Chapter 194 Generations of Hard Work and Ten Years of Study

stare……

Wei Zheng, Fang Xuanling, and Li Shixi felt a little like a light on their backs for a moment.

Li Shi𪟝 immediately stood up and wanted to apologize, but was stopped by Li Shimin with a wave of his hand:

"I know that my hometown is Shandong, so I can't help but admire people who make money through marriage."

Wei Zheng was from Julu County, Fang Xuanling was from Linzi, and Li Shi was from Lihu, Caozhou.

The faces of several ministers became more solemn and cautious, and Li Shimin's smile became more kind:

"However, as Xuancheng said: The superior is the example of the people, so you can't be careless."

We can only stop there. After all, if the ministers have become in-laws, is it possible that they can be broken up again on the spot?

How could there be any reason to act like this?

Besides, Li Shimin also saw it clearly: these so-called noble surnames were as obedient as quails during the Zhenguan period, but they really started to cause trouble later.

How did this noble surname become so powerful?

Li Shimin's eyes scanned the text twice, and finally locked on two words:

Marriage is prohibited and imperial examinations are prohibited.

"Everyone in the world proposes to this forbidden marriage house, so they can make money."

"The heirs of poetry and calligraphy have studied the imperial examination system intensively, so how can they become famous?"

Li Shimin made his own guess.

The ministers who had just been reminded quickly shouted 666 to His Majesty:

"Everyone can hit the mark with just one word!"

"Your Majesty is very aware of every detail!"

"Your majesty congratulates you for observing the overturn of the carriage behind you, and you should learn from this. This is the blessing of the Tang Dynasty!"

Glancing at Wei Zheng who was scratching his neck, Li Shimin shook his head and let him go.

He had a hunch that Wei Zheng was famous in history because he was good at causing trouble for others, right?

While disregarding the emperor's wishes, I proposed to a girl with a big surname, and at the same time, I tried to dissuade me from accepting a "beautiful" girl with a big surname as my concubine. Although the starting point was good...

No, no, Li Shimin shook his head, these are just trivial matters.

"What's the explanation for this disadvantage of redundant officials?" Emperor Tang asked the question.

Wei Zheng immediately came out:

"Redundant officials are a chronic disease of the previous Han Dynasty. Looking at the previous dynasties, if you want to eliminate this shortcoming, it is better to do it sooner rather than later."

Li Shimin nodded, then turned to Fang Du on the other side.

Fang Xuanling came out of the queue to consider:

"It would be too frivolous to say that catching money is selling an official position in later generations. However, catching money makes those who get official positions inevitably become profit-seekers."

"For the people of the Tang Dynasty, pursuing profit will bring happiness to the people. Pursuing profits and enriching one's own interests will be a coward in the Tang Dynasty."

"Since Enyin's policy stated that our Tang Dynasty was extremely prosperous, it can be seen that later generations have restrained it. It should be to detect the shortcomings of Enyin in our Tang Dynasty and then correct it. Everyone needs to be aware of it."

It seems troublesome to say, Du Ruhui concluded:

"Cut the money, change the favor, examine the old policy and it is appropriate to change it at the same time."

Then he added: "Everyone should work slowly."

Li Shimin nodded and finally sighed and said:

"In a hundred years of prosperity, the number of countries that can be reborn is only three hundred. Why?"

"Could it be that this is really the long-standing disadvantage of the founding of the Tang Dynasty?"

…

"The Tang Dynasty, the giant of the world, lasted only two hundred and eighty-two years. It's a pity!"

Before, Liu Bei's mentality was just to watch the excitement, but now Liu Bei really feels sorry for the Tang Dynasty.

After all, no matter how you look at it, it is not an exaggeration to say that the Tang Dynasty was the dynasty of brothers of the Han Dynasty.

Military officials, eunuchs, relatives, etc., now all redundant officials have come out. They are almost like brothers. How can we not sigh?

After sighing, he made a precise judgment:

"This family's trouble has lasted for more than a hundred years?"

"The concept of aristocratic families in the Tang Dynasty is even better than that of the Han Dynasty!"

Zhang Fei laughed loudly:

"Brother, after all, our ancestors were all princes, generals and ministers, so they can't farm and butcher dogs like the head of Guizhou."

"Then we can only shout loudly to sell our daughters to subsidize our family assets?"

Mi Zhu also agreed:

"This is self-promoting in the name of prohibiting marriage, and his behavior is quite similar to that of a businessman, just exchanging fame for money."

"Then what is the highest level of this family?"

Pang Tong said spicyly:

"Gao Zai, a group of pretentious young people with a big surname, actually rely on their sisters and daughters to get rich clothes and food?"

"Sucking the common people outside, sucking the sisters at home, sucking the king and father in the temple, only enriching one's own family?"

"How are their actions different from those of Jiangdong Rats?"

Zhang Fei nodded repeatedly, feeling that he had vividly seen the magical power of knowledge at this moment.

Military Master Pang is very knowledgeable and has a unique flavor when he curses others.

Then I wonder if the military advisor gets angry, who is stronger or weaker than the later generations who "have never seen such a shameless person"?

Unfortunately, Kong Ming did not satisfy Zhang Fei's curiosity. He took up a pen and wrote down several methods of getting into office in the Tang Dynasty on the paper in front of him, and then thought about it carefully.

The words "catching money" and "chaju" were crossed out one by one. Finally, after careful consideration, Kong Ming drew a circle on the words "military merit".

Then Kong Ming raised his head and looked expectant. He was now more and more interested in this imperial examination.

[As we all know, the imperial examinations in the Tang Dynasty were not anonymous, and the scoring was not standardized at that time. The examiner's personal likes and dislikes could greatly affect the imperial examination results.

Therefore, the scholars with big surnames who participated in the imperial examination quickly concluded an effective way:

Touzhi, Xingjuan, Wenjuan.

First, bring valuable gifts to visit those dignitaries who have more say in the Kyoto circle, and try to establish a connection with them. This step is called Touzhi.

After knocking on the door of Jia Di Zhu, there is the second step: compiling his previous favorite works, poems or poems into a volume. If he has a big surname, he will visit his father to ask him to polish his pen, and hand such a questionnaire to the powerful. In order to leave a name for appreciation, this step is called writing.

Before the imperial examination, those who successfully submitted their papers would come again with their papers to strengthen their relationship and seek recommendation and fame. This step is called "warming up the papers".

In the middle and late Tang Dynasty, if the scholar's family was really powerful, they would submit the compiled papers to the head of the Ministry of Rites through an intermediary. This step was the highest-end submission of provincial papers.

With these three plus one step, the nobles and big surnames could easily open up the gap with the poor and common people in almost every step, so the final result of the imperial examination was predictable.

Among the 830 imperial examination Jinshi named in the "Old Book of Tang" and "New Book of Tang", there were 589 people from the nobles and big surnames, 109 people from the nobles and small surnames, and only 132 people from the poor and common people.

Of course, this distribution of proportions is not uniform. Let's compare the emperors who were in power:

Wu Tang recorded 55 Jinshi, of which 34 were from the nobles and 21 were from the poor and common people.

Tang Xuanzong recorded 132 Jinshi, of which 128 were from the gentry and 4 were from the common people.

At first glance, it seems that An Lushan should take the blame, but what was the situation during Xuanzong's reign? There were 30 Jinshi recorded, of which 27 were from the gentry and only 3 were from the common people.

The most representative one was the sixth year of Tianbao during Xuanzong's reign. At this time, the Anshi Rebellion had not yet broken out. The history books recorded that Li Longji "wanted to seek talents from all over the world" and issued an edict to recruit talents.

Prime Minister Li Linfu said that large-scale imperial examinations would certainly be mixed with good and bad people, and there might be fake people mixed with pearls, and the influx of lowly people in the name of imperial examinations would be detrimental to public security. He suggested that officials in counties and prefectures should first hold a round of open selections locally, and only the best ones could come to Beijing for re-examination.

What Li Linfu said was very reasonable, so he got the right to manage it all, so the final result of this imperial examination was that "no common people won the first place", and all the people were from the gentry.

Therefore, Li Linfu reported to Emperor Xuanzong: There are no more talented people in the wild!

Thus, the frontier poets were born. To put it bluntly, they were unsuccessful in Chang'an and Luoyang, and could not break through the glass ceiling of "submitting gifts, circulating papers, and warming papers" of the gentry.

Typical representatives include Cen Shen of the Anxi Jiedushi Shogunate, Gao Shi of the Hexi Jiedushi Shogunate, and Wang Changling who ran around between the Jiedushi Shogunate of various states in the frontier.

And these were only famous for their poetic talents. More people, such as An Lushan's confidants Yan Zhuang and Gao Shang, all went to Chang'an in Guanzhong because they could not make a name for themselves.

After only three years of surrendering to An Lushan, one was appointed as the chief clerk and the other as the chief secretary, and finally "returned home in glory" with the rebellious army.

Objectively speaking, the trend of circulating papers among the children of the gentry did promote the social art and literature in the Tang Dynasty.

After all, if you want to be successful in the publication of a manuscript, you must write beautiful poems and verses. Therefore, the parallel prose and regular verse of the Tang Dynasty are also unique. If you write well and are appreciated by the powerful, you will have everything in that dynasty.

But at the same time, the society of the Tang Dynasty was also full of competition and exaggeration.

For example, in order to successfully publish a manuscript and get the title of Jietou, Wang Wei personally went to Princess Yuzhen's mansion to play the pipa, so he was appreciated and recommended by Princess Yuzhen.

Another person recommended by Princess Yuzhen was Li Bai, who also caught the eye of Princess Yuzhen with a poem "Yuzhen Immortal Song".

Another example is the high official Yu 𬱖, who was recorded in the Old Book of Tang as openly amassing wealth, wantonly killing, bullying the superiors and the subordinates, and had a bad life.

But in order to successfully publish a manuscript, the literary sage Han Yu wrote a gorgeous parallel prose to praise Yu 𬱖.

The ultimate consequence of the paper-passing was the formation of cliques. At that time, the people who passed the paper called those dignitaries who were passed the paper "masters", and those who passed the paper successfully would be called "disciples" of the dignitaries.

Another result of the paper-passing was that all the nobles gathered in Chang'an and Luoyang, and finally waited for the failed scholar Huang Chao. 】

"It's just bribery!"

Zhang Fei sneered.

Liu Bei and Kong Ming were silent about this simple and rough evaluation.

If it can be said that the paper-passing was for appreciation, then when the master and disciple came out later, everyone understood: it was a party to attack the dissidents.

Pang Tong came to a simple and crude conclusion:

"It seems that the imperial examination must be anonymous."

"Otherwise, the winner and loser of the imperial examination will be decided before the exam."

"Then what is the difference between having an imperial examination and not having one? Abolishing the test of talent and focusing on family background is just a nameless recommendation."

Kong Ming pondered for a moment, counting on his fingers and said:

"Handwriting, ink type, and paper quality can all distinguish between rich families and poor people."

"Consider the best, set up an examination venue, provide paper and ink, and cover the papers."

"Not only that." Liu Ba also joined the discussion:

"The examiner must be separated from the examiner who examines the papers, and they must not know each other. Only in this way can it be possible."

Zhang Song pinched the rare The sparse beard shook his head:

"People have likes and dislikes. There are also disputes in our dynasty because of the opinions of various schools, not to mention writing them into the test papers. Talented people in the opposition are also inevitably missed because of the likes and dislikes of the people who mark the test papers."

Pang Tong said excitedly:

"This is simple. One test paper needs to be reviewed multiple times."

"But in this case..." Pang Tong counted on his fingers:

"The venue, materials, and officials are countless. It is really not easy to run this imperial examination well."

And when he saw the end on the screen, Zhang Fei also shook his head and sighed:

"Is it easier for the rebels to get ahead than in Kyoto?"

"I don't know whether to say that the late Tang Dynasty is more like the Wei and Jin Dynasties or copied our Han Dynasty again."

A new month, full of vitality