Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

April 2nd, palace examination.

This had been decided a long time ago, and even the title was not unexpected, it was about recreating rituals and music.

However, due to the current severe situation, Zhu Youjian also proposed two immediate priorities: how to stabilize the Ming Dynasty and how to make the people live and work in peace and contentment. Let candidates start from recreating rituals and music and propose solutions.

We hope to select talents who are practical and practical from among the candidates.

As the first palace examination since ascending to the throne, Zhu Youjian still attached great importance to this matter. Not only did he give the questions himself, but he also patrolled during the exam. He even took the list and matched it with the candidates’ names:
"Liu Lishun, Shi Kefa, Poqizong, Zhang Cai, Lu Daqi..."

“There are quite a lot of talents in this department and they can be reused in the future. 』

Zhu Youjian had noticed the names of Liu Lishun and Shi Kefa before.

The reason why Mao Qizong was noticed by him was because this man was Mao Bijiang's father——

The name of Mao Pijiang is well known in Liang Yusheng's novels. Now, although I don’t know if he will have a daughter named Mao Huanlian, I do know that he did have a concubine named Dong Xiaowan in history. Moreover, this person can be called a survivor of the Ming Dynasty, and he has never been an official in his life.

As Mao Bijiang's father, Mao Qizong was naturally noticed by him.

As for Zhang Cai, because he is as famous as Zhang Pu, they are also called Loudong Erzhang. Considering the influence of Fushe in history, Zhu Youjian certainly paid attention to him.

The name Lu Daqi was familiar to Zhu Youjian, but he didn't remember what he had done. However, this person could become a great person just by looking at his name, so he decided to train him well.

Others who Zhu Youjian is not familiar with, and who have not even been listed in this subject in history, include Ma Shiqi, Chen Longzheng and others.

Ma Shiqi was Du Yinxi's teacher and a loyal minister who died in righteousness. Together with Hua Yuncheng and Gong Tingxiang, he was known as the "Three Loyalists of Xishan".

Chen Long was a disciple of Gao Panlong. He founded the Tongshan Association during the great disaster in the late Ming Dynasty and was a representative of private charity relief.

There are also people such as Jin Xuan, Jin Sheng, Zhou Fengxiang, Wang Wei, Wu Ganlai, etc., whose reputation in later generations is not very obvious, but they are all loyal ministers who died in righteousness.

Zhu Youjian looked back and forth, occasionally stopping to watch the candidates' answers. When passing Liu Lishun, I stopped for a moment.

I saw that he cited scriptures and wrote about the reconstruction of rituals and music in an orderly manner, and also put forward practical suggestions such as improving morale, caring for the poor, simplifying good officials, fixing the period of teachers, and trusting rewards and punishments. He nodded with satisfaction and thought he was a talent.

The examiner next to him saw this scene and immediately noticed Liu Lishun. Some people speculated on the emperor's intentions and felt that Liu Lishun should be selected as the number one scholar.

Zhu Youjian does have this idea, because he wants to use Liu Lishun and Niu Jinxing to recruit talents from Henan.

In this case, the bigger Liu Lishun's fame is, the better. The reputation of a top scholar will have a great effect.

Zhu Youjian also paid some attention to Huiyuan Cao Xun. This person is also from Henan, and it stands to reason that he can play the role of Liu Lishun. But because he had close contacts with Gao Panlong, Wei Dazhong and the Donglin Party members, Zhu Youjian certainly did not dare to let him recruit people. In case the Donglin Party becomes more powerful and becomes more difficult to contain.

With these thoughts in mind, Zhu Youjian patrolled the hall for a few times before walking out.

After he left, many candidates in Huangji Hall breathed a sigh of relief——

They were a little nervous as the emperor looked back and forth. Just now, many people were paying attention to observing the emperor.

Zhu Youjian noticed this, so he left Huangji Hall and went to Jianji Hall to take a rest.

Sitting in Jianji Hall, Zhu Youjian couldn't help but feel a little troubled as he thought about what happened these days.

First, over in Liaodong, after Sun Chengzong sorted things out, he found that the five hundred thousand taels of silver he brought were somewhat insufficient.

Liaodong alone owes more than 600,000 in wages. There were more than 300,000 taels of silver purchased but not paid to the prefectures and counties.

The 500,000 taels of silver he brought soon became insufficient, and he asked the emperor to allocate another 500,000 taels to meet his urgent needs.

Second, in Shaanxi, after Sun Chuanting turned the martial arts conference into a recruitment conference, he used the intelligence of the village leaders who had been recruited to annihilate several groups of bandits.

Nowadays, Shaanxi bandits are no longer a concern, but a phenomenon he discovered while catching thieves made him very worried——

That is, among the stray thieves, more and more side thieves appear. There are still soldiers on the run in the border towns and they continue to become bandits.

This made Zhu Youjian frown, feeling that the back pay he paid to the Shaanxi frontier army last year was somewhat ineffective:

"Perhaps someone withheld the salary and did not pay it in full. 』

“Perhaps the situation in Shaanxi is so bad that we can’t buy enough food even with our salary. 』Silver is very useful in most situations, but when encountering a famine, it is far inferior to food.

If money cannot buy enough food, those border troops will naturally try to escape under the pressure of survival.

To solve this problem, we need to distribute food to the border troops. Zhu Youjian had previously asked Zheng Zhihu and others to transport grain from Nanyang, in order to allow the capital to reduce some grain and transport it from Huguang to Shaanxi.

However, the road from Huguang to Shaanxi is also difficult to travel, and Zhu Youjian is not sure how much grain can be transported. What Shaanxi needs more is self-help:
"Sun Chuanting has done a good job. You can trust him to handle matters in Shaanxi." 』

"The governors of the three sides will be replaced in August this year, and he can be appointed!" 』

According to the previously established governor term system, the post of trilateral governor will be replaced in September this year.

Shi Yong'an, the current governor of the three sides, was demoted by Zhu Youjian and stayed in office because he once built a temple for Wei Zhongxian. It is basically impossible for him to stay in office after his term ends.

So Zhu Youjian has already planned to let Sun Chuanting take over.

He sent Jin Yiwei to pass a secret letter, asking Yuan Shu to hint Sun Chuanting to write a policy outline. At the same time, he asked Yuan Shu to pay attention to the Hetao and other places around Shaanxi——

If the famine in Shaanxi cannot be alleviated, Zhu Youjian can only think of ways to move internal conflicts outward. It would be better for the border troops to die on the road to Tuobian than to become bandits.

After deciding on this strategy, Zhu Youjian thought of the memorial to Guanglu Temple again, and felt very angry.

It turned out that because banquets were held one after another these days, they were ordered to prepare for the Qionghua Banquet. Guanglu Temple complained and asked for more funds.

This made Zhu Youjian very angry and wanted to kill the officials of Guanglu Temple:
"How much can the banquet cost?" Even on the Queen's Thousand Autumn Festival, there are only four dishes, a plate of dim sum, a bowl of longevity noodles, and three minutes of wine on the table. 』

"Now we start to cry about poverty. It's because they lived too comfortably before!" 』

Zhu Youjian had long heard of the name of Guanglu Temple Tea Soup. The prescriptions of the Imperial Hospital, the swords and guns of the Arsenal, and the articles of the Hanlin Academy were listed as the four major jokes in the capital.

However, since Zhu Youjian came to power, he had used many Hanlin Academy officials and found that their articles were quite good and could meet his requirements. So I don’t pay much attention to these four jokes.

Now that I saw several banquets in Guanglu Temple, I cried out to myself for being poor. Then I thought that I had to ask my close eunuchs to take turns preparing meals for me. He suddenly felt that the problem in this yamen was huge, and there might be a lot of rats:
"It seems that capturing Ruan Dacheng did not alert some officials. 』

"We have to capture another batch to give the officials in the capital a snack!" 』

Zhu Youjian can understand the complaints of Liaodong and Shaanxi, and even wants to find ways to raise funds for the two places.

But Zhu Youjian felt that he could never get used to Guanglu Temple's complaints. No matter how hard they suffer, can they endure the hardships of the soldiers and civilians on the border?

Therefore, Zhu Youjian had planned to take action on Guanglu Temple to see if he could extract money from the corrupt officials in Guanglu Temple to meet Liaodong's needs.

"Fei Zhaoyuan, the minister of Guanglu Temple, passed away a few days ago, and the new minister Fan Jingwen has not yet taken office."

"You go and investigate Zhou Yanru and Zhang Tianlin first, and then investigate other officials."

"The Legal Affairs Department will conduct a thorough investigation this time and dig out the details of all the officials of Guanglu Temple!"

Having made up his mind, Zhu Youjian ordered Zheng Shiyi.

I plan to use this matter to test Jinyiwei's ability in the lawsuit——

After all, he has been adjusting Jinyiwei for half a year, and the various departments in the Bei Si Fang Intelligence Center have also set up their own structures.

They need to be allowed to do things and their abilities tested in practice.

When Zheng Shiyi heard this order, he immediately accepted the order excitedly. As the commander of the Imperial Guards, he had also imagined in his mind the majesty of his seniors. Now that the emperor is using him to investigate officials, it is naturally a good opportunity to establish his reputation.

But Zhu Youjian didn't fully count on him, and said to another Jin Yiwei commander Fang Hongzhan:

"I have previously granted the newspaper industry the power to supervise public opinion, but no one seems to have dared to use it."

"Everyone in the capital knows about the tea soup at Guanglu Temple. Let the newspapers discuss it and expose the shortcomings of Guanglu Temple."

"I want to see if the newspaper industry can make good use of its power to supervise public opinion."

The two men were ordered to conduct a thorough investigation of Guanglu Temple from both official and private aspects. (End of chapter)