Pan Erleng shook his eyes and muttered: "Friendship is a human favor handed over." Master Ji, Master Ao, Master Jiang, and Master Wang look up to us because they have been friends with us for so long. If we hadn't interacted, only one or two letters, they wouldn't have taken us seriously! ”

"Hmm." Han Xiufeng nodded, and pointed to the list of jinshi: "Actually, there are two reasons, one is that we are all in the capital, all of us are so far away from home, no matter how we say that we are all fellow villagers, we can help each other, and we have a sense of nostalgia in it." Then if you don't come to the capital, you don't know the officials, they are high-ranking people and even jinshi masters in their hometown, but they are nothing in the capital.

Especially those flag people in the inner city, any one of them may be three or four grades, and those who carry water and miscellaneous things may be 'yellow belts' or 'red belts'. All in all, when we arrived in the capital, our identity was not as far as their hometown, and it was not a shame to intersect with them, and it was not a shame for them to intersect with us. ”

"Fourth brother, what you said is on the point, if you don't talk about officials like them in your hometown, even those talented people have eyes on their heads, and they usually don't look at us with a straight eye!"

"So it's okay not to write this letter."

Pan Er subconsciously asked: "But the Xiangxian Temple can't be without the Xiangxian, you don't write, and Master Ji doesn't write, so who will write?" ”

Han Xiufeng groaned: "The letter still has to be written, but it is not written for the descendants of those sages, but for Master Gu, please help me contact him." Besides, this charter is also drafted, except for Master Ao's cousin Ao Youxian, which sage enters the ancestral hall and which sage does not, please ask Master Gu to help with ideas. ”

"This is a solution, but in this way, will Master Ji be unhappy, after all, you have already said it."

"Master Ji has a teacher, a classmate of the same year, and now he is the editor of the Hanlin Academy, so he doesn't care about this favor at all. It was pure kindness for me to write, he knew that I was a cold person, and he knew that my Han family wanted to really turn over and could not do without the gentry in my hometown, and he wanted to take this opportunity to let those gentry in my hometown recognize me and accept me. ”

"Fourth brother, what do you mean by this, as long as you become a Shangguan, won't the next three generations of your Han family become a warm family?"

"It's not as simple as you think?"

Pan Er was confused, and asked with a puzzled face: "Why am I thinking about it again, you seem to have said so before!" ”

Han Xiufeng sighed lightly and explained with a bitter face: "That's what I said before, and I thought about it simply before. I thought that as long as I, Han Zhixing, became an official, the descendants of the next three generations of my Han family would be able to enter the imperial examination as long as they studied hard. In fact, it's not that easy, even if I have been an official, if those students don't give me the children of the Han family as a guarantee, my children of the Han family will not be able to gain fame no matter how good they are. ”

Pan Er only knew about Xiucai before, and he didn't know that Xiucai was also divided into three, six, nine and so on.

Scholars who pass the county examination, and after the government examination, they must pass the college examination before they can be called Xiucai. The first-class students in the show are not only able to receive a monthly allowance from the county school or government school, but also only they can provide insurance for the children who take the examination to prevent disadvantages such as unclear wealth or impersonation.

Thinking of this, Pan Er asked puzzledly: "Fourth brother, as long as you have been an official, why don't they give you the children of the Han family a guarantee, it's a big deal to give them some silver!" ”

"It's not easy to get a noble son from a poor family, but it's even more difficult for a family to turn over." Han Xiufeng pointed to the list of jinshi in front of him again, and said helplessly: "Originally, I didn't know, until some time ago, I didn't know that the number of places in the imperial examination was limited. At the beginning of the founding of the Qing Dynasty, the number of people in Sichuan was limited to 60, and it was only after repeated efforts by successive governors that it was increased to the current 70. And there is a quota for the students, about 20 times the quota for lifting people, and the quota for the whole Sichuan is 1,966, which seems to be a lot at first glance, but there are not many of them in various prefectures. ”

Pan Er wanted to glorify his ancestors, and he wanted his two children to study, so he asked eagerly: "How much is our Chongqing Mansion?" ”

Han Xiufeng took out a list of the quota of students in various provinces in Sichuan copied from the provincial hall, and read: "There are 265 members in Chengdu Prefecture, 154 members in Xuzhou Prefecture, 147 members in Tongchuan Prefecture, 137 members in Shunqing Prefecture, 126 members in Baoning Prefecture, and our Chongqing Mansion is second only to Chengdu Prefecture, with a quota of 198 students. Maozhou, Shizhu Hall and Songpan Hall have the lowest quotas, with 17, 6 and 4 members respectively. ”

"There are only 198 student places in the whole Chongqing Prefecture, so a state and county can only be admitted to about a dozen in a year?"

"It's not that you can only get a dozen exams a year, but you can only get a dozen exams every three years!"

Pan Erdaigo understood as if he had been empowered, clenched his fists and said hatefully: "I know why they don't help the children of ordinary families to be insured, because there are only a dozen places for Xiucai, and if there are more people who go to the exam, their own children may not be able to be admitted." And the imperial court stipulated that if you want to take the exam, you have to ask them for insurance, so they stuck the threshold, and they didn't let others in, and the fertilizer and water didn't flow into the fields of outsiders. ”

"Some people are still willing to give insurance to the children of ordinary people, but only one or two people are not enough. Moreover, if they really gave insurance to the children of the poor families, or collected money to give furniture protection, they would offend other local gentry. When it comes to their children to take the exam, there is no one to help their children with insurance. ”

"Fourth brother, I understand, what is rich but three generations of poor but three generations, and what is a noble son from a poor family, it turns out that it is all a lie! Don't say anything else, let's just say that Master Ao's family, how many generations have been passed down, and how many talents, lifters, and jinshi have been produced? The number of students is all occupied by these famous families, and the children of ordinary families don't even have the opportunity to take the exam. ”

"It's actually true that you can't be rich for three generations, but it's taken out of context."

Pan Er asked in a low voice, "What's the matter?" ”

Han Xiufeng got up and said: "Mencius said: Moral heirloom, more than ten generations. Cultivation and reading heirlooms are second, poetry and books are heirlooms, and wealth heirlooms are only three generations. The Confucian family in Qufu, Shandong Province is the descendant of the Confucian saints, and the family is a moral heirloom, so it has been passed down from generation to generation, day after day. The Rongchang Ao family is a farming and reading heirloom, so it has also been passed down from generation to generation. Rich but three generations refers to people like your Pan family, your family is a little rich now, and your father will be gone in the future, will your three brothers still be so rich? ”

"No, I don't want to be rich and heirloom, I also want to cultivate and read heirlooms!"

"Who doesn't want to," Han Xiufeng said with a smile while motioning for him to grind ink: "I am from Ba County, and my Han family will be from Ba County in the future, so there is no need to ask the gentry of other states and counties." It's better to give the favor of the Xiangxian Temple to Master Gu, and my Han family only needs to be good friends with the Gu family. ”