In the middle of April of the fourth year of Xuanping, the latest moment of the Tang Dynasty will come to an end, and this time there are 320 people in the Jinshi Department and 120 people in the Doctoral Department, a total of 440 people.

From the comparison of the number of these two, it can also be seen that the Tang Dynasty is gradually increasing the number of doctoral admissions, from ten at the beginning, to eighty, and then to one hundred and twenty now.

In time, it is highly likely that the number of students admitted to the doctoral program will reach the level of the Jinshi department.

At the same time, the level of the scholars in this middle examination is far more than the previous two imperial examinations!

This is because during the first two imperial examinations, the Tang Dynasty was not very powerful, and the scholars still had great doubts about whether the Tang Dynasty could survive.

At the same time, it was also because arithmetic, physics, chemistry and other disciplines had just been promoted, and the students were new to it at that time, so the level was naturally not high.

The talents selected from such students are naturally not as high as that.

But today, two years later, the Tang Dynasty has proved its strength by conquering Hengyang, Changsha, Jiujiang, and Wuchang, and although the Tang Dynasty has also done a lot of things that infringe on the interests of the landlords and gentry, such as the system of paying taxes as a whole and apportioning the land into the mu by the landlord class.

However, although the Tang Dynasty worked against the landlords in these matters, on the other hand, it still welcomed and even appeased the group of scholars, and also opened the imperial examination, which made the scholars see hope in the Tang Dynasty.

A hope to continue to maintain the glory and wealth!

Coupled with the Tang Dynasty's successive victories, many people are suspicious, this Ming Dynasty may not be able to stand it, and now joining the Tang Dynasty is the time to do a great cause, so there will be so many former Ming people to apply for the examination and participate in the Tang Imperial Examination.

In addition, after more than two years of continuous promotion, physics, chemistry, arithmetic and other science subjects have become more popular, although the overall level is not high, but at least much better than the previous two years.

In this case, the level of the scholars admitted by Xuanping in the four years is much higher than that of the previous two years.

Among them, there is also a very interesting phenomenon, that is, a considerable number of the scholars admitted to the Jinshi Department or the Doctoral Department are students from the Guozijian School.

A total of more than 200 students from the National Prison participated in the examination, and more than 180 were admitted, which is quite a high percentage!

After all, the questions in the current examination are actually set according to the curriculum of Guozijian, and the difficulty of this subject is actually comparable to Guozijian's graduation exam this year.

As a result, Guozijian has become the cradle of new science and technology scholars, and many scholars who fail the examination want to apply for the examination to enter Guozijian, and then study for a year or two before taking the examination.

After the success of the imperial examination this time, more than 400 potential middle and high-level officials were added to the Tang Dynasty, but Li Xuan was still not satisfied with this!

In the Tang Dynasty, there are more officials needed, and in the Tang Dynasty, not only officials above the county order are officials, even if they are ordinary clerks, they also have the official rank from the ninth grade, and they also belong to officials.

And a large number of officials below the seventh grade, this is the talent gap that the officialdom of the Tang Dynasty urgently needs to solve.

In the first two years, the gap of low-level officials was solved mainly through direct recruitment of talents, promotion of officials, and retention of officials in the former Ming Dynasty.

The former Ming officials stayed in office, not to mention first, but directly recruiting Xiucai and lifting people as officials, this measure is not ideal, because all the scholars who are a little idealistic and want to join the Tang Dynasty at the same time, people are directly going to the meeting, and they are not willing to directly use the merits of Xiucai and lifting people to be officials, thinking that such a road to becoming an official is not the right way at all, and it is difficult to get promoted in the future, and after becoming an official, he will not be able to participate in the examination.

In addition, there is also an effect that if these people go directly to become officials, the starting point is generally very low, and the officialdom status obtained in this way cannot even match their original social status.

You must know that in ancient times, a person with a very high social status and a proper local gentry class, if you let them be a small section member or a small section chief in the prefecture and county, they are not willing to do it.

In the end, in order to dispel their worries, Li Xuan issued a holy decree that the scholars who directly entered the government as Xiucai and Renren still retained the right to participate in the imperial examination, and as long as he wanted, he could participate in the imperial examination at any time.

As for the issue of social status, this is more difficult to do, and it is naturally impossible for these people to be given too high official positions as soon as they enter the university, otherwise, how can you embarrass those who take the entrance examination to be admitted to the Jinshi and Doctorate.

But Li Xuan ordered the world to announce that no matter whether it is a talent or a person, or a jinshi or a doctor, you can hold any official position, as long as you have the ability.

Li Xuan also knows that this is a palliative treatment rather than a cure, and there is only one way to really solve such troubles, that is, to flood the titles of Jinshi and Doctor, and then turn them into titles of academic qualifications, and then open a large-scale national examination and other examinations, everyone starts from scratch, so that there will not be a lot of trouble.

However, the reform of the imperial examination is more troublesome than the education reform, and now the Tang Dynasty is at a critical moment of competing for hegemony with the Ming Dynasty, and Li Xuan is also unwilling to change it casually, which will lead to instability within the Tang Dynasty.

At the same time, there is another premise for the establishment of a degree system and a national examination system, that is, a complete set of modern education systems needs to be established, at least a few universities should be established!

However, now the modern education system of the Tang Dynasty is still in the stage of development, and the juvenile colleges in various places have just begun to operate, and several colleges of higher learning are only in vain, and the young military camp is too special and is not an ordinary school-running institution at all.

This kind of thing can only be done slowly!

After the end of the imperial examination, Zhaoqing returned to calm, not only Zhaoqing returned to calm, in fact, most areas now, even the front line, are calm.

After the Tang Dynasty occupied Wuchang and Jiujiang, Zhang Yue's Huguang Ming army stationed troops on the north bank of the Yangtze River, with Hanyang as the center, reconstructed the defensive line, and at the same time used the powerful naval division to directly break into Yuezhou, blocking the laneway from Dongting Lake to the Yangtze River.

Wang Yiqi's side directly abandoned Fuzhou, stationed a large number of troops on the line from Hukou to Anqing, and at the same time dispatched water divisions to directly block the entrance of Poyang Lake into and out of the Yangtze River, and built a naval camp on the north bank of the Yangtze River and even on Jiangzhou Island, and also built a fort to completely block the passage of Poyang Lake into the Yangtze River.

Now, whether it is Zhang Yue or Wang Yiqi, they are directly blocking the Yangtze River with a large number of sailors and batteries, trying to curb the march of the Tang Army by blocking the Yangtze River!

For this reason, Wang Yiqi even dispatched a large number of ships that originally belonged to the coastal naval division, such as Fu Chuan and Guangzhou Ship, to directly enter the Yangtze River to block the shipping lane.

In view of this situation, on the one hand, the Tang Dynasty Wang Division bypassed the Yangtze River and directly used land as a logistical supply line, and at the same time, it also made every effort to build an inland naval fleet in Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake, and based on the Xiangjiang Fleet, the first detachment of the Yangtze River Fleet and the second detachment of the Yangtze River Fleet were established on the basis of the Ganjiang Fleet.

The day when the two detachments of the Yangtze River Fleet are formed is the day when the Tang Dynasty enters the south of the Yangtze River!

However, when the Ming Navy sent a large number of ships into the Yangtze River to defend, it also gave the First Fleet of the Tang Navy a chance to conquer Nanao Island.

The Datang Navy has long planned to conquer Nanao Island, but there are many Ming naval divisions on Nanao Island, and the strength of the Datang Navy itself is weak, so the previous few times were feints, mainly to contain the Ming army on Nanao Island.

But now, after obtaining a number of warships, the Datang Navy is ready to start a new round of naval warfare, completely seize Nanao Island, and advance the sea front to Fujian and even the mouth of the Yangtze River.

Although Li Xuan maintained a supportive attitude towards the navy's plan, he did not invest too much attention and resources.

Now his mind is not on the navy, but on the construction of internal affairs and the Jiangnan battle plan.

If we want to seize Jiangnan, we must march eastward along the Yangtze River in one go, and for this reason, the strength of the Second and First Armies must be restored and replenished, and it is also necessary to take advantage of the rainy season to reorganize the troops that have not yet completed the reorganization.

At the same time, it is also necessary to vigorously support the construction of the Yangtze River fleet, if it is impossible to seize control of the Yangtze River, then it will become very troublesome to march into the south of the Yangtze River.

The military's supplementary reorganization plan, naturally, will have a large number of generals in charge, all Li Xuan has to do is to give military funds and equipment, and he basically doesn't have to worry about the rest.

On the contrary, in terms of internal affairs construction, there are many things that he needs to worry about!

In late April, the envoys of the Francophiles, who had been cold for many months, finally gave in and rewrote a letter of state asking for an audience, this time they did not insist on using the title of emperor, but honestly used the title of king.

After receiving the news, a group of Franco-machine people who had been waiting in Guangzhou for a long time finally got on their ships with excitement, and at the same time began to arrive in Zhaoqing along the Xijiang River under the escort of the Tang Navy.

And when they first arrived at the wharf outside Zhaoqing, these blonde and blue-eyed men, as if they had found something terrified, stared at a strange boat on the river with billowing smoke, no sails on its body, no oars, and only two big wheels on both sides!

Seeing this scene, Guedes in the Franc Envoy let out an incredulous voice: "Oh my God, what is this, monster?" ”