The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

Chapter 357 Nothing new in ancient and modern times

Liu Sheng thought for a while and said: "Let's call it the 'Yuxuan Section'. Yujizhiyu can let the candidates know how much I attach importance to this fourth exam. As for the exam time, it will be set on the first day of September."

Royal examination?

Qian Qianyi's heart moved after hearing this, and he knew that this fourth examination was probably the direction of the imperial examination reform that Liu Sheng really expected, but it was not easy to make major changes now.

So I made up my mind that the Ministry of Rites must do a good job in this fourth exam.

Then, Liu Sheng continued to discuss other issues regarding the provincial examination with Li Changwen and Qian Qianyi.

For example, the questions in the Ming Dynasty Provincial Examination are different in each province.

Because the examination questions for the rural examinations were generally set by the chief examiner, and before the Wanli Year, only the chief examiners for the North and South Zhili Township Examinations were sent by the central government. The chief and deputy examiners of the other provinces were generally the provincial examiners and censors.

Starting from the Wanli period, the examiners of provincial examinations in each province were assigned by the imperial court to the director of the Ministry of Rites or the Ministry of Affairs.

It can be seen that the Ming Dynasty was slowly developing towards a national unified examination and gradually returned the power of provincial examinations to the central court.

Da'ei now had seven provinces under his rule, which were not too far apart from each other and were all accessible by waterways, so Liu Sheng decided to unify the rural examination questions of the seven provinces.

As for what to do after Dawei unified the world in the future - then there will naturally be smoother official roads and even railways, making transportation faster.

At the same time, improving the efficiency of the Yi Chuan system is also in Liu Sheng's plan.

Telegraphs will even be used in the future, and communication will become extremely fast.

In short, the impact of the country's vast territory and inconvenient transportation and communication on the unified examination will be greatly reduced in the future.

Of course, the unified examination also involves other issues, such as test questions being more likely to be leaked in advance.

However, it is difficult to completely eliminate this kind of problem. We only need to take effective precautions and do not give up eating because of choking.

After confirming the unified examination for the seven provinces, the next thing to be determined is the number of candidates admitted to each province.

In the Ming Dynasty, the admission quota for provincial examinations in each province was different. The number of admissions in each province depended on the situation.

Generally speaking, there are more Zhili in the north and the south, there are relatively more places where the imperial examination is developed, and there are relatively few places where the imperial examination is not popular.

But for individual candidates, it is actually somewhat similar to the situation of the college entrance examination in later generations.

For example, in Nanzhili, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Fujian where the imperial examination is well-developed, even if the number of candidates admitted to the provincial examination is higher than that in other provinces, because there are many candidates and their level is relatively high, when it comes to a specific candidate, the number of candidates in this category is Provinces are more difficult to win.

On the contrary, in areas such as Guangxi, Yunnan, and Guizhou where culture and education are not so prosperous, although there are fewer candidates for the provincial examination, there are also fewer candidates, and generally the examiner will give easier examination questions based on the local situation. Candidates from Tusi background (minority minority) even get bonus points!

In this way, if a candidate's level is fixed, it is obviously easier to succeed in the southwestern provinces where the imperial examination is underdeveloped.

However, the Ming court naturally had countermeasures against this, which was to strictly prohibit candidates from participating in the provincial examination in provinces other than where their household registration is.

However, during the Tianqi and Chongzhen years, especially the Chongzhen years, this rule was not as strict as before, and there were more loopholes to exploit.

Therefore, during this period, a few well-connected candidates from Nanzhili, Zhejiang and other places would go to provinces where the competition for imperial examinations was not so fierce.

Considering these circumstances, Liu Sheng said: "Although I have decided to take the unified examination in the seven provinces this time, after all, the cultural and educational situations in the seven provinces are different, so the quotas for candidates should also be different.

That is to say, the provincial examination questions are the same in each province, but the papers are judged and ranked separately, and the number of candidates is also different.

Among the seven provinces, the Zhili imperial examination in the south is the most prosperous and has a large population. I am going to give 101 candidates for the provincial examination this time. What do the three beloved ladies think? "

It is necessary for each province's provincial examinations to judge and list the papers separately, and the rankings must not be unified just because the examination questions are unified. Regarding this matter, there was a bloody lesson in the early Ming Dynasty.

That was the "fraud" murder case that led to the Northern and Southern Examinations during the Hongwu period.

After the February examination in the 51th year of Hongwu, because the top Gongsheng students (equivalent to quasi-jinshi) admitted were all from the south, the northern candidates were dissatisfied and believed that the examination was suspected of fraud.

Although Zhu Yuanzhang, who was 69 years old at the time, sent people to investigate, he learned that there was no fraud in the examination. It was true that there were few outstanding candidates from the north who participated in the examination, so it happened that the top 51 were all from the south. .

However, in order to calm the anger of the northern candidates and win over the northern gentry, Zhu Yuanzhang still treated it as a fraud case, and got involved with the Lan Jade case, setting off another murderous case, with heads rolling in.

Afterwards, he personally presided over a general examination in the summer, and the first 61 Gongsheng students admitted were all from the north.

Since then, it has become a regular practice to divide the North and South rankings in the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, Li Changwen and the others had no objection to the separate judging and ranking of the provincial examination papers. The main consideration was the issue of the number of candidates in each province.

Nanzhili is equivalent to a benchmark.

Liu Sheng has set the quota of 101 people for the rural examination in Nanzhili, and then other provinces can decide.

Qian Qianyi first agreed: "The number of candidates for the Nanzhili Township Examination last time was only 130. Now Huainan Province is separated from Nanzhili. Your Majesty still gives more than places this time. The number of candidates for Nanzhili is After hearing the news, I will be grateful for the grace of God.”

Li Changwen also felt that there was no problem.

So several people then discussed and decided on the quota of candidates for other provinces.

除南直隶外，其他省份举人名额基本都不过百，浙江91名、江西88名、淮南63名、湖南51名、湖北53名、河南42名。

Generally speaking, the number of candidates for each province is slightly more than before the start of the new year.

Because the imperial court of the Ming Dynasty gave relatively more preferential treatment and greater rights to those who were promoted to Jinshi, and those who were promoted were the threshold for becoming an official in the Ming Dynasty. In addition, the gentry did not want too many people to come in to share the profits, so the Ming Dynasty had always placed restrictions on the number of Jinshi and Jinshi. The control is relatively strict.

Later studies have shown that the average proportion of scholars in the Ming Dynasty was 3.3%, and the proportion of Jinshi candidates was about 5%.

It is actually more difficult to be a scholar than to be a Jinshi!

The reason why Liu Sheng did not further restrict the number of candidates in each province in this rural examination was because in the near future, when the time was almost right, he was going to establish the rule that the gentry should serve as errands and pay grain as one body, and abolish the various preferential treatment given by the Ming Dynasty to scholars, candidates, and scholars.

Of course, this does not mean that Dayei will not give preferential treatment to those with meritorious status at all, but it will not do so in the form of preferential treatment, exemption from labor service, land tax, etc.

Because of these preferential treatments, it was too easy for the gentry group to hinder the state from collecting taxes.

Qian Qianyi didn't know Liu Sheng's thoughts in this regard, so he just flattered Liu Sheng's generosity.

Li Changwen knew something about this, because Liu Sheng originally wanted to directly implement the policy of integrating the gentry as errands and paying grain in Runing and Yiyang Prefectures.

It was only because of his dissuasion, saying that Dawei had not yet unified the world, and implementing this policy too early would easily arouse fierce resistance from the gentry all over the world, and would not be conducive to pacifying the world as soon as possible, Liu Sheng changed his mind and prepared to do it later.

Li Changwen knew the dangers of gentry annexing land and stealing the rights of local officials, but because he also knew Liu Sheng's views on the gentry, he did not raise any objection to the seemingly large number of candidates.

After discussing the quota of candidates for each province, Liu Sheng did not participate too much in the remaining matters of the provincial examination, and planned to hand it over to the Etiquette Department of the Government Affairs Council...

After Liu Sheng returned to Fengxian Palace from Wenhua Palace, An Xiaofeng, deputy commander of Xunfengwei, came to report.

"Your Majesty, Wang Hui and his family have arrived in Nanjing."

"Oh? How is Wang Hui's health?"

An Xiaofeng said: "Wang Hui is seventy-two years old after all. He was pursued and suppressed by the insurgent army before, and he was tired of traveling all the way. After arriving in Nanjing, he was still in low spirits.

I asked the doctor to see a doctor for him, but he was too tired and fell ill by chance. The doctor has prescribed some medicine for him to recover, and he should be able to recover after a period of rest. "

Liu Sheng nodded slightly when he heard this.

Since Wang Hui is not feeling well, it is not suitable for him to summon him at this time.

Because Wang Hui has a deep research on mechanical physics, he once made the "Crane Yin" that uses the siphon principle to divert water. It is actually the predecessor of the water press. This kind of machine was still used in many places when Liu Sheng was a child.

There are also wind mills, high-pressure water guns, rice pounders, water conservancy timers, bicycles and other machinery.

Therefore, Liu Sheng planned to hand over the production of steam engines to Wang Hui.

Logically speaking, Liu Sheng had the blueprint of the steam engine, and he could copy it by gathering a group of skilled craftsmen.

The reason why he wanted Wang Hui to take charge of this matter was because Wang Hui not only had the ability to make a steam engine based on the drawings, but he could also easily understand the various knowledge involved in the steam engine, use it for his own use, and even teach it to others. .

In other words, if Wang Hui is responsible for the production of steam engines, the benefits will be much greater than if it is left to ordinary craftsmen.

Finally, when Wang Hui understood the principles of steam engines, he presided over the production of steam engines, which would inevitably be faster and better.

In this way, Damei can start building railways as soon as possible!

　Second more.

　　Good night~

　　

　

(End of this chapter)