The news that Li You, the king of Qi, was going to compete with the champion Quan Wanji quickly spread throughout Chang'an City. In an atmosphere lacking entertainment, this news with strong gossip was even more fascinating than the news that the Tang Dynasty was at war with a country.

The day after the news broke, Chang'an City officially became lively.

In the underground casinos in various streets, they all secretly began to play the game, from the officials and nobles to the common people, all joined in the bets on this game.

Quan Wanji is a big favorite, everyone is unanimously optimistic about him, and the odds of his and Li You's bets have reached one to ten!

Shu Wangfu.

Li Ke said to Quan Wanji: "Master, I have confidence in you, I decided to bet 20,000 yuan to buy the master to win." ”

Quan Wanji was moved in his heart, but he was a strict person, and said, "It's not appropriate." Your Highness, your heart has been received. However, gambling is forbidden in the imperial court, and you, as a prince, must be a model of law-abiding. ”

Li Ke was in awe, arched his hand and said, "Yes, master, I have been taught." ”

After Quan Wanji left, Li Ke called the account office and said, "Go and get 20,000 yuan, and the master who buys the right wins." ”

Yunguo Mansion.

After Zhang Guigui became rich, his status in the family rose rapidly, and his two elder brothers were angry, but they were helpless. They also wanted to get rich, so they began to get close to Zhang Guigui and wanted to follow the light. But Zhang Guigui is a principled person, and he will not divulge the trade secrets between him and Li You.

After all, Zhang Guigui is a teenager, he has vanity, and without revealing the core secret, he can help his brothers and save face.

At noon that day, Zhang Guigui specially sent someone to call the two elder brothers and said to them; "Big brother, second brother, do you want to get rich?"

The two brothers were very happy and said, "Why, do you have any good ideas?" ”

Zhang Guigui said: "Brother You is going to compete with Quan Wanji tomorrow, you know, right?" Internal information, you buy Brother You to win, one loses ten, and you make a fortune steadily. ”

The two elder brothers stared at Zhang Guigui with suspicious eyes, feeling that this guy was playing a trick on himself.

After the two left Zhang Guigui, after careful analysis, they came to the conclusion: Zhang Guigui and they must have lost money in business, and deliberately made this bureau to cheat money and plug the hole. The two made up their minds and decided to buy Wan Jisheng.

Wei Zheng is the most simple official in Chang'an City, he is a member of the three grades, and he has a lot of money. However, many of his poor relatives needed him to help, and his uncle's illness needed to spend a lot of money every year to treat, and his little money was stretched. He refused to accept gifts, so his house was very old and he had no money to repair it.

At noon that day, a subordinate of the Qi Wangfu quietly came to Wei Zheng's mansion and handed over a letter to Wei Zheng.

After Wei Zheng saw it, he sighed and said, "His Royal Highness King Qi is right, those people in my hometown need to spend money, and my money is reasonable and legal, only this once." ”

He commanded: "Go and take the jar of money under the bed and buy His Royal Highness the King of Qi to win." ”

Guangcui Hall.

Last night, Concubine Yin Niangniang sent someone to call Li You and reprimanded him, thinking that he was too reckless, if he lost, he would become a big joke in Chang'an City in the future, and he couldn't raise his head.

Li You knew that nothing he said would not make Concubine Yin believe that he could win, so he joked that he was a fool and it didn't matter if he lost, so he took his leave and left.

In the evening, Li Shimin came over.

Concubine Yin Niangniang said with slight annoyance: "Your Majesty, You'er is messing around, and you don't stop it, so you can let him mess around?" ”

Li Shimin shook his head helplessly and said, "You'er's unscrupulous temperament, you don't know it...... Alas, forget it, don't talk about it. ”

He took out two pieces of paper from his sleeve and said, "Tomorrow's competition will be a test to compose poetry." I wrote two poems, and you gave them to You'er and let him memorize them. I sent someone to inform Xiao Qian, and the title of the poem tomorrow will come out with this. ”

Li Shimin has done what a father can do.

"Your Majesty." Concubine Yin was moved in her heart and cried. At this moment, she knew that no matter whether Li You won or lost, he already had a considerable status in Li Shimin's heart.

Seeing Concubine Yin's true feelings, Li Shimin was also very pleased. He said: "In a while, I will send someone to send you some money, and you will send someone to buy Quan Wanjiying." If You'er loses, let's lose some reputation and earn some money back, which can be regarded as compensation. ”

Concubine Yin Niangniang chuckled: "Your Majesty, the concubine and you want to go together......"

Qi Wangfu.

At night, the magpie couldn't sleep after tossing and turning, and at the instigation of Li You, she bought Wang Ye Win with the white tiger. Now, she deeply regretted it, and said in her heart: "My money, over the years, I have saved it little by little, how difficult it is." Why did I believe in the king's evil and stake them all? ”

The white tiger couldn't sleep either. His money was forced to buy by the prince, otherwise he would be disloyal to the prince. He is very afraid of the dawn now, at least the money belongs to him for now, once the dawn comes, the prince loses, and the money will never be seen again.

"It hurts, it hurts." The white tiger lamented.

The next day, the sun rose high and the morning was gone.

The much-anticipated mega gamble has officially begun!

Taiji Hall side hall.

This is the main hall where the imperial court holds banquets, and the guests who visit the competition include officials from the capital from the fifth rank or above, the harem concubines such as the eldest grandson queen, the Yin concubine, and the Yang concubine, all the princes, and some relatives of the officials above the third grade.

This is His Majesty's grace, after all, such an exciting scene can be a feast for the eyes.

In the main hall, Li Shimin and Empress Changsun sat in the center of the northernmost part of the main hall.

There are three tables underneath, and three judges are seated. They are Xiao Qian, Kong Yingda and Li Chunfeng.

Xiao Qian and Li Chunfeng have already introduced before, who is this Kong Yingda?

Kong Yingda is the thirty-second grandson of Confucius, a master of scripture, once served as the chief teacher of the Imperial City Nobility School, and all the princes, clans and children of important ministers of the court have received his education. At present, he is compiling the "Five Classics of Justice" under the order of Taizong of the Tang Dynasty.

He is highly respected, and even Li Shimin has to call him Mr. when he sees him.

Lee Woo and Kwon Wan Ji each sat behind a table across from the judge.

At nine o'clock in the morning, the competition officially began.

The host Wei Zheng came out and announced that the content of this competition was that Quan Wanji was responsible for teaching the prince's compulsory subjects, including Ming Jing, Jinshi, Policy Theory and Arithmetic.

As the saying goes, "Thirty old Ming Jing, fifty young Jinshi." "The Ming Jing assesses a subset of scripture and history, and these learnings, as long as they are memorized, are relatively easy to pass. Therefore, if you are thirty years old, you will be admitted to the Ming Scripture, which is considered to be old.

The Jinshi test is to compose poetry, which is difficult. Writing poetry should not only have solid basic skills, pay attention to confrontation and rhyme, etc., but more importantly, pursue artistic conception.

Poets compose poems based on feelings, but Jinshike has to make a temporary proposition, so that you can compose poems according to the specified conditions, which is really difficult.

Poetry was an important part of the daily life of the people of the Tang Dynasty, and poetry was recited during celebrations, poetry, and even weddings and funerals.

The status of poetry in the Tang Dynasty was supreme in the entertainment world, and the status of poets was also respected, such as Li Bai. Bai Juyi and so on. The Tang Dynasty admired poetry, not to mention the scholar class, even the old farmers in the fields would recite limerick poems.

Policy is current politics, and arithmetic is mathematics. These are all compulsory subjects for the prince.

The competition has officially begun.