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

Chapter 1830: The top three are all from Hebei

A bright yellow list was placed in front of Li Xuan. After the Ministry of Personnel examination, the person ranked first was Zhang Shuo.

Zhang Shuo, whose courtesy name was Dao Ji, was a native of Luoyang, but his hometown was in Hedong and his family was also from the Zhang family of Fanyang.

Li Xuan also had some impression of Zhang's name.

Zhang Shuo, Li Linfu.

Prime Minister Li Longji was replaced by Li Linfu.

The second place was a stranger, Fang Rong.

Fang Rong, a native of Gaoshi, Luozhou, was born into the Qinghe Fang family. He was the grandson of Prime Minister Fang Xuanling and the grandson of former General Fang Xianzhong of the Left Jinwu Guard.

In other words, she is the nephew of Princess Zhanghuai's wife Fang.

Ranked third is Yan Chaoyin, whose courtesy name is Youqian and who was from Luancheng, Zhaozhou.

Li Xuan raised his head and sighed, looking at the prime ministers, ministers, assistant ministers, and generals standing on both sides of the hall, and said: "The Zhang family of Fanyang, the Fang family of Qinghe, and the Yan family of Zhaojun are not big families, but they all have many talented people. They are from Hebei!"

"Your Majesty is wise!" All the ministers in the hall bowed their heads with stern expressions.

The top three winners in the fourth year of Kaiyuan were all from Hebei. This kind of grand occasion was probably the first time since the founding of the Tang Dynasty, and it is likely that it will never happen again in the future.

All this is due to Li Xuan’s cultural management of Hebei last year, which allowed more Hebei talents to enter the court.

"I have taken a look. Although the three brothers Yan Chaoyin hold different positions, they all passed the imperial examination together. This is also a good story." Li Xuan took a deep breath, then smiled with satisfaction and said, "This can even be considered an auspicious sign. I hereby decree that each of the three brothers Yan Chaoyin be awarded three silver ingots so that they can concentrate on preparing for the palace examination."

"I obey your order." Yuan Jiazuo, the Minister of Taichang Temple, stood up and bowed.

Li Xuan nodded and continued, "Let's do this. Post the notice and prepare for the palace examination in ten days."

"We obey your order." All the ministers bowed their heads.

"Now that we have finished talking about this, let's talk about Cheng Rukong's case." Li Xuan raised his head, looked at the ministers, and asked, "A talented scholar was murdered by a gambler just because he suddenly rose to prominence, and it happened just before the imperial examination. I want to ask you, you spend so much effort every year to cultivate talents, but every year they die like this, are you willing to accept this?"

"We are guilty." The ministers looked solemn.

Li Xuan sighed and said, "I also trained talents to participate in the imperial examinations in the past, such as He Jizhen, Zhuge Minghui, Yuan Wei, Lu Lou, Xu An, and Sun Xian..."

Every time Li Xuan called out a name, someone stood up and bowed.

"When I was in Prince Peng's mansion, I gathered them together, provided them with food, and restricted their movements. I was worried that they would be dazzled by the prosperity of Chang'an during the imperial examinations, or that one day they would be dragged into an alley and beaten with a stick while walking..."

Li Xuan shook his head and said, "Even if they are not beaten to death, but being crippled or knocked unconscious will ruin their imperial examination for the year. So, I want you to stop the annual competition banquet from this year onwards. Scholars should take the exam as they should. This method of judging talents by reputation must be stopped."

"Yes!" All the ministers in the hall bowed their heads. It's not that no one of them wanted to explain, but they were all smart people and naturally knew that it was impossible to stop the practice of obscuring names.

The key point is that this method was exposed by the emperor.

What if next year, someone deliberately knocked their children unconscious during a scientific examination?

"So, stop this and use the method of covering up the names. I want the real talents to appear in my court. Fang Rong today is a good example." Li Xuanshen raised his eyes slightly and said, "Send an order to distribute the results of the Ministry of Personnel test to all prefectures in Hebei Province, so that the people of Hebei will know that their fellow townsman has won the top three."

"Your Majesty is wise!" All the ministers bowed at the same time.

This is the national policy, to appease the people of Hebei and let them do their best to serve the Tang Dynasty.

Everyone can imagine how much this list will change the Hebei people's view of the emperor.

Hebei was settled from then on.

Li Xuan waved his hand and said, "Let's leave the court."

"Your Majesty, we respectfully bid farewell to you." All the ministers bowed their heads.

……

Under the cover of night, Lu Yuanfang calmly returned to his mansion.

"Father!" Lu Xiangxian came up quickly, bowed and said, "Zhang Ruoxu is here."

"Well!" Lu Yuan stopped, then turned and walked towards the backyard, saying, "Father will not see him. Let him go back and prepare for the palace examination."

"Yes!" Lu Xiang stopped and watched Lu Yuanfang walk into the backyard, sighing softly in his heart.

What his father meant, what the emperor meant, everything was clear and Zhang Ruoxu no longer had any chance.

The imperial examination results were announced today, and Zhang Ruoxu ranked fourth.

This was something they had never thought of before. Before, the rumor in Chang'an was that Zhang Ruoxu had the talent to be the top scholar. The Lu family and the officials from various aristocratic families in Jiangnan had put a lot of effort into this matter. But a sudden murder case changed everything.

The emperor suddenly implemented the anonymous examination. Although it seemed that only Qinghe Fang Rong rose to the top and Zhang Ruoxu fell to fourth place, it seemed that there was not much change, but the real change happened further down the list. Many famous scholars in the imperial examinations failed to pass the examinations, but more poor students who were previously unknown passed the examinations.

Among them, the rise of people from Hebei Province is particularly prominent.

Of course, these had nothing to do with Lu Xiangxian. What he cared about was Zhang Ruoxu and Zhang Ruoxu's palace examination.

The Ministry of Personnel examination has ended, and the next palace examination is the most important.

But judging from his father's expression, Zhang Ruoxu was afraid that he really had no chance of getting into the top three.

The emperor would give the top three honors to people from Hebei and use them to appease people's hearts.

In fact, except for Fang Rong, who emerged out of nowhere and was not well-known, the others, Zhang Shuo and Yan Chaoyin, were already well-known. It was completely acceptable for the emperor to award one of them, especially Yan Chaoyin, the title of Tanhua.

This has become a foregone conclusion.

No one could argue for Zhang Ruoxu. In terms of the overall situation, the emperor was considering state affairs. In terms of strength, what did Zhang Ruoxu, who couldn't even get into the top three in the test, have to complain about?

Lu Xiangxian sighed lightly, then turned and walked towards the hall.

……

In Ganlu Hall, Li Xuan placed the imperial examination list on the imperial desk. Two beauties walked out of the inner hall, one on the left and one on the right, holding cakes and lotus seed soup.

Li Xuan raised his head slightly. The heroic Dou Yuer and the bright and beautiful Yang Xiuyan were serving on both sides.

Li Xuan couldn't help but look past the two of them and look at Yang Meir, who was standing deep in the inner hall with a pale face.

Since taking a concubine on the 16th day of the first lunar month, Yang Xiuyan has met "her" parents and brothers more than once. The family gets along harmoniously and there is no sign of anything unusual.

Of course, Yang Xiuyan’s parents and brother had already been “notified” in advance, as for her younger brother.

The little child could not tell any difference about her sister who had changed into gorgeous clothes and had a stern face.

Li Xuan's reward to this family was generous enough to make them forget their unfilial daughter who almost caused their entire family to be killed.

The palace gates were heavily guarded, so the next time they wanted to meet would be the next year, and Yang Xiuyan would have been pregnant by then.

Thinking of this, Li Xuan stood up directly, then picked up Dou Yuer and Yang Xiuyan with his left and right hands at the same time and walked towards the bed.

Yang Meir just looked on with a pale face.

Similarly, her other five sisters were staring at her closely.

They had been "instructed" in advance to watch Yang Meir's every move and not allow her to be alone at any time, let alone approach the emperor's food.

They all knew clearly what the consequences would be if something happened to the emperor.

……

In early April, the grass and trees are lush.

At the Huashan Mountain Temple, Guo regretted standing in the courtyard.

Listening to the occasional sound of horse hooves outside, he turned sideways to look into the wing room and said, "Brother Jiang, the emperor has gone to Luoyang."

Jiang Xia, the left general of the imperial guard, dressed in a green robe, came out of the wing room, glanced at Guo Huiyue, let out a sigh, and asked, "Who will the emperor leave in Chang'an when he goes to Luoyang this time?"

"Who else could it be? The crown prince is the regent, the left prime minister is staying behind, and Cen Changqian and Zhang Da'an are assisting him." Guo Huiyue shook his head slightly, sighed, and said, "The emperor has left enough means in Chang'an, including Yuan Jiazuo, the Minister of the Ministry of Rites, Liu Zhirou, the Minister of the Ministry of Defense, and Lai Jingye, the Chief Secretary of Yongzhou. With only these three people who have served as the Chief Secretary of Yongzhou, we have no chance."

"It seems that you are really planning to do something in Chang'an." Jiang Xia walked over calmly and sat down on the stone table next to Guo Hui. Then he looked at him and said, "In my opinion, you can make some trouble, but don't really put your money on Chang'an City. The emperor's control over Chang'an, and even Luoyang, is far beyond your imagination."

"It seems that you have thought about it too." Guo Hui smiled and then asked, "The Dou family has reconciled with the emperor, and the emperor has not treated Gao Shun County Lady harshly. Why don't you try to surrender to the emperor?"

Jiang Xia looked at Guo Huiyue calmly and asked, "Why don't you?"

Guo regretted falling silent, shook his head and said, "My last name is Guo, from Taiyuan Guo."

"My wife is the granddaughter of Emperor Taizong." Jiang Xia shook his head slightly and said, "My father-in-law often said that it was because of this that the emperor would not want to see him in front of him. I am the same. How could the emperor be willing to see me, the grandson-in-law of Emperor Taizong, hanging around in front of him every day."

The future is gone.

"The emperor will bring Emperor Jing with him when he goes to Jingzhou this time. What do you think?" Guo Huiyue's face became solemn.

"Jingzhou, will Yao Lingzhang agree to help?" Jiang Xia went straight to the point. Without Yao Lingzhang's help, they could do nothing.

"I sent several people, but they were all handed over to the secret guards." Guo regretted and sighed.

"Cut off ties with the Xu family, they are finished." Jiang Xia looked gently in the direction of Jingzhou. Another anti-imperialist force was about to end.

(End of this chapter)