Datang: What's wrong with my fief being a billion points larger?

Chapter 230: Subverting the current imperial examination system

Seeing that Kong Yingda was honest and no longer so impatient, Li Yuanji felt relieved. He didn't want this old man to collapse.

Since Kong Yingda came here, he actually brought quite a few people here. Although they were all deeply influenced by Confucianism and some were pedantic, Li Yuanji had to admit that these people were really outstanding in education.

As Kong Yingda adjusted his attitude, Li Yuanji struck while the iron was hot and spoke again.

"It's great that you have this attitude, which proves that you are indeed suitable for the Ministry of Education. However, there are still many omissions in this college system.

I just talked about enrollment, which is extremely important. You also need to remember what I am going to say next. I can allow you to make suggestions, but you are not allowed to refute or change direction.

When a college is established, it is bound to not be able to accommodate everyone, so the selection of students becomes extremely important.

After planning the number of students to be admitted, these students have several channels to enter.

The first ones are the sons of military officers and soldiers. Any son of a soldier can be chosen by his family to enter the academy. Remember, only the sons from the families of soldiers can enter the academy.

If a family has two men who are soldiers, then this family can have two places.

The enrollment through this channel must reach at least 60% of the total planned enrollment. As for how to give priority to the children of soldiers' families, they will be screened according to their military merits and the time of enlistment. Those with military merits and those who have been in the army for a long time will be given priority.

Therefore, when recruiting students, you need to cooperate with the Ministry of War. The Ministry of War has a roster, and as long as you have the place of origin, you can quickly find it and conduct screening.

In addition to this channel, there is recommendation. Elders from the villages below, who are people of high moral character and prestige, can recommend students, accounting for 10% of the total enrollment.

However, if the recommender deliberately conceals information or is unfair, his/her right to recommend will be revoked and he/she will face punishment.

Then came the children of local officials, who also selected one of their sons to enter the academy.

Finally, there are enrollment quotas for all groups. The prerequisite is that they must be law-abiding people with no bad records. Everyone except those who already have admission channels mentioned above can participate. The process is through lottery, that is, drawing lots, and only those who are drawn can enter the college.

The drawing of lots must be conducted fairly. Every year, there must be people from your Ministry of Education present to supervise the enrollment. If there is any fraud, secret change of places, etc., anyone who is discovered will be executed for the lighter offense and the entire family will be exterminated for the heavier offense!
After you go down, follow what I said and come up with a feasible plan. Only after you submit it to me for approval can we proceed."

Li Yuanji attached great importance to the recruitment of students for the academy. Now that his foundation was a large army, he had to maintain the honor of the soldiers.

Generally speaking, recruiting soldiers is very difficult. The more peaceful the times, the fewer people are willing to join the army. Only through corvée labor can we recruit enough people to get the quota.

What he is doing now is to make the people in his fiefdom voluntarily join the army. Joining the army is secondary. The main thing is to be the combat soldiers, that is, the elite troops he values ​​the most.

The army here has been roughly divided into elite combat soldiers and standing soldiers. The standing soldiers are more responsible for maintaining public order, while also having to take into account farming and other appropriate tasks. It can be said that their work is rather complicated.

Although they undergo training, he will rarely send the standing army into combat. They are more used for defense and as a reserve source of combat troops.

The mission of a combat soldier is to fight. When there is no combat mission, they are just training. There are no other matters to do. The most important function of a combat soldier is to eliminate the invading enemy and defeat the enemy when attacking.

Soldiers only need to fight and do nothing else. Everything they do is to serve the combat.

As for the others, it is more for the purpose of striking a balance so as not to make the opportunity of schooling too monotonous and to avoid being controlled by others.

As for abiding by the law and having no bad criminal record, it is purely a kind of constraint. As long as there are children in the family and as long as they want to enter the academy and soar to the sky, they have to behave themselves and avoid people who disrupt stability.

Recommendation is to allocate a part of the quota to different people. Li Yuanji is very clear about one thing, it is better to divide the enrollment quota into several places than to be controlled by one person. If one person controls it and becomes bad, the entire enrollment will be ruined.

Divide it into several parts, even if one part is broken, not all of them will be broken.

Kong Yingda was listening quietly. At this moment, he had already picked up a pen and was taking notes. Li Yuanji had said too much, so he wrote it down to avoid forgetting it.

Kong Yingda wanted to object to what Li Yuanji said. What he wanted to object to was the channel of soldiers and generals. The proportion was too large, a total of six layers. His intention was to satisfy the families and the powerful first, and not the common people.

However, Li Yuanji was determined and he didn't have any good words to express himself. He said nothing for a while, but just frowned and recorded, like a ruthless recording machine.

Li Yuanji waited for a while, and when Kong Yingda finished writing and put down his pen, he spoke again.

“What I just said are the most important. What I will say next is that once the academy system is fully implemented, the recruitment of officials will adopt the imperial examination system.

Anyone who has studied in the provincial school for more than five years has a chance to take the imperial examination every two years, and students in the prefectural school have the opportunity to take the imperial examination every year.

As for Chinese studies, students can enter officialdom through the imperial examination, or wait for three years to complete their studies and pass the graduation test, and then be assigned by the Ministry of Personnel.

The imperial examination was divided into provincial examination, prefectural examination, metropolitan examination, and palace examination, held every three years, which was a grand examination in which all the examinations were held together.

I don't need to explain the provincial examination and the prefectural examination, I believe you should be able to understand that the joint examination is that all those who have passed the prefectural examination will gather in Haikang to take the joint examination.

The palace examination after the joint examination will be held in the royal palace, and will be supervised by me personally, and the final ranking will be determined.

The top ten in the palace examination will be received by this prince in person, and the top three in the palace examination will be arranged by this prince personally after they enter officialdom.

In addition to the major examinations held every three years, there are also minor examinations held every year, namely the small imperial examinations.

The minor imperial examinations consisted of the prefectural examination and the joint examination, which could be taken by those who had been in the prefectural school for three years. After passing the examination, the Ministry of Personnel would directly arrange personnel for them.

Although this imperial examination system existed in the Sui Dynasty, it was extremely imperfect. Please write down what I have said and reorganize it later. If you have any good suggestions, please list them separately and write them down. "

What was the purpose of establishing the academy? In Li Yuanji's opinion, wasn't it just for the last item, the imperial examination?

Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty actually implemented the imperial examination system, but it was extremely imperfect and had a big drawback. That is, if you don’t even have an academy, the same people will still come out if you use the imperial examination system.

Even though the imperial examination system after Li Er was improved a lot on the basis of the previous Sui Dynasty, the most fundamental issue was still not resolved, that is, the people taking the imperial examinations were still the same group of people.

The common people and some other classes were still out of reach. In an era when knowledge was controlled by aristocratic families, the imperial examination system implemented by Li Er was more like a process, perhaps to screen better people from aristocratic families to enter the court.

Anyway, Li Yuanji was extremely confused. Although it was Li Er who first used the imperial examination system, which led to the Tang Dynasty using it to recruit officials and also passed on the imperial examination system to later generations, Li Yuanji had to say that Li Er's imperial examination system was more like a child's play.

Because Li Er's imperial examination system did not bring about any substantial changes. The only difference was probably that it intensified the internal conflicts among the aristocratic families, and that was it.

But it is completely different here. No matter whose son you are, you must first enter the academy, because no matter it is a small imperial examination or a large imperial examination, you must have a certificate from the academy to participate in the imperial examination.

If you want to be an official here in the future, you must pass the imperial examination. If you are really a genius, are you afraid that you will not be able to pass the imperial examination?
In fact, even in a true imperial examination like his, children of aristocratic families will still have an advantage, because they can receive unique education within the family, which is equivalent to the family giving them special treatment and setting up a unique training class.

This is something that no other student can possess or compare to. As long as the children of aristocratic families are not too bad and have absolute educational resources, their starting point is still higher than that of ordinary students.

Li Yuanji had no way to deal with this. The imperial examination he was organizing was the most fair and just one he could think of. He had already given ordinary people great opportunities.

If you want to change your destiny, you must either be gifted or be down-to-earth and lay a foundation for your future descendants. After a few generations, the descendants of those who entered the official career first will also have such special treatment.

The reason why he can implement the imperial examination system now is that there are almost no aristocratic families here. The only one he needs to consider is the Feng family. After all, Feng Ang supports him so much. However, the Feng family alone is not enough to make Li Yuanji give in.

Moreover, the families here are really inferior to those families in the Tang Dynasty. He will hardly encounter any obstacles, because even the Feng family, as well as the Ning family, Chen family and other authentic Lingnan families are just small families in the Tang Dynasty.

The academy system and imperial examination system he proposed would be really difficult to implement in the Tang Dynasty. Even the imperial examination system would inevitably be opposed by the vast majority of aristocratic families, unless the emperor compromised and gave part of the benefits to the aristocratic families.

However, even if the aristocratic families agreed, it would only be another way to allow people from aristocratic families to serve as officials.

However, if the college system is proposed, it will be difficult to implement unless the aristocratic families are destroyed first. Even for the emperor, it will be very difficult.

Even rabbits will bite when they are angry. When aristocratic families are angry, it is more than just biting.

At this moment, Kong Yingda was excitedly recording what Li Yuanji said about the imperial examination. In Kong Yingda's eyes, this would be a method of recruiting officials that would open up an era. He would be an absolute participant and leader in such an epoch-making event. How could Kong Yingda not be excited?

Although there was an imperial examination system in the former Sui Dynasty, it ended hastily. There was no imperial examination during the Wude period of the Tang Dynasty. However, now that Li Yuanji brought up the imperial examination system again, it was completely different from the system used in the former Sui Dynasty.

Especially the implementation of the college system, at this moment Kong Yingda suddenly realized that it seemed to be created for this imperial examination system.

As the descendant of Confucius and the 32nd generation grandson of Confucius, if he can take the lead in such an important event of the times, he, the descendant of Confucius, will once again revive the glory of the Kong family.

After recording everything Li Yuanji said, Kong Yingda looked at Li Yuanji excitedly.

"Your Majesty, this imperial examination system is of utmost importance. Your Majesty's move is undoubtedly a pioneering one. It is bound to be a policy that benefits the country and the people and will benefit future generations. I am excited about it!
I will take my leave now and start to organize it. Your Majesty, please rest assured that I will work day and night to organize what Your Majesty has said as soon as possible so that the academy system and the imperial examination system can be released as soon as possible!"

After Kong Yingda finished speaking, he packed up the stack of papers with his notes and left in a hurry.

Li Yuanji looked at Kong Yingda and he could tell that Kong Yingda was very excited and couldn't wait to perfect these things.

Watching Kong Yingda going down, Li Yuanji smiled helplessly. He really didn't expect that Kong Yingda would be so impatient and anxious.

"I haven't even finished talking yet, and you left. But that's okay, I've basically covered the important parts. Once you've sorted them out, I can fill in the gaps later."

Li Yuanji was also happy. Now that the education system was established, he only needed to persist for a few more years. Ten years later, there would be more and more talented people here. By then, no matter how big his fiefdom was, he would not have to worry about lack of talented people to govern it.

Li Yuanji was also extremely looking forward to this epoch-making event that would overturn the current college system and imperial examination system.

While looking forward to it, I also feel emotional. It turns out that if you want to have changes, it is best to do so in times of chaos or when a new country is just established, because you can achieve your goals with prestige. The more peaceful and prosperous the times, the more difficult it will be to have changes.

Because the classes are fixed and the vested interests are determined, wanting to change means reforming the law, and every reform will inevitably harm the already determined vested interests. The obstruction of those people is the reason why change is the most difficult.

In troubled times, or even in his current period, who would dare to make trouble in front of him if he wanted to do something?

As long as someone dares to make trouble, he will dare to chop people down, because the vested interests are not fixed, the classes are not completely fixed, there will not be so many people opposing, and their attitude will not be so resolute.

After laughing for a while, Li Yuanji began to think about what he had to do. But he did not forget to solve the paper problem.

It’s not that there is no paper nowadays, but Xuan paper is not only more expensive to make, but also slower to make.

In the past, paper was not used on such a large scale, and Xuan paper could still be used. But in the future, paper will be used more frequently and in larger quantities. If all paper is used, it will be really difficult.

(End of this chapter)