People in the early Tang Dynasty: I compete with Wu Zhao for the throne

Chapter 1715: Ouyang Tong, the chief examiner of the imperial examination, someone sells the questions
At dusk, New Year lanterns are hung high.

In the study room of Prince Peng’s Mansion.

Liu Jinyu handed the four memorials to Li Xuan who was taking off his armor, and said, "The numbers compiled by Uncle Yu, Chief Clerk Wang, Imperial Clerk Zhang, and me all have some differences. Maybe some of our things were deliberately hidden when we sent them here."

"Prime Minister Cui has been the prime minister for many years and is quite capable. Not to mention that he has people in the Ministry of Personnel, the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of Justice, the Dali Temple, the Censorate, and the Secretariat. He is also the Minister of the Central Secretariat. It is very easy for him to take some of the Wei family's wealth from these things." Li Xuan took a look at the official document and put it aside.

The Wei family's case was closed half a month ago. Those who deserved to be beheaded were beheaded, those who deserved to be exiled were exiled, and those whose property was confiscated were confiscated.

Beheading and exile are both easy, but confiscating property requires a lot of effort.

Especially since Li Xuan's people were watching nearby, it was not easy for Cui Zhiwen to do anything, but he finally succeeded.

"After this incident, the Wei family's official houses and the prince consort's houses have been completely ruined." Liu Jinyu couldn't help but sigh. Because of this case, almost all of the prominent branches of the Jingzhao Wei family fell into decline.

"It doesn't matter. After all, these are just people from the Eastern Branch of the Jingzhao Wei family. The Western Branch is still fine. Even for the Eastern Branch, there are still people from the Meicheng Public Branch. Wei Shaofu is enough to support the Wei family. And even for the Xiaoyao Public Branch, Wei Shangshu's son Wei Lingyi is still alive. The Wei family still has two or three provincial governors..."

Li Xuan raised his head slightly and said, "Although my family background has dropped by two ranks, I can still jump out and bite Prime Minister Cui hard when the time comes."

Liu Jinyu nodded slightly. The greedy instinct of the aristocratic family could not be curbed after all.

This case involving the Wei family almost wiped out all of the Wei family's power in Jingzhao, and even half of the entire Weiqu was empty.

Even if there were some people left, most of them were illegitimate sons and members of the Wei family's branches in other places, who knew nothing about these things.

The Wei family’s large amounts of land, manors, servants, caravans, shops, officials in the court in Chang'an and Luoyang, and even the personnel shares in the East and West Markets of Chang'an and the North and South Markets of Luoyang were all confiscated.

Although Choi Ji-won was the host, everyone in the entire government hall was watching.

Even Queen Mother Zheng in the palace was watching.

Everything that should be brought into Chang'an Wannian, Luoyang and Henan, Yongzhou and Luozhou, the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Finance, and the secret treasury were all brought in. If there was anything missing, it would be immediately pointed out by people from the Dali Temple, the Censorate, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Revenue, and the palace.

But even under countless gazes, Cui Zhiwen still used various means to cover up and seize one twentieth of the wealth and put it into the Cui family.

It’s just the Cui family.

The Zheng family’s share was included in the Queen Mother’s share.

The Lu family has nothing.

Now, under the calculations of Yu Ze, Wang Yinke, Zhang Jianzhi and Liu Jinyu, everything is clear.

"Based on this memorial alone, at most it will implicate officials from the Cui, Lu and Zheng families in Chang'an. It will be difficult to completely defeat them." Liu Jinyu said with a serious look.

Among this large amount of wealth today, the largest amount is actually the land that belongs to the Ministry of Households.

The Wei family had accumulated 200,000 hectares of land over more than a dozen generations, half of which was directly transferred to the Ministry of Households.

The others are not very valuable because they are in places, and it takes more time to sort them out.

"There is no need to completely destroy the Cui family with one blow." Li Xuan shook his head slightly, changed into a green robe, sat down at the table and said: "The Wei family was defeated because they plotted to take the throne of the Tang Dynasty, and the Cui family was defeated because they plotted to take the throne of the Tang Dynasty.

Back then, the daughter of the Zheng family married the hidden prince Jiancheng, but in the end, it was only their branch that could not get into officialdom for more than 60 years, so the Cui and Wei families confiscated half of their land, sent people to the local area to watch their descendants for mistakes, and then blocked these branches in the officialdom. That was enough. "

"So, this time, the only family that was completely divided up was the Zheng family." Liu Jinyu immediately understood what Li Xuan meant.

The fall of Princess Yin's branch, Zheng Guanyin, has already caused half of the Zheng family in Xingyang to collapse. If Zheng Rentai's branch falls again, the Zheng family will really be completely ruined.

"The noble families in the world are watching." Li Xuan sighed and said, "We will completely destroy the Zheng family, destroy half of the Cui family, and skin the Lu family, that's it."

"Lu family of Fanyang?" Liu Jinyu understood what Li Xuan was hiding.

"The Lu family is too close to the Turks, so we can't force them too much. After Lu Chen, the Minister of Personnel, falls, Lu Zangyong will be able to be of great use." Li Xuan had to consider the overall situation.

If the noble families in the world push too far in one breath, they will end up like Wang Mang.

"Okay!" Liu Jinyu nodded slightly. In fact, she knew in her heart that if Li Xuan went too far, Liu might also be uneasy.

This is how the entire world is constructed. All they can do is try their best to ensure the smooth flow between the upper and lower levels.

Once the flow of communication between the upper and lower classes is cut off, or in other words, once there is no order, the world will soon be destroyed.

Therefore, communicating between the upper and lower levels is what the real superiors need to do.

Whether now or in the future.

……

In the lobby, Li Xuan looked at Lu Xiangxian who was standing there with a handsome figure, and glanced at Liu Jinyu who was retreating to the side.

Just now, the couple were still carefully planning how to divide the Qinghe Cui family when Lu Xiangxian suddenly came.

"Please sit down." Li Xuan smiled gently, looked at Lu Xiangxian and said, "How is your review going?"

Lu Xiang thanked Li Xuan first, then sat down on the short couch beside him, and then looked at Li Xuan and said, "I still have a lot of room for improvement. Although I have no worries about passing the imperial examination, I still have a long way to go before I can become the top scholar."

"If your father and I insist on making you the top scholar, we can do it. But we all hope that you can accumulate more so that your future career will be easier." Li Xuan couldn't help but sigh softly. He couldn't help but think of the first time he met Lu Xiangxian.

At that time, Lu Xiangxian was only a ten-year-old child, but he was already very spiritual.

Now, ten years have passed in a flash, and Lu Xiangxian has become a handsome young man.

If he had not been married, and married He Zhizhang's sister, and his mother was He Zhizhang's cousin, this kind of thing would have caused all the Chang'an families to wail endlessly.

Lu Xiangxian, the eldest son of Lu Yuanfang, the Minister of the Left, had a teacher-student relationship with King Peng.

Even without mentioning the four great families of Gu, Lu, Zhu and Zhang in Jiangnan, Lu Xiangxian is still the most outstanding talent in the entire Chang'an.

Not to mention that he is an excellent poet and has an extraordinary character, which makes him even more enviable.

But unfortunately, it was also because of this that he was watched by too many people, especially the imperial examination.

Li Xuan and Lu Yuanfang thought that it would be best for Lu Xiangxian to become the top scorer in the imperial examination, so that the Jiangnan nobles would be more loyal to him.

But no matter how he did in the exam, there would always be rumors, so they came up with a solution.

Follow the example of what He Zhizhang did back then.

He Zhizhang had the ability to pass the imperial examination, but because of Li Xuan's suppression, he was delayed by several years. He first served as a county lieutenant for several years, and then became a Jinshi in one fell swoop.

Now, seven or eight years have passed, and He Zhizhang has jumped from a county lieutenant and county magistrate to a secretary of the fifth rank.

Another secretary-general was Chen Zi'ang, and together with the secretary-lieutenant Yu Ze, they kept the secretary-general firmly under their control.

The current Secretary-General position is actually still vacant because the previous Secretary-General was Wei Xuanzhen.

He was Empress Wei's father, and now there was Princess Anle, so in the end he was not executed immediately, but exiled to Zhenzhou.

But I think he won't live long, because because of his failure, the entire Wei family collapsed completely.

"The reason why Ji Zhen was able to pass the imperial examination and become the top scholar back then was that a few years ago, although he took part in the imperial examination, he did not fill in his name according to the regulations, so it did not count. It was also because of that that Emperor Gaozong called him the top scholar. After that, his articles were circulated throughout the world, and people recognized his talent. It's the same with you now." Li Xuan pointed at Lu Xiangxian.

This is the solution discussed by Li Xuan and Lu Yuanfang.

This year, Lu Xiangxian did the questions in this subject first, but did not fill in his name according to the regulations.

Lu Yuanfang had just become the left prime minister, and his son was taking part in the imperial examination that year. Regardless of whether he passed or not, his article would be of concern to people all over the world. It was for this reason that they circulated Lu Xiangxian's article throughout the world and found some great scholars to objectively evaluate his article.

Even if he doesn't have the talent to be the top scholar, he at least has the talent to be the second or third place. So by next year, Li Xuan and Lu Yuanfang will be able to push him to the top position.

At that time, the whole world will naturally respect you.

Lu Xiangxian bowed his hands gratefully and said, "Xiangxian understands the painstaking efforts of the prince and father, but Xiangxian is not here today because of this matter, but because Xiangxian discovered that someone was secretly selling imperial examination questions in the Imperial College..."

"Impossible." Li Xuan waved his hand and said confidently: "For this imperial examination, this king and the eight prime ministers of the Political Affairs Hall each prepared a set of examination questions, which were sealed in the Political Affairs Hall. Then on the ninth day of February, the emperor personally selected a set and sent it to the examination hall.

Even for us, it is impossible to know which one the emperor will choose, and we only know what we have done, and we know nothing about other people's exam questions. "

The Council of State Affairs was closely watched by the elite members of the former Right Guard who were transferred to the Imperial Guard by Li Xuan. Only a few prime ministers had ever entered the Council of State Affairs, and the Council was completely sealed off. At this time, no one had the opportunity to know their test questions.

Even in the future, it will be difficult to do anything to the emperor.

The emperor only serves for a year and four months, so the election is done randomly.

Unless someone leaks his test paper now, once people find out that there is something wrong with him, they will immediately investigate.

By then, the test questions in the Political Affairs Hall will serve as evidence.

Whoever does it will die.

Even Choi Ji-won wouldn't be that stupid.

"But someone is selling each test paper for 1,000 guan." Lu Xiangxian stood up and saluted, saying, "Your Majesty, this is not a small amount."

One thousand strings of cash.

Even a middle-aged man who has made a living in Chang'an all year round could not earn more than 100 strings of cash a year, not to mention the huge expenses every year.

It is not easy to live in Chang'an.

This is not empty talk.

For officials, they only need to consider housing and food, but for ordinary people, they need to pay more.

It was a great blessing to be able to save twenty strings of cash in a year, not to mention that you had to get sick.

Some people may not be able to save a thousand strings of cash even if they work hard all their lives.

Sometimes, it’s not that someone limits your annual income to a certain amount, but that there is only so much income in the world and your income won’t be much.

Unless the income of the entire world suddenly increases, the people of Chang'an and Luoyang, who live under the emperor's feet, will be able to get the biggest income increase.

In fact, the way to govern a country is to bring wealth from all over the world and then lower prices.

"One thousand strings of cash. I'm afraid there are only a few people in the entire Imperial College who can come up with it, and those who can come up with it are not ordinary people." Li Xuan nodded seriously and said, "It seems that there is really something."

"Yes!" Lu Xiangxian continued to bow and said, "But it seems that the questions will not be given out now. Instead, they will be distributed in Pingkangfang the night before the exam..."

Li Xuan waved his hand slightly and said, "I will arrange for Qianniu Guards to follow up on this matter."

"Yes!" Lu Xiangxian breathed a sigh of relief and said with a cupped hand: "Xiangxian is also a little anxious because Minister Ouyang is the chief examiner of this imperial examination."

Ouyang Tong, the newly appointed Shizhong Ouyang Tong, his first political achievement was this year's imperial examination.

If there is a scandal of imperial examination fraud, not only Ouyang Tong will be in trouble, but also Wang Dezhen, Cen Changqian, Wei Xuantong, and even Li Xuan and Lu Yuanfang will be implicated.

If Choi Ji-wen is directly connected with Li Xuan, then Li Xuan and the others will not only be implicated, but they may also be beheaded and their entire family will be exterminated.

"Okay." Li Xuan stood up and said, "Let's go, follow me to the study. I'll write a letter and you can take it to your father."

"Yes!" Lu Xiangxian bowed and accepted the order.

……

After Li Xuan and Lu Xiang disappeared from the lobby first, Liu Jinyu walked out from the side door with a puzzled look on his face.

Why did the imperial examination fraud happen to be known by the son of Left Prime Minister Lu Yuanfang?

(End of this chapter)