Do you know the long song of laughter?

Chapter 374 The last question

Neither classics nor poems are difficult for Li An, so Li An was in very good spirits in the first six days.

No one spoke for several days, and the test room was very small, with limited activities, which made people inevitably a little irritated.

However, Li An had the temper of the county examination and the township examination, and quickly adjusted his mentality.

The examination room was not warm, and it was chilly at night. Li An was well prepared, and with the kneepads given by Minglan, he was not too sad.

Early that morning, after Li An woke up, he rinsed his mouth with water, wiped his face with a wet handkerchief, and woke up completely.

After stretching his body and eating something, Li An prepared his pen and ink, waiting for the final policy discussion to begin.

About half an hour later, the policy theory test questions were also announced.

Li An listened and wrote at the same time. When the questions were copied down, he frowned slightly when he looked at the policy questions.

"The Jin Dynasty was conquered by Wu when he defeated Wu, and Fu Jian defeated Jin because of his dictatorship. Qi Huan was appointed as Guan Zhong and dominated, and Yan Kuai was appointed as his son and was defeated. They did the same thing but had different achievements. Why?" This is the strategy of this meeting. topic.

If it were a question asked by an official, it would be a bit thought-provoking.

If the officials had persisted, the New Deal might not have been successful. Instead, it would have exacerbated internal conflicts.

This is where the difficulty in choosing the questions in the general examination lies. I am not sure whether the questions were given by the examiner or the government.

If it is from an official family, the focus of the answer should be towards the emperor's discretion; if it is from the examiner, the focus of the answer should be towards the employment of people.

This question is not difficult to understand. Simply put, it is the advantages and disadvantages of autocracy.

Ang Lee did not answer the question based on it, but thought about who asked the question and what its purpose was.

It is possible to untie the knot in your heart through this trial.

With the current situation, the officials may not be able to understand this.

This can be seen from the Shenzong Reform. Emperor Shenzong had strong support, but in the end it failed, and the internal fighting became more intense.

It means: Sima Yan, Emperor Wu of the Jin Dynasty, was dictatorial and destroyed Wu and unified the world. Fu Jian of the former Qin Dynasty was dictatorial and lost the battle of Feishui. Duke Huan of Qi appointed Guan Zhong and became hegemonic. King Kuai of Yan appointed Zi Zhi, which led to great chaos in the Yan Kingdom. The same method but different results. ,why?

Li An guessed that the officials were still worried about the failure of the New Deal and wanted to find the answer he wanted through this conference?
Now that the official is in poor health and has no heirs, he doesn't seem to care about anything else.

The examiner actually has his own political opinions when setting the questions.

After all, officials can read articles that can be tested.

In fact, in Ang Lee's view, there are no ifs in this world.

Li An thought about the current situation and felt that it was unlikely that the examiner would set the question.

The examiner this time is Grand Prime Minister Han Zhang. Given the current situation, it doesn't make much sense to ask such a question.

The previous example talks about the monarch's arbitrary power, while the latter one talks about the use of ministers.

It may seem meaningless, but who asks the question is related to the focus of the answer.

To put it simply, the examiner could use the imperial examination to set questions and send articles that echoed his wishes to the officials, thereby influencing some of their thoughts and decisions.

If the question really comes from the officials, then this question can be understood as the officials asking whether the failure of the New Deal was his problem or the officials' problem.

In fact, since ancient times, heroes have been judged by their success or failure, and future generations judge the ancients by their merits and demerits.

It seems a bit contradictory, but it is not contradictory.

At that time, people regarded a matter as success or failure, but later generations judged it based on the situation at the time and merits.

This is well reflected in Wang Anshi.

Wang Anshi's reform was exploited by people with ulterior motives. The people of the world did not benefit, but were exploited even more.

When he retired and returned to his hometown, he found that the people were scolding him.

This is also the reason why later generations have mixed praise and praise for Wang Anshi.

And the same thing, done by different people, produces different results, and the results obtained are also different. If you carefully compare the things that Emperor Sui Yang did in history, you will find that most of them were also done by Li Shimin.

But of the two, one is an emperor through the ages, and the other is a famous faint king.

So it doesn't make any sense to just analyze something based on what-ifs.

But you definitely can’t say that when answering questions.

If you want to achieve good results, you must not only have no new ideas, but also conform to the wishes of the officials.

If we only look at the original New Deal, there is no doubt that the officials tricked Fan Zhongyan.

After all, the reform was originally proposed by the officials, and Fan Zhongyan and the others were just the executors.

As a result, the officials sold them.

Based on the situation at the time, even if it could not withstand the pressure and the New Deal had many shortcomings and needed to be stopped, Fan Zhongyan and others should be preserved.

As a result, Fan Zhongyan and others were demoted, although the history books said that they were self-invited.

But in Ang Lee’s view, history is not entirely trustworthy.

How could a person like Fan Zhongyan give up in frustration just because of one failure.

The reason why he invited himself was probably because he was frustrated by the official attitude.

From an objective point of view, the failure of the New Deal is indeed not entirely to blame on the officials, but he was too cold-blooded in his treatment of Fan Zhongyan and others.

Li An thought for a long time and started writing.

In Li An's view, the answer the officials want is simply that the New Deal failed and the responsibility does not lie with him.

And the responsibility cannot be placed on Fan Zhongyan and others.

Otherwise, he could completely discredit Fan Zhongyan and others, and there would be no need to worry about it.

Therefore, when Ang Lee answered the questions, he focused on the situation at that time.

The Jin Dynasty's ability to unify the world by destroying Wu was related to the situation at that time. At that time, the state of Wu was in internal chaos, its monarchs were weak, and its talents were withering. Only then did it have the opportunity to destroy Wu.

The result of the Battle of Feishui was also the situation. At that time, the former Qin Dynasty was in great chaos internally during the successive campaigns. It did not fully digest the destroyed forces and was eager to unify the male side.

In fact, it is telling the officials that the failure was not your fault, it was because the situation was inappropriate.

As for the latter part, it’s easy. Let’s answer it from the aspect of employing people.

It cited some examples in history of people who were good at using people, and some examples of people who reused treacherous officials.

This alone will definitely not work. If this is the case, it seems to be shifting the responsibility to the ministers.

Ang Lee can answer questions against his will for the sake of fame, but he cannot discredit a person like Fan Zhongyan.

At the end, Ang Lee cited some historical examples, mainly to make a point.

With good ministers, even if something fails, it will not cause too much loss or turmoil.

To put it simply, it is telling the officials that the responsibility for the failure of the reform does not lie with the officials nor with Fan Zhongyan and others.

It was a problem of the situation. It was the officials who used capable ministers like Fan Zhongyan. After the failure of the New Deal, it did not cause any major turmoil.

After finishing writing, Li An stopped writing and checked.

This can only be regarded as an outline of the article. It needs to be checked to see if there are any omissions and additions and deletions should be made.

After two days, Li An transcribed the final draft of the article, checked that there were no errors, wrote his name, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Although there is still one day left for the test, for Li An, it is actually over.

(End of this chapter)