Madam, protect me!

Song Zhe frowned and asked, "What do you mean?"

"Nothing..."

Li Nuo whispered, and continued to focus on Gu Wenhan's evaluation form.

This look really made him see a problem.

The Ministry of Personnel has many evaluation items for officials, such as the number of cases in the jurisdiction in a year, the number of thieves, grain production, number of marriages, population growth, number of taxes, and so on...

In Gu Wenhan's evaluation, in the first six years, the comprehensive evaluation was mostly below A, and there was also a "B" evaluation in the subdivided items.

This is more reasonable. An official has limited energy and different areas of expertise, so it is impossible to be comprehensive.

But in the three years since he was transferred to Qinghe County, all the evaluations were in the A grade, at least an "A", and there was no "A" below.

There is no reason why he couldn't do the best in assisting the chief officer when he was a county lieutenant and county magistrate, but after becoming a county magistrate, he could do every item to the top.

Either he is really a talent who can see the overall situation, or he falsified the data.

Li Nuo was not an official of the Ministry of Personnel, so he did not know what it meant to have all the grades above A in the assessment. So he pointed to that part and asked Song Zhe, "Father-in-law, is there really no problem here?"

Song Zhe glanced at the assessment form of Gu Wenhan during his three years as the magistrate of Qinghe County, and his eyes fluctuated slightly.

After he passed the imperial examination, he had been working in the Ministry of Personnel for nearly 20 years. He had a sharp eye and could see at a glance that Gu Wenhan's performance assessment in the past three years probably paid a lot of "travel expenses" to the officials sent by the Ministry of Examination.

These so-called performances were just made for others to see.

He did not hide it and said lightly, "There is a problem. The officials of the Ministry of Examination must have accepted bribes in the assessment of the past three years."

The Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of Examination are different departments of the Ministry of Personnel, and the performance assessment data is provided by the Ministry of Examination.

The Ministry of Personnel is only responsible for the promotion, appointment and removal of the corresponding officials based on these data.

As Li Nuo expected, the assessment of the Ministry of Personnel could not be guaranteed to be true.

Li Nuo couldn't see anything about Gu Wenhan's files. He thought about it and suddenly said, "Can you let me see the files of several counties around Qinghe County?"

Song Zhe didn't say anything, turned around and walked out of the duty room, and waved to the official again.

In less than a quarter of an hour, three more files appeared on the table in front of Li Nuo.

The case of Gu Wenhan was very far-reaching. The officialdom of Xuanzhou was changed, and the county magistrates of the three neighboring counties of Qinghe County were all dead.

These three files were sealed in the case library. If it weren't for his father-in-law, Li Nuo would never have been able to access them.

He quickly flipped through the three files, and after verifying a certain guess in his mind, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Song Jiaren had been standing beside him, and asked in confusion: "What did you see?"

Li Nuo opened the three files one by one and said: "Madam, look, here, here, and here, what's the difference?"

Song Zhe came over, took a look, and then looked thoughtful.

Song Jiaren looked for a long time, but couldn't figure it out, and shook her head blankly.

Li Nuo pointed to the lines of data and explained: "Before Gu Wenhan became the magistrate of Qinghe County, the three counties around Qinghe County, whether it was the number of marriages between men and women or the number of newborns, were steadily increasing. But after Gu Wenhan became the magistrate of Qinghe County, Qinghe County's political performance was excellent. The number of marriages between men and women in the three surrounding counties has fallen for three consecutive years, and the number of newborns has also begun to decrease slightly. Only the number of missing cases has increased year by year, and the public security assessment has been down year by year..."

Gu Wenhan was able to bribe officials from the Ministry of Personnel to make the data of Qinghe County so beautiful, but the officials of the other three counties did not have his financial resources and connections.

If he was secretly trafficking in a large number of decent women, the counties around Qinghe County might not be spared.

He was very smart. He bribed the officials of the Ministry of Personnel to create a persona of a clean and capable official for himself, but he was not smart enough to falsify the assessment data of the other three counties, leaving such a flaw.

Song Zhe seemed to have realized something and asked, "Do you want to prove that Gu Wenhan is a corrupt official and Li Xuanjing killed the person who deserved to be killed?"

Li Nuo did not speak, but nodded.

Song Zhe suddenly said, "Have you ever thought that all this might have been designed by Li Xuanjing three years ago? Those women were kidnapped by him in order to clean up Xuanzhou three years later and pave the way for Prince Chun. As the Minister of the Dali Temple, it would be easy for him to frame someone..."

Li Nuo was slightly stunned.

He really had not thought of this possibility.

He felt that no matter how bad a person is, there is a bottom line, at least he can't...

At this time, Song Zhe said lightly: "However, a small Xuanzhou is not worth his fuss. He doesn't need a reason to kill anyone. Gu Wenhan is indeed the one who deserves to be killed..."

Li Nuo looked at his father-in-law speechlessly. He was playing tricks on me, right? If he wasn't my wife's father, I really wanted to give him a couple of hits...

After recovering, Li Nuo leaned back in his chair and breathed a sigh of relief.

No matter how outsiders criticized him, at least he did nothing wrong in this matter.

Song Jiaren stood beside Li Nuo, her eyes slightly absent-minded.

Almost every time when she thought he was very smart, he could always prove that he could be smarter.

If he hadn't reminded her, she wouldn't have seen it even if the evidence was placed in front of her.

What the gentleman said was right, she was really stupid...

Song Zhe's eyes were also on Li Nuo.

At this moment, he seemed to see the shadow of that man when he was young from Li Nuo.

After personally investigating the Gu Wenhan case, Li Nuo finally felt relieved.

But since he had come to the Ministry of Personnel, it would be a waste of opportunity to go back like this.

He looked at Song Zhe again and asked, "Father-in-law, can you let me see the files of the Jinshi in the 14th year of the Holy Emperor?"

This time, Song Zhe did not agree to him. He waved his hand and said, "Don't think about the files of the Jinshi in the 14th year of the Holy Emperor. That batch of files has been destroyed by the court. There is no place left..."

In the 14th year of the Holy Emperor, the case of more than ten new Jinshi conspiring for rebellion was the case that Li Nuo really wanted to know in detail.

Unexpectedly, the court was so secretive about this case that it even destroyed all the files.

Li Nuo could only make the next best choice and said, "The files are gone, but the list of Jinshi of that year must be preserved, right?"

Song Zhe did not speak, but walked to a bookshelf on one wall, pulled out a book and handed it to Li Nuo.

Among the various departments of the court, the Ministry of Personnel was the most involved in the imperial examination. The list of Jinshi of each imperial examination was not only preserved by the Ministry of Personnel, but also specially compiled, and updated every four years with the imperial examination.

Li Nuo took the book and opened a page at random, which was full of names.

He quickly found the fourteenth year of Zhisheng according to the year number.

There were 460,000 candidates in the imperial examination that year, and the court recruited a total of 42 Jinshi.

This is truly one in a million, or one in a million among scholars. Even the last Jinshi is the absolute protagonist in his own story.

Li Nuo locked a name on this page at a glance.

Because this name is ranked first.

In the fourteenth year of Zhisheng, the top scholar in the imperial examination was Li Xuanjing.

In other words, his father was the top scholar in the imperial examination in the 14th year of the Holy Emperor?

Li Nuo only knew that he was a Jinshi in that year, but he didn't expect that he would have such a brilliant result. The first place among 460,000 scholars is not comparable to the civil service examinations in later generations...

However, what shocked Li Nuo was still to come.

The imperial examination in Daxia was based on Confucianism. It tested six subjects: ritual, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy, and mathematics. The one with the highest score in the six subjects was the top scholar of that session. In addition to the top scholar in the imperial examination, there were also top scholars in individual subjects.

The so-called top scholar in individual subjects is the one with the highest score in each of the six subjects, such as the top scholar in ritual, the top scholar in music, the top scholar in archery, the top scholar in mathematics, and so on.

Although these top scholars in individual subjects are only an invisible honor, they have practical benefits.

For example, if someone's scores in the six subjects added together are not enough to be a Jinshi, but if they have the highest scores in individual subjects, they can still be admitted as an exception and appointed to a position based on their specialties.

This is to take care of those who are good at one subject. There are such people occasionally in the previous imperial examinations.

The champion of each imperial examination is the one with the strongest comprehensive ability. He may not be the first in a single subject, and he may not even be the first in every subject.

But in the fourteenth year of Zhisheng...

Li Nuo looked at the neat lines of words on the paper.

Li Xuanjing, the champion of the imperial examination.

Li Xuanjing, the champion of the ritual subject.

Li Xuanjing, the champion of the music subject.

Li Xuanjing, the champion of the archery subject.

Li Xuanjing, the champion of the imperial examination.

Li Xuanjing, the champion of the book subject.

Li Xuanjing, the champion of the mathematics subject.

He is not only the champion of the imperial examination, but also the champion of six subjects. One person's name occupies seven lines, neatly arranged on the paper, giving people a strong visual impact.

Li Nuo widened his eyes.

What is this equivalent to? It is equivalent to the national unified college entrance examination. One person took all the exams in liberal arts and science, and ranked first in the country in every subject...

Is this something a human would do?