scores, the top few are almost the same, so it is really difficult to grade them. Please, Your Majesty, personally decide the top three. Your Majesty will make the final decision."

Three papers with scores of 92 were placed in front of Liu Xie, making him look up at the old fox Jia Xu.

I really don't want to make any mistakes!

Liu Xie didn't want to interfere in this matter, but he found that the names on two of the test papers were extremely familiar.

Sima Yi and Yang Xiu.

As expected, the two of them made it into the top three together.

The remaining person was Su Ze from Fufeng.

Liu Xie felt itchy and finally opened the test papers of the three people to read them.

Among them, Su Ze’s is the simplest.

It's integrity!

Break all laws with one force!

His writings always reveal the defense of the law and praise for pragmatism, which is very consistent with the current trend of the court, so it is not surprising that he can get high scores.

But the test papers of Sima Yi and Yang Xiu made Liu Xie frown unconsciously.

In the dictation and the first question about law, the two of them barely opened up a gap. But in the second question about "education for all", Yang Xiu was more daring to touch the red line of aristocratic family because of his family background, so he suppressed Sima Yi in points.

But in the fourth and fifth questions, which were more about strategy and military arithmetic, Sima Yi was far superior to Yang Xiu.

Arithmetic goes without saying.

In terms of the strategy for Shu, Yang Xiu simply repeated the words "rest and recuperation" over and over again, and kept referring to the profound principles and words of saints, which was a common mistake made by scholars.

Sima Yi's strategy was much more capable.

Although he, like Yang Xiu, also advocated that the court should rest and recuperate and postpone sending troops, he gave eight specific measures.

The first is to "govern the mind first". Those who want to govern the people should have "a clear and harmonious mind and a calm and steady will."

The second is to "promote education", which is to promote morality and make the people do good.

The third is to "make full use of the land's advantages", which means encouraging people to engage in agriculture and sericulture and not to violate the farming season.

The fourth is to "promote the imperial examination system", which requires maintaining the imperial examination system and gradually extending its scope to Liangzhou and Yizhou so that more people from poor families can benefit from it.

The fifth is to "sympathize with prisoners in court". Cases must be judged clearly and punishments should not be imposed indiscriminately.

The sixth is "equalizing taxes and labor service." This means that taxes and labor service should be equalized to help the rich and the poor. We should not abandon the powerful and levy taxes on the poor and weak.

The seventh is "opening roads". The imperial court wants to repair roads and strengthen the connection between Guanzhong and Shu.

The eighth is "proclaiming peace", which means taking advantage of the people's war-weariness after more than ten years of war and promoting peace, which can be called a strategy to win over the people's hearts.

It is no exaggeration to say that as long as the eight measures written by Sima Yi on the paper were slightly modified, they could be issued as official documents of the court and become the court's policy.

But even so, there is no need to make things difficult for Liu Xie.

The third question is actually the hardest to choose.

Evaluate Wang Mang.

Yang Xiu was extremely clever in answering. Relying on what he had heard and seen as well as his understanding of the emperor's mentality, he gave a perfect answer, which was "discuss the matter, not the heart."

However, Sima Yi did not have a father who was one of the Three Dukes, so he could easily understand the inner workings of the court. Instead, he evaluated Wang Mang more fairly based on his heart.

When Wang Mang was called a saint and became the Duke of Zhou, not everything he did was good.

For example, in order to bring down his political enemy and cousin Chunyu Chang, Wang Mang secretly reported him and caused him to die in the imperial prison.

Even when Wang Mang was despised by the world, he did not do all bad things. For example, he implemented reforms such as land reform, which would have been good policies that would benefit future generations if they had been implemented.

Therefore, Sima Yi's argument is extremely novel -

"When a person is in a position, he should plan his policy."

For many things, once you are in that position, you can no longer decide them.

For example, Wang Mang disregarded family ties and killed his cousin Chunyu Chang. That was because he had already reached that position and if he did not move forward, he would regress.

Another example is Wang Mang, who relied on the aristocratic families to usurp the throne of the Han Dynasty, but after becoming the emperor, he immediately turned his back and turned around to use the aristocratic families as a pretext to sacrifice his own new dynasty...

Sima Yi believed that although Wang Mang's ending was also related to his own personality, the real problem did not lie with Wang Mang himself, but was closely related to the era and position in which Wang Mang was at that time.

Although Sima Yi did not point out the specific relationship, the fact that he was able to sort these out and summarize a little bit of the flavor of "historical materialism" was enough to make Liu Xie look at him with admiration.

"Yang Xiu, oh Yang Xiu, your cleverness may have backfired."

Yang Xiu originally wanted to find a clever way to please the emperor and the court.

But his brief attempt was completely defeated by Sima Yi!

If Yang Xiu had not touched this point, he would not have lost so miserably.

"Wenhe is also confused. Can't you tell which of the two articles is better? Why are you asking me?"

Liu Xie was laughing, but he realized something was wrong.

Sima Yi's article certainly gave a more subtle answer.

However, Yang Xiu's article is more in line with the current court's cognition and public opinion.

If Sima Yi was chosen as the top scholar, it would inevitably make the people of the Han Dynasty think about something deeper.

If Yang Xiu was chosen as the top scholar, it would be in line with public opinion and national conditions, and would save the court and the emperor a lot of trouble.

Therefore, this is not just a simple competition for the top scholar, but also a crisis hidden in the future.

But when has Liu Xie ever hesitated on such matters?

"Let Sima Yi be the top scholar!"

Liu Xie's response was extremely decisive.

If it were before, he might have hesitated for a while.

But after seeing the lights of thousands of homes in Chang'an, Liu Xie became more determined.

"Sima Zhongda, this number one scholar, he really deserves the title!"

(End of this chapter)