In fact, neither Huo Shiqi nor his cousin Huo Lun knew anything about the "Liu Lingtai case", but the public case they heard about had another name: the case of the Ministry of Rites and Rites of the Year of the People's Republic of China.

Shang Cheng frowned. He is still very unaccustomed to this folk method of dating the sexagenary branches, and he can't calculate which year it is. He knew that this year was the year of Yihai in the summer calendar, and the year he and Lianniang got married was the year of Renshen.

Huo Lun saw that Shang Cheng was a little confused about the date and time, so he explained: "The year of Renxu is the seventh year of the Eastern Era. He glanced at Huo Shiqi. He didn't quite understand why his cousin would bring the topic to the old things more than ten years ago when he was obviously here to talk to Shang Cheng about the brewing workshop. But seeing that Shang Cheng and Huo Shiqi's expressions were very serious and solemn, he cleverly followed Huo Shiqi's topic and said, "Someone leaked the exam questions in advance of that year's Ministry of Rites exam, and after the results were released, the matter was revealed by the unhappy candidates who failed the list. As soon as the fraud case came out, the government and the opposition were in an uproar, and now Long Yan was furious, and immediately issued an order to lock the four gates of the capital, and the three thousand Yulin army poured out to surround the tribute courtyard, and the officials who participated in the fraud in the whole city were raised. It is said that three or four hundred people were beheaded afterwards......"

He said it with his eyebrows fluttering, but the more Shang Cheng listened, the more he felt that he was acting on righteousness. Not to mention what the concept of dispatching the Yulin Army is, it is absolutely impossible to cut off three or four hundred heads alone! This is not a case of rebellion, how can it be possible to kill so many people at once? Even if he is not a graduate student in the law department, and he has not carefully studied Da Zhao's criminal law, he is still just a major case of dereliction of duty. If the imperial court is sympathetic to the painstaking efforts and hardships of the gentlemen for ten years, and holds another exam, not to mention that no one will talk about the imperial court, maybe everyone will praise the emperor's grace and grace. Thinking that when he went to Beijing to report on his work, he just won two more places for Yan Shanwei to participate in the tribute examination from the Ministry of Rites, Wen Yan hated to engrave a monument in the state school to commemorate, if the Eastern Yuan Emperor really reopened the tribute examination for the fraud case, I am afraid that he will be grateful to the emperor if he is a scholar.

Although to a large extent did not believe the story told by Hollen. He felt that Yanshan was far away from Beijing, and Yixian was a remote and small county, and when the word-of-mouth news reached the ears of the two Huo brothers, it was estimated that at least half a year after the case, the face of the case would have been completely unspeakable, and maybe a small fraud that had not set off much trouble in Beijing back then would become a big case.

Still, he accepted part of the story. There is no wind and no waves, and it seems that there was indeed a problem with the imperial examination that year. But looking back, he thinks it's normal. Exams that are not cheated are not normal. There is probably not a single national unified examination in all dynasties that has not been faulty; Especially when this kind of examination is closely related to a person's future and destiny, it is even more qualified to breed scandals and malpractices; The Ministry of Rites Examination in the seventh year of the Eastern Common Era will not and cannot be an exception.

The truth is that the situation at that time was far less tortuous and bizarre than Horen said, but closer to his guess.

According to what Huo Shiqi knows now, there were indeed some drawbacks in the Ministry of Rites exam that year, but he did not go to the government to report it. The case was not exposed by the lifters, but because some of the people involved in the cheating were not clean enough, so that Yushitai found clues in a routine official audit, and then chased down the vine, and finally found a few examiners and more than a dozen juzi gongsheng. This is undoubtedly a scandal, so the imperial court is not willing to make a noise, and adds a "second-class" performance appraisal to one of the two chief examiners, and removes several examiners from their official positions and deprive them of their fame, and then the matter is over. Just as Shang Cheng guessed, the so-called "Tribute Examination Fraud Case of the Ministry of Rites in the Year of Renxu" was basically not talked about in the capital, and many of the people who fell into the first place had not even heard of this case, let alone any "shock to the government and the opposition".

However, this is not the whole story. Except for some people who were naturally sensitive and have a high sense of political smell, no one expected that this inconspicuous small public case that occurred in the spring of the seventh year of the Eastern Common Era would be the prelude to the "Liu Lingtai Case" that swept the officialdom in the following years. At that time, people were not interested in talking about it, and naturally not many people would pay attention to its subsequent development

Several officials who had lost their posts and dismissed them quickly disappeared from view;

Almost half of the dozen or so people who had been stripped of their fame also returned to their hometowns in disgrace;

A month later, when people had completely forgotten about it, a series of wills and edicts suddenly came out of the inner court, and in just one night, the two uncles of the Dongyuan Emperor, a brother, three princes, four county kings, and an heir, were all deprived of titles on the charge of "arguing": then the third son of the emperor, the king of Handan, was renamed the king of Luzhou, and the decree of the emperor was imminent; In addition, the eight distant branches of the sects in the east and west, Xi'an Mansion, and Zhao County were severely punished, and the three family members were transferred to the sect for discipline......

Shang Cheng didn't expect things to come to this point at all! This is outrageous! The story told by Huo Shiqi is even more incredible than Huo Lun's romance just now! How do you look at it, this is just a small exam cheating case, why did the Dongyuan Emperor provoke it?

He immediately found the answer to his question in his own mind.

The answer lies in Da Zhao's civil service system and knighthood system.

From his personal point of view, he thought that Da Zhao's systems and regulations on the qualifications, assessments, inspections, supervision, and promotions of civil officials were quite perfect, and some of them could even be said to be relatively advanced. For example, except in rare cases, officials of the fifth rank or above must be from the Jinshi or the Jinshi, which to a large extent prevents the occurrence of indiscriminate filling. Even officials who were born as scholars were promoted slowly, and even if there were exceptions, it was usually difficult for them to hold important positions in the three provinces and six ministries, and they generally held a deputy position in a less important yamen such as the Zongfu or Taichang Temple. A scholar who is not a scholar from a jinshi, even if he has vision, courage and outstanding ability, he has done all kinds of affairs very well, and all aspects of the relationship have been handled properly, but if there is no appropriate opportunity, then after more than ten or twenty years of seniority in the yamen, he will be a nine-grade master or a county official; Like the current Yi County Order Qiao Zhun, it is only after all the conditions are met that the county order is still a medium-sized county order. Even with the credit of discovering new farming tools and new farming methods, Qiao Zhun, who only has a meritorious son, is unlikely to have a chance to be promoted in the future, and the best situation is to change to a county to be a parent official after the expiration of the maximum term of six years, and when he reaches the age of retirement, probably the imperial court will take care of his merits and give him a seven-grade official body. As for the Enyin officials who are flooded with yamen in various places, although these people's careers start smoothly, it is difficult to make progress in their careers. In addition, the knighthood of Da Zhao strictly implements the spirit of "three generations of evangelization", and there are countless clan nobles who have left the knighthood since the founding of the country for a hundred years, and the descendants of these people also have personal political ideals and ambitions, as well as their own ideas and pursuits, and they also need to change their lives, and there is no possibility of lying on the merits of their ancestors to eat the old book, naturally, they must come up with some practical actions; And the easiest way to change reality is to take the imperial examination......

In this way, the problem arises: if the children of nobles want to really change the path of life, they must participate in the imperial examination. But the road of the imperial examination is too difficult. As a result, these people whose status is no longer noble, but whose family background is not poor, will of course use more brains on how to pass the imperial examination.

The only way to use your brain is to spend money to buy questions or hire someone to take the test on your behalf......

This is why there is the "Fraud Case of the Tribute Examination of the Ministry of Rites in the Year of Renxu" and other various cases of fraud that have been exposed or have not been exposed.

As soon as he figured out this truth, he immediately realized another problem: At this stage of development, the case is no longer a simple case of fraud in the field. It looks more like an action taken by the Eastern Yuan Emperor to consolidate his imperial power!

No wonder he has always felt that the "Liu Lingtai case" has something to do with the royal family, the reason is here! In the name of the descendants of the clan, the Dongyuan Emperor naturally cut off those hidden dangers that might affect his throne. Moreover, how to deal with the clan is the emperor's family matter, even if the ministers of the three provinces and six ministries are in charge, they cannot casually express their opinions and opinions. Not to mention that this is a remark on the emperor's disposition, even in the face of ordinary people, officials cannot arbitrarily point fingers at other people's family affairs!

However, there is one thing he still doesn't know, since it is the emperor's family matter, people who know a little bit of reason must avoid it, but why did Lu Ji and Ran Tao also get involved? Is there a follow-up to this fraud case?

Indeed, there is a following. In fact, until the time when Emperor Dongyuan punished his brother and son, the "Liu Lingtai case", which still teaches people to talk about the tiger's discoloration, still has not really begun......