At night, more than a dozen black shadows appeared on the wall of the official post of Chongwenfang, these black shadows were a group of officials, after the news of the examination was announced, they were not allowed to go out, there were soldiers standing guard outside the gate, they decided to escape from the post house first, and then find a way to escape from Chang'an City tomorrow morning.

They looked around and saw that there was no one on all sides, so they climbed the wall and jumped down, and before they could make out their directions, the lights suddenly brightened all around, and countless soldiers surrounded them with torches, hundreds of soldiers with crossbows in their hands, and cold crossbow arrows aimed at them.

In addition to scolding fiercely, in fact, they have all become soft eggs, otherwise Guo Song occupied Guanzhong, they should have pulled the flag and rebelled, but not one is faster than the other.

When they saw the murderous crossbows, they raised their hands in fright and shouted, "Don't let go of the arrows!"

The leader of the generals shouted: "Catch them all!" ”

Not long after, Cao Wannian hurried over when he heard the news, and more than 60 officials were escorted out and sat in the lobby with their heads down. An official said to them: "Cao Lingjun of the Suzheng Station needs to talk to you alone, now I will call the name, shout the name, please come out, there is no malice, just talk." ”

The official shouted loudly: "Xinfeng County Cheng Zhou Wei! ”

All eyes looked back, Zhou Wei was stunned for a moment, why was the first one to be himself.

He slowly stood up, "I am!" ”

"Please come out, the soldier will take you to Zuotang, and Cao Lingjun will ask questions."

Zhou Wei had to come out, and the four soldiers led him to the left hall dozens of steps away.

The left hall is brightly lit, Cao Wannian is sitting on the right seat, dozens of big men are standing with forked hands around him, and there is a table a few steps in front of Cao Wannian, and there is a pen, ink, paper and inkstone on the table.

Zhou Wei walked in and saluted, "See Zhou Lingjun!" ”

Cao Wannian waved his hand and said lightly: "Please sit down, I need you to write something." ”

Zhou Wei looked at the pen and paper for a long time and said: "I can't read or write." ”

"I see, then you won't be able to take tomorrow's exam."

Zhou Wei nodded, "It's true that you can't participate!" ”

Cao Wannian said again: "If you are illiterate, I am afraid you can't be a civil official, you should understand this truth." ”

"I am willing to be a military general!"

"I understand your wishes, so be it! You go down to rest first, and when I wait for His Royal Highness King Bingming Jin, I'll see how to arrange it for you." ”

"Thank you Cao Lingjun, can you leave with your humble position?"

"You need to go to the barracks next door, otherwise tomorrow's exam will not be well arranged, it has been arranged over there, there are soldiers to take you there, please!"

Zhou Wei was a little uneasy in his heart, but he didn't dare to ask more, so he had to follow a few soldiers with doubts.

Walking into the darkness, a soldier struck him in the back of the head, and he fainted, was tied up by the soldier, put it in a sack and carried away.

Now is not the time to kill them, and it is not too late to kill them when they have been stripped of their greedy money.

The soldiers in the hall shouted again: "Next, Ma Hongbiao, the county commander of Fengxian County!" ”

.........

Overnight, more than 60 officials were all arrested, and at the same time, at the official post in Jingshanfang, there were also more than 30 officials who raised their hands to express that their literacy was too small to take the exam.

They are different from the group of people just now, that group of people were directly appointed by Zhu Jun, all of them were his personal soldiers or fellow villagers, and these officials were appointed by the imperial court officials, many of them were county government officials, and there were not many people who could not write.

More than 30 officials were also cleared, and the next day's exam, in the end, only about 140 people remained.

The exam was held in the post house, and that night, Cao Wannian found Guo Song with a stack of exam papers.

"How's it going?" Guo Song asked with a smile.

Cao Wannian shook his head, "It's hard to say, the good ones are very good, the bad ones are very bad, but they are more plains, and the lowly positions are divided into upper, middle and lower grades, with two percent each up and down, and the other sixty percent are medium grades, please look at them." ”

Guo Song took the test papers, he picked up a few copies and flipped through them, frowning, the calligraphy of these test papers in front of him was very bad, at most it was barely neat, and there was no calligraphy at all.

"His Royal Highness is relatively poor, but as long as the content is better, you can ignore the calligraphy and classify it as a medium grade, but the calligraphy is poor, and the content is also poor, so it can only be counted as a lower grade."

Guo Song threw aside the middle and lower grade rolls, he flipped through the top grades, took out a roll, read it carefully, raised his eyebrows and asked, "Who is this Yang Tianhua?" ”

"Your Highness, this person is the chief bookkeeper of Purun County."

Guo Song thought about it, and then remembered Purun County, a small county below Fengxiang Mansion, located in the northernmost mountainous area.

He looked at the other volumes again, they were all good, but compared to this Yang Tianhua, he couldn't impress Guo Song.

"Tomorrow morning, bring this Yang Tianhua, I want to see him."

Cao Wannian immediately understood that this Yang Tianhua was in operation.

He proposed to develop the transportation industry, re-dredge the Tianbao Canal, open up the waterway from the Wei River to the Yellow River, build large cargo ships, and build wharves, so that bulk goods can communicate with Guanzhong, Guannei, Hedong, Longyou and other places through the Yellow River waterway.

The second point he put forward is to reproduce the population, the key to the population is that the grain is cheap and sufficient, if the transportation is convenient, the wheat and mutton in the Longyou and Hetao areas can be transported to Guanzhong, so that Guanzhong is more suitable for the population to live and reproduce.

His views can be summed up in six words, 'If you want to get rich, you must first build roads'.

Early the next morning, Guo Song saw the chief bookkeeper of Purun County, Yang Tianhua was about thirty-five or sixteen years old, thin and small, dark-skinned, not amazing, he looked a little nervous, but also a little restrained, he never dreamed that His Royal Highness the King of Jin would meet him alone, he was so excited last night that he almost didn't sleep all night.

"Don't be nervous, let's sit down and talk!"

Guo Song spoke in a kind tone, asked Yang Tianhua to sit down, and he ordered the tea boy to serve tea.

He took the test paper again and said, "I read your strategy, it is very insightful, is this your own idea?" ”

"Exactly!"

"Where is Master Yang from? Can you win the fame? ”

Yang Tianhua hesitated for a moment and said: "The lowly position is a native of Purun County, he worked in the county government at the age of twenty, and he has been doing it all the time. ”

It seemed that Li Shuguang also appreciated this person, Guo Song looked at his test paper and asked: "You strongly advocate the development of road and canal transportation, why is this?" ”

"This is a humble experience, Purun is located in the mountainous area, inconvenient transportation, every year we have a large number of high-quality tribute pears here can not be transported, and finally basically rotten, every year, but in the fruit and vegetable store of Chang'an, a Purun pear will cost ten yuan, but ordinary people can not take out ten yuan to buy salt, this is the evil result of inconvenient transportation, in fact, Guanzhong is the same, the reason why there is a prosperous era of Kaiyuan, is not how wise Emperor Xuanzong is, but thanks to Cao Yun, dredge Cao Yun, a large number of Jianghuai, Jiangnan money and grain transported to Guanzhong, This is the prosperous era of Kaiyuan built with abundant materials. ”

Guo Song nodded, "You are right, you mentioned that the grain and meat from Hehuang and Hetao can be transported to Chang'an, which can feed many people, but have you thought about it, and the towns of various domains can also come to Guanzhong to purchase these materials in large quantities, which is actually to make a wedding dress for people, what does Master Yang think?" ”

Yang Tianhua was silent for a moment and said: "This is actually a problem of minting money, in all dynasties, without the approval of the Son of Heaven, the minting of private money has to be copied all over the house, but the feudal towns are not subject to this restriction, so the world must be unified, otherwise these feudal towns are like leeches, slowly sucking up the blood of Chang'an, but in the short term, trade with Hebei can be prohibited." ”

"How forbidden?"

"There are two ways to prohibit, one is not to collect copper money from the other party, and the other way is to supervise."

"You mean the establishment of the City Supervisor?"

"That's pretty much what it means, the establishment of commercial supervision, but not only on land and water, but also on land, to establish rules, set up a list, clear which materials are supervised materials, never allowed to flow to Hebei, non-regulatory materials, as long as the other party can afford to pay, will be unimpeded."

Guo Song nodded, this is the establishment of the industrial and commercial department and the negative list, a very creative idea.

Yang Tianhua said: "The humble post needs to emphasize that all kinds of supervision are only external, and the internal is just the opposite, to remove all barriers, the humble post ten years ago followed a caravan from Chang'an to Taiyuan, the result has gone through a total of fourteen tax customs and various inspection gates, each pass has to give money, even if you pay taxes, otherwise it is a trivial matter, the heavy is to arrest and beat, the caravan does not dare not give, and finally calculated, the various benefits and extortion are more than ten times the tax money, this business really can't be done, Why has Chang'an's business withered in recent years, the number of checkpoints around the country is the main bane, His Royal Highness will know the number of businessmen, businessmen are getting fewer and fewer year by year, not that they don't want to come, but they can't come. ”