Daming: My boss Zhu Yuanzhang

After the examination, the high school students happily prepared for the palace examination and met the current emperor. Those who failed sighed and thought about how to explain to their relatives in their hometown. Some felt that they were too shameless to go back, so they thought about entering the Imperial College to prepare for the next time. Will try.

If Juzi stayed in the Imperial College to study, not only would they not have to pay, but the court would also provide subsidies. Staying in the Imperial College was the best choice for them.

Of course, juren are also qualified to directly serve as officials, but except for the older ones who feel that they have no hope of going further, others will not give up easily.

In mid-March, these high school tributes walked into the imperial palace under the guidance of the Ministry of Rites and entered the Fengtian Hall, the center of power of the Ming Dynasty.

Everyone lined up neatly. Zhu Yuanzhang came in person and ascended the throne. The ministers and students bowed together. After some complicated etiquette, the palace examination officially began.

The imperial examination also had pre-printed test papers, but the questions were given by the emperor himself. After all, there were hundreds of people, and it was impossible for the emperor to talk to them one by one to take the test.

When the scholars saw this commoner emperor, they were excited but also very stressed. After all, according to legend, this was a tyrant who slaughtered his ministers like chickens and dogs.

However, even such tyrants cannot stop their desire for power.

The test papers were handed out, and when Lu Xiu and Ye Qingyun saw the Emperor Ce Wen above, they felt happy.

"Teacher is truly a god!"

Lu Xiu secretly thought that Ye Qingyun and others had similar thoughts.

Li Wei had given them guidance before and guessed a few questions that His Majesty might ask in the imperial examination, and what was written on the paper now was exactly one of the questions Li Wei had guessed!

"Since the Yuan Dynasty, I have unified the Hua and Yi people. Officials have followed the ancient system, and the laws have been relaxed. I have diligently sought talents and awarded them positions. However, the virtuous gentlemen have nothing to do with their affairs. They are only middle-aged and low-ranking officials. They are shameless and ignorant. If they are not true sages and saints, they are also Everyone is confused by it. If this is the case, what can we do to cure it..."

On the test paper, Zhu Yuanzhang talked a lot as if he was complaining, and the questions he asked were nothing more than the way to employ people.

In the more than ten years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, there was actually no shortage of moral gentlemen, but those with both talent and virtue were rare. Most of them were either rhetoricians or benevolent and righteous but secretly corrupt and perverting the law. This gave him a headache. Now it was time to raise this issue. Let’s see what these talented scholars have to say.

Li Wei once discussed this issue with Lu Xiu and others and put forward several very special views.

The first thing is to employ people, whether to emphasize virtue or talent.

In ancient times, when selecting officials, more emphasis was placed on virtue. When officials were praised, they often talked about being honest and morally upright, but there was no actual merit.

Li Wei, on the other hand, proposed another view to Lu Xiu and others, which is that more emphasis should be placed on talents. Those who serve as officials should be talented. Even if they are greedy, as long as they are not excessive, the benefits will outweigh the disadvantages for the people of the country and the country. On the contrary. Yes, if one is virtuous but not talented, he is often like a Madonna, either doing nothing or doing bad things with good intentions.

If one's moral character is not good enough, severe punishments can be used to restrain him, but if one's talent is not enough, then there is nothing he can do.

Of course, in addition to this special point of view, there is also the need to focus on practical learning when selecting talents. Literary and other things are very useful for flattery and political fighting, but they are useless when used to do practical things. If you really want to do something, even Confucian classics are useless. It's mathematics and physics.

Faced with Zhu Yuanzhang's policy questions, other students began to rack their brains to quote scriptures, and even asked Zhu Yuanzhang whether he could really listen to the suggestions, or whether he despised them as literati from the bottom of his heart and did not take them seriously.

Although these literati use the wording euphemistically, this is the meaning.

Compared with their taboo words, those who went to Minghuang Academy to follow Fang Xiaoru and believed in Minghuang Neo-Confucianism were much better off. They also agreed with Minghuang Neo-Confucianism's emphasis on practice, which was roughly similar to Li Wei's idea of ​​emphasizing practical learning. Lu Xiu and the others were even more relaxed. They could easily deal with it by directly improving the concepts pointed out by Li Wei.

The Imperial Examination was not as troublesome as the Imperial Examination. If the cumbersome etiquette had not taken up so much time, it would have taken less than an hour to answer the emperor's few questions.

At noon, as the etiquette officer blew his whip, the answering time ended. Special officials collected all the students' answer sheets, and Zhu Yuanzhang directly marked the papers with the examiners on the spot.

When he saw the jealous words of those scholars, he couldn't help but frown.

But this was a scientific examination after all, and he wouldn't do anything to the scholar just because his words were a bit unpleasant. He just threw the answer sheets aside with a sullen face.

When he saw the answer sheets of the scholars from Minghuang Academy, his face became better.

Virtue and incompetence are due to lack of practice. The theory of Ming and Huang Neo-Confucianism played a great role in changing the current literary style of the Ming Dynasty. This is why while reducing Li Wei's power, he also promised to grant Ming and Huang Academy examination qualifications.

Minghuang Academy was founded by Li Wei. Although Zhu Biao is the nominal principal, Li Wei is the real person in charge. If the students in this academy are high school students, they will definitely further enhance Li Wei's power.

But even so, Zhu Yuanzhang still wanted to use these capable ministers. The government was not only about power, but also about family and country.

There is no party outside the party and imperial thinking. There are no factions in the party, and there are all kinds of strange things.

Party strife is not terrible, only party strife is terrible.

In the early Ming Dynasty, there was also a dispute between Huaixi and eastern Zhejiang, but it did not cause the disaster of national subjugation like that in the late Ming Dynasty. On the contrary, the national power flourished.

In the final analysis, it depends on the emperor's methods.

Just like Li Wei wanted to fight for power, everything he said in court was beneficial to the country. For Zhu Yuanzhang, it was beneficial as long as he did not lose control.

Zhu Yuanzhang's expression improved. After reading several of these answer sheets, he felt quite satisfied. However, these people's ideas were not very different and their answers were similar. He didn't waste any more time and quickly read through them.

However, he suddenly paused when he turned to one of the answer sheets.

"Seeing His Majesty's virtuous voice, I have the courage to speak clumsily. No one is perfect. People with both virtue and talent have been rare in ancient times. Naturally, it is difficult to find them. I think that talent is more important than virtue. If you have both great virtue, it is a great good. If you don't have it, you can discipline it. The law controls it, but if you have virtue but have no talent, your good intentions will harm the people..."

When Zhu Yuanzhang saw these discussions, he was immediately shocked and suspicious.

For thousands of years, the selection of officials has been based on virtue first, but the answer sheet in his hand put forward a different view, which in the eyes of other literati was treason.

However, Zhu Yuanzhang did not think so. Instead, his eyes lit up and he felt that this view was very novel.

He is a pragmatist. Although the remarks on the answer sheet sound outrageous, it makes sense when you think about it carefully.

Zhu Yuanzhang looked at the name on the answer sheet and shouted directly: "Ye Qingyun?" (End of Chapter)