The animal world of the head of the village

Chapter 496
The Dragon Society now has a vast territory, so Luo Hongfan carefully selected nine cities as pilots for selection according to the actual situation.

The nine pilot sites are: Beijing, Liaodong, Datong, Tianjing, Anqing, Hangzhou, Zibo, Shanghai and Shun'an.

After the pilot was announced, Huang Xiaohu also felt that this time it should cover almost the entire area of ​​the Dragon Club.

The Shenlong Society launched a new imperial examination, which immediately blasted out a large number of scholars. In places where no one paid attention to scholars, now scholars are the most popular.

Many teachers have dropped their books one after another, preparing to actively prepare for the new imperial examination selection.

Huang Xiaohu's age is set from 18 to 50 years old, so the number of qualified scholars in this range is conservatively estimated to be 10,000+, and the number of people who signed up for this new imperial examination is estimated to be around 6 to [-].

The initial test, which was originally thought to be completed in one month, turned out to be delayed to two months due to the large number of applicants. After the adjustment of the initial test, the final character and culture test will be postponed by one month.

The initial test only selected half of the candidates, so the number of people who finally entered the culture test and character test reached 3.

Huang Xiaohu and Luo Hongfan discussed that 3 people were scattered in nine cities for the exam, which seemed too crowded, and it was difficult to get so many questions and character test items.

In order to screen again, Huang Xiaohu decided to take a cultural test first, and then enter the character test after passing the cultural test.

Because of the large number of people, Huang Xiaohu had to adjust the difficulty of the culture test. Although they were not required to write stereotyped essays, the test questions for them had become three choices.

The first is to talk about your ideals and plans for governing the country; the second is to talk about the person who has the greatest influence on you; the third is if one day you die, what is the thing you most regret not doing.

Candidates need to choose a topic and then write an article. It does not require neat confrontation, but requires beautiful language and strong logic. In short, the culture test has finally become an enhanced version.

About 9000 people took part in the culture test one month later, and almost 7000 people completed the answer sheet.

The review work is complicated and tedious, and it takes a long time.

Luo Hongfan, Huang Zixuan, and even Zhao Yali directly participated in the final judging work.

After more than a month of review, 3000 people finally passed the culture test.

These 3000 people need to participate in the next character test.

The character test is very simple, it was Huang Xiaohu's own idea.

Each of the nine test centers prepared tents, and then put candidates in groups of 30 in a large tent.

These test takers don't really know what's going to happen next, they just know it's a test.

Huang Xiaohu ordered the army to surround the camp, and then completely isolated the candidates, giving them only one meal and a little water every day.

Those who are weak and unable to support will be carried out of the camp soon, and sent back to their hometown after receiving medical treatment.

After three days, someone will ask the people in the camp if they are still willing to persevere. If they give up at this time, they can go home directly.

Most people chose to persist, so the test continued.

Nine days later, only about 800 of the [-] candidates remained.

Here comes the important point, each candidate has the right to designate others to be out, and you need to state the reason why you let him out.

During the nine days of getting along, these people basically knew each other a lot, because they were restricted in and out, and except for eating, sleeping and defecating, all the rest of the time were gathered together by 30 people, so there was already a sufficient Reasons and motivations for eliminating opponents.

Huang Xiaohu's setting is that those candidates who are called out can get an extra portion of food and water.

The question is whether these candidates are willing to share the food and water.

Although it is just a very simple test, the test time is 1000 days, so the number of candidates who can persist until the end is only about [-] or [-].

The next step is the most brutal testing session.

More than 1000 candidates were redistributed in groups of ten and lived in new tents.

Divided into ten days, everyone has one day to make a choice, this choice is to eat and drink enough for oneself or let others eat and drink enough.

In other words, as long as you choose to eat and drink enough for yourself, other people will be hungry for a day, and there will be no water to drink, but if you choose other people to eat and drink enough, then you will have no water to drink this day. something to eat.

After ten days, the military officer in charge of the examination recorded the detailed process.

These records were sent to Tianjing, and Huang Xiaohu and the others decided the final selection.

Almost a month of testing has ended, and finally there are still 1000 people waiting for Huang Xiaohu's choice.

The standard proposed by Huang Xiaohu is to eliminate those who choose to eat and drink by themselves, and to analyze and judge the behavior of those who have been voted out.

Those who choose to share food and water, plus those who ultimately choose to keep others fed, will make it to the final review.

Based on these criteria, 1000 people left only 400 eligible.

Huang Xiaohu decided to bring these 400 people to the Daliang Town Barracks for a one-month military training, and then slowly make selections.

Those who can't survive a month of hard military training will of course be eliminated directly, so after one month, 300 people will enter the final selection.

After discussing with Luo Hongfan, Huang Xiaohu and Luo Hongfan decided to hire all 300 people, but they still needed to select the best talents among them, and let them directly manage the county.

The final test of the trial in the courtroom began. 300 people were divided into ten batches, and each batch lasted five days. Zhao Yali and Zhang Yalan were responsible for how to judge.

Fifty days later, about 70 people finally got the approval of Zhao Yali and Zhang Yalan, and they will be the candidates for the county magistrate of the southern region in the future.

As for the remaining 230 people, they were all assigned to various cities within the area of ​​the Dragon Club, responsible for paperwork and government affairs.

Everything is the hardest and most cumbersome for the first time. After this selection, in addition to the character test that may need to be revised in the future, the cultural test is only a revision of the topic, so the selection after one year will definitely be much easier and more convenient, and With the addition of so many new talents, the selection after one year will definitely be wider and larger.

In the process of selecting talents, Ji Wu had already led tens of thousands of musketeers to completely wipe out Gansu, and was preparing to march into Shaanxi.

Half of the newly selected top 70 were assigned to Gansu, and the remaining half were assigned to Anhui.

Huang Xiaohu found that if he attacked Hunan and Jiangxi, there would be no suitable personnel to manage them, so after deciding to let Ji Wu attack Shaanxi, he needed to suspend the attack plan.

However, the Taiping army and the Qing army in Hunan and Jiangxi had already fought fiercely several times, and it seemed that Huang Xiaohu didn't need to send troops at all. It is estimated that if the fighting continued like this, the Taiping army would be completely wiped out by the Qing army.

The funniest thing is that some people in the south have already made themselves kings, and some have become new emperors, but because of the distance, Huang Xiaohu has no plans to attack them for the time being.

A few months later, Ji Wu's army had pacified Shaanxi and was stationed in Xi'an.

Exciting news came from Shanghai that the armored battleship was ready to be shipped back.

After Huang Xiaohu got the news, he personally led an army of [-] to Shanghai along with Zhao Yali and Zhang Yalan, preparing to welcome these warships and new weapons and equipment.

Twelve ironclad battleships, together with more than 20 warships captured by the British and French allied forces in Yangshan Port, more than 1000 technicians returned from Germany, and brought back a large amount of weapons and equipment.

Huang Xiaohu rewarded the German ambassador heavily, and also privately gave the Harbots a large sum of gold, silver and jewels, which can be regarded as a compliment to them.

These are just the first batch of ironclad battleships ordered, and the second batch is already being manufactured, and it is expected to arrive at Yangshan Port in another year and a half.

Among the large number of technicians who returned from their studies, several were Huang Xiaohu's former personal soldiers, namely Zhang Heng, Lu Yu and Zheng Dacheng.

More than 1000 technicians, including more than 200 excellent ones, have all mastered the technology of manipulating iron-clad ships and warships, and the Germans also sent a team of instructors to follow these iron-clad ships back together.

Huang Xiaohu rewarded those instructors heavily, and then ordered a three-month sea training.

For this fleet, Huang Xiaohu deliberately named it Shenlong Navy, and appointed Zheng Dacheng as the commander of the Shenlong Navy, and Zhang Heng and Lu Yu as lieutenants.

With the Shenlong Navy, Shanghai is no longer a port that can only be defended, but has directly become a water fortress, and even has the ability to attack from a distance and fight at sea.

Zhao Yali said to Huang Xiaohu: "Historically, the Beiyang Navy was established 30 to 20 years later, which means that we should have established a powerful navy at least [-] years earlier."

Huang Xiaohu said: "If you say that, Japan shouldn't have such a powerful navy now?"

Zhang Yalan said: "Even in history, the Beiyang Navy is the most powerful fleet in Asia, okay? If we set up the Shenlong Navy now, it is estimated that Japan is not our opponent at all."

Huang Xiaohu said: "For the time being, I have no intention of attacking Japan. After all, the two lakes, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Jiangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou are not under our control, so I want to calm down the country first."

Zhao Yali said: "There shouldn't be any problem with fighting now. The problem is that after the fight, no one will manage it. When will the next talent selection be?"

Huang Xiaohu said: "Nine months from now. Anyway, it will be once a year in the future. When there are almost enough talents, it will be changed to once every two years. In the future, it will definitely become more and more picky and stricter."

Zhang Yalan said: "Since there will be a second talent selection in nine months, let's wait until then. Anyway, there are no talents to manage the places that have been laid down now, and you don't want to make many places very chaotic, right?"

Huang Xiaohu said: "That's right, the Shenlong Navy was established this time, and we can buy a lot of advanced weapons with Germany, so we don't have to worry about Japan and the British and French allied forces in the future."

Zhao Yali said: "The British warships seem to be the most powerful in the world, at least at this time."

Huang Xiaohu said: "Then we should also find a way to find the British to buy advanced warships. Anyway, we don't know where the money is spent now. We looted countless gold, silver and jewels from the houses of corrupt officials in the Qing Dynasty. It is most appropriate to buy warships and advanced weapons.”

(End of this chapter)