Chapter 70 The selection examination of the Ministry of Personnel Department!

More than 1,200 candidates, including those who pretended to be cheating, those who were too poor in appearance, still more than 900 people passed the test. Under the leadership of the minor officials, they entered the Ministry of Personnel.

The examination room had been built inside, and all were small single rooms that were ten feet high, eight feet wide and six feet deep, and were divided into four areas: heaven, earth, Xuan and Huang. Each single room had a number at the door.

Looking further into the single room, there are tables, tables, benches, pens, inkstones, papers, and inkstones, snacks, tea and water... all kinds of applications are complete.

Li Zhao was lucky and was assigned to the "Tianzi No. 95", a very good number.

As for Li Chong, Li Fei, one is the word "Tian" No. 25 and the other is the word "Di" No. 444, which is quite suitable for both of them.

Immediately afterwards, the examiners appeared.

On the invigilator at the front, a middle-aged man sat in the middle, with a straight facial features and a majestic temperament. He was wearing a dark purple court robes, a nine-ring gold strap strap on his waist, and his feet were on the court boots. He was the chief examiner: Left Prime Minister - and Minister of Personnel - Li Shizhi!

Li Shizhi had an extraordinary background. His father was Li Xiang, who was the eldest son of Li Chengqian, the deposed prince of the Taizong Dynasty!

In other words, if Li Chengqian had not abandoned the position of crown prince back then, then the one sitting on the dragon throne now is likely to be Li Shizhi!

Although he lost the opportunity to soar, with his outstanding talents, Li Shizhi still made a name for himself. He first entered the official career with the imperial examination, and then served as the governor of Shanzhou, the imperial court of Henan, and the chief censor... and was promoted to the left prime minister of the current dynasty, becoming an existence below one person and above millions of people.

In addition, when Zi dared to appoint Li Shizhi as prime minister today, it can be seen that he is so bold, broad-minded, and has strong control over the court!

If it were a different emperor, I would have been...hehe!

Next to Li Shizhi, there were twelve red-robed officials, all of whom were specially selected and well-educated. After the exam, the twelve of them first checked the papers, and the better ones were selected and handed over to the examiner for final decision!

Another six censors led the yamen runners to inspect the examination room to prevent anyone from whispering or passing on answers.

...

"Now the emperor issued an edict to select talents and serve the country. I hope you will work hard and never let down the emperor's grace... Let's start."

At the moment, Li Shi announced the start of the exam, opened a sealed wooden box, took out a test paper, and immediately a group of minor officials took it in their hands and copied it quickly...

Some people must have asked, why don’t you copy the test papers, but instead have to copy them manually. This is too time-consuming and laborious, right?

There is no way, printing has appeared in the Tang Dynasty, but woodblock printing, which is to manually carve the raised reverse words on a smooth wooden board, apply ink, and then cover the white paper on it, gently brush the back of the paper, and the handwriting is left on the paper.

The problem is that the material and skill requirements for carving are very high, and there is a huge problem of "embroidery of a wrong word, and the entire version will be destroyed". Therefore, the cost of a set of carvings is very high, often thousands of yuan, tens of thousands of coins, and a lot of labor is required!

Therefore, only books with very high demand, such as the Four Books and Five Classics, will be printed using woodblocks, while books with less demand or examination papers can only be copied manually.

Less gossip, and the book returns to the main story.

After copying the test papers, they were distributed one by one, and the candidates began to answer the questions.

Question 1: The Post Sutra is to choose a sentence from the Four Books and Five Classics as the exam question. Candidates should write down the entire article based on this sentence.

The title on the paper is: Xuande is promoted to the hearing, and then he is appointed to the position.

This is a sentence in the Book of Documents: "If you read the ancient emperor Shun, you will be the emperor. Junzhe is civilized, gentle and respectful, and Xuande is promoted to the position, and he will be cautious in eloquent five scriptures, and the five scriptures will be followed...

Li Zhao had the ability to remember everything he had learned from Aunt Qing for many years. The small questions were naturally not a problem. He immediately held the pen in his hand and quickly wrote them out.

...

The second question: Mo Yi means asking several questions from the scriptures, so that the candidates can answer the original text in the book without explanation!

This was also difficult for Li Zhao to write a standard answer soon!

The third question: Poetry and essays!

It is a bit difficult to write a five-character quatrain with the title of the month.

The first two questions can be answered correctly as long as you have a good memory, but when writing poetry, you need to be neat and beautiful inclined. This not only requires a deep literary foundation, but also a certain degree of spiritual energy.

To be fair, Li Zhao is just a guy with no aura, at least in literature. In the past, he had to ask someone to do his essays, let alone poems that increase the difficulty.

There is no way, I can only be shameless. I will definitely not write a poem, but I will copy it. Isn’t it just the theme of the moon? There are some in "Three Hundred Tang Poems", such as the song "Quiet Night Thoughts" is quite good: the bright moonlight in front of the bed, and it is suspected that it is frost on the ground...

No, this is written by Li Bai in Yangzhou Hotel in the 14th year of Kaiyuan. It has been widely circulated. If he plagiarized, wouldn’t it make people laugh?

Let’s change another poem and find a great poet who has not been born yet. Who is more suitable?... Li He, I’m sorry!

The desert sand is like snow, the Yanshan moon is like a hook,

Why should you be the golden brain? Walk around in the clear autumn!

Question 4: Policy theory is to write an article discussing current political issues and offering suggestions to the court.

Title: Public and private sectors are both poor and lack of money, department stores are not connected, and human relationships are difficult, how can we solve it?

Translated, it means that nowadays, there is a serious lack of coins in the whole country, which has caused difficulties in commodity trading. The people complained. What can I do to solve it?

What is the situation? The dignified Tang Empire actually lacks coins?

Yes, it is not an ordinary lack, but a very lack, especially since the Kaiyuan period, with the prosperity of the country's strength and the prosperity of business, there is a huge demand for coins, and the country does not have so many coins, and the result is a shortage of money!

In other words, there is not enough money, which brings great difficulties to daily life and commercial transactions. Even the court paid salaries to officials, which was half a money or half a physical item. Not to mention the lives of the people. Bartering things is extremely troublesome.

...

Someone asked why the country lacks coins, and this reason is more complicated:

Since ancient times, two precious metals of gold and silver have been lacking in China. In desperation, the copper-based coin system was implemented, that is, the minting of copper coins and trading and circulation.

The problem is that the number of copper ores is not very large, and the difficulty of mining has seriously limited the number of coins casting.

For example, in the current Tang Empire, the copper coins cast in a year are about 320,000 jin, that is, 327 million jin. Even if all these copper coins enter the market, regardless of losses, the average person is only six or seven coins per year, which is obviously not enough to use. (The population in the Kaiyuan period of the Tang Dynasty was 80 million)

It would be fine if there was a small amount of copper coins, but the Chinese people still had the habit of saving a lot of money. Most of the high-ranking officials and nobles built huge treasuries, and the copper coins were piled up like mountains. Small families would also accumulate some copper coins in case of emergency needs.

This has resulted in a further reduction in copper coins circulating in the market!

In addition, there are some treacherous businessmen who actually ruined money and smelted copper in large quantities... For example, after melting a thousand Kaiyuan Tongbao, you can get about four kilograms of fine copper, and then cast it to sell the copperware, which is worth at least ten cents of coins, which is a huge profit of more than ten times!

In addition, the burial, wear and tear, and outflow (the currency of the Tang Dynasty was used by all countries in Goryeo, Fusang, Tubo, and Nanzhao at that time).... Many reasons have resulted in serious shortage of copper coins and even large-scale shortages of money.

Such a difficult question actually appeared on the test paper, which is probably enough for the candidates to have a headache, but it is nothing to Li Zhao.

There are posts about money shortage on the historical forums in later generations. Li Zhao has read not a thousand or eight hundred. Just borrow the arguments of a few great gods and write out several ways to alleviate money shortage.

More than a dozen suggestions, thousands of words were written, and Li Zhao made them in one go.

After writing it, I checked it carefully and there was no problem.

Check it out again, it's still fine.

The third inspection still has no problems.

This is strange. The soldiers' keen intuition told Li Zhao that something must be wrong, but what is the problem?

If there is no problem with the test paper, then there is something wrong with other things!

I passed what happened today in my mind like a movie... I finally found something wrong. It was not Li Zhao himself who had a problem, but Li Chong and Li Fei who had a problem.

The two fat men eat, drink and have fun all day, and are ignorant. They are as stupid as pigs. They are almost twenty years old, but they can't even memorize the most basic hundred-family surnames and thousands of characters. They took the exam to make up their numbers and have no hope at all.

But when they entered the venue, the two of them smiled happily, as if they would definitely pass the exam this time. Where is their confidence?

There are also two people dressing today, which looks a little wrong!

It is midsummer now, and it hasn't rained for more than a month. The weather is so hot, so most people wear thin and breathable light shirts to facilitate heat dissipation!

Li Chong and Li Fei were wearing thick black robes, wrapped tightly from top to bottom, and were not afraid of prickly heat. Most fat people were afraid of heat. There must be special reasons for their wear like this...

There are also walking postures for the two of them, raising their legs high and gently dropping their feet, and carefully taking every step, as if they were putting many raw eggs on their bodies, for fear of accidentally breaking them.

Taking the exam... is ignorant... but full of confidence, can you say?

Li Zhao's memory and observation skills are excellent. He combined all kinds of factors and quickly came up with an answer: cheating.

The two fat men were willing to make a fiction, so they wore thick black clothes to cover them.

Only by relying on the cheat sheet can the two fat men pass the exam and show their confidence.

‘Hehe, you two set a trap and want me to be ruined. I will use his own way to give him the same way, so that you can also taste the taste of being caught cheating and showing them to the public!’
Chapter completed!