After the palace examination, the test paper is temporarily sealed in the forbidden palace, and on the day of the marking, the eight paper readers appointed by the emperor take turns to read the papers, and the test papers are preliminarily evaluated, and then the top ten are selected by the emperor.

The township examination is divided into batches, that is, the test papers are divided into many batches, and the examination papers are reviewed separately by each reading officer, and the test paper of the palace examination is reviewed by eight reading officers in turn, that is to say, each reading officer has to review more than 300 copies of the palace examination paper, and mark the circle, horizontal, vertical, apostrophe, and fork on the test paper to divide the advantages and disadvantages, the circle represents the best, the fork represents the worst, and finally ranks by the number of circles.

If you evaluate it in this way, it is not without drawbacks, because there are only five symbols for evaluation, not scoring, and everyone will almost think that good articles are good, and bad articles, everyone will almost think they are bad, so it is very likely that the eight symbols will be the same.

This situation will occur in every palace exam, and this time, Yang Cong and a person named Wu Shan are evaluated the same, both six laps, two horizontal, tied for third place.

Naturally, there can be no tie in the ranking of Jinshi, and the third place is a first-class Tanhua, which is directly awarded to the Hanlin Academy, and the fourth place is the second-class, if you want to enter the Hanlin Academy or the official award, you have to go through the court examination.

Now Xia Yan finally seized the opportunity, although he couldn't affect the evaluation of the palace examination papers, but he could still influence the preliminary ranking of the palace examination, because he was the leader of the eight paper readers, and several of these eight people had a good relationship with him, he casually found a reason, and Yang Cong was beaten into the second class.

Of course, the ranking they assessed cannot be regarded as the final ranking, and the final ranking has to be determined by Jiajing Yuguan.

The day before the release of the list, Jiajing came to the side hall where the papers were read, and after everyone saluted, they presented the ten test papers selected to Jiajing.

This is the last step of the imperial examination, which is commonly known as the "point champion", which means that the champion is appointed by the emperor, and the ranking of the imperial examination is also determined by the emperor.

In fact, this is not the case at all, how can the emperor have time to read the more than 300 test papers, even if he is free, he must have that ability, there are few emperors in the past dynasties who have a high level of literature, to put it mildly, most of their literary level is not as good as Xiucai, and even some words do not know a few, let them evaluate the palace examination articles and determine the ranking of Jinshi, which is quite unreliable.

Therefore, the test papers of the palace examination must first be evaluated by the eight paper readers, and the approximate ranking will be determined before they are handed over to the emperor, and the emperor will read the articles of the first few places, and he will basically not read the ones in the back.

It is unreliable to let the emperor evaluate all the palace examination articles and determine the final ranking of Jinshi, but this champion is indeed pointed out by the emperor, and there is no doubt that whoever the emperor wants to be the champion will be the champion.

So, what is the criterion for judging the champion when the emperor is the emperor?

To tell the truth, there is no standard for being the emperor's champion, sometimes they will look at the article and determine the candidate for the champion based on their preferences for the article, and sometimes they will be willful, not reading the article at all, and will point the champion based on the name, place of origin, age and other messy things.

This is no joke, the emperors of all dynasties have basically done this.

The emperors of the Ming Dynasty also did this, and Ming Chengzu is a typical example, he likes to point the champion by name.

For example, in the thirteenth year of Yongle, the champion assessed by the paper reader was Lin Wenjiao.

Ming Chengzu felt that this name was also dirty, and the name of the second place Chen Xun was more imposing, so he ordered Chen Xun to be the champion, and the unlucky Lin Wenjiao was directly kicked by him to the second place in the second class, and he didn't even have a share in the first place in the second class.

For another example, in the 22nd year of Yongle, the champion of the Jiachen Branch Palace Examination was Sun Yuegong.

This ancient's writing was written vertically, and Sun Yuegong was easily misread as Sun Tyrant.

Ming Chengzu's throne was taken from his nephew, the battle of Jingyan was quite tragic, many ministers were not satisfied at that time, he had to kill, and the brutal things were not less, so he was quite allergic to the word "violence", and he was worried that the world would say that he was brutal, and he didn't want to see the word "violence".

And this Sun Yuegong is the champion, and people who have a heart will definitely see it as the word "violence", and it is estimated that it will be rumors again, so Sun Yuegong will definitely not be able to be the champion, but when he sees the third place, he is very happy, because the third name is Xing Kuan, isn't this name the meaning of "criminal and political leniency", very good, the champion is him!

Many times, being the emperor's point champion is so ridiculous.

Jiajing is not as ridiculous as Ming Chengzu, but he frowned when he looked at the top three test papers, because these three mentioned the old method.

Either build the Great Wall and block the route of the Tatars into the Kou;

Either increase the number of border armies and reorganize the armament for war;

Either organize a large army to attack the grassland and completely defeat the Northern Yuan tribes;

If these methods are to be useful, I will come to ask you?

He directly threw the top three test papers to the side and continued to look down, and this fourth one happened to be Yang Cong's test paper.

As soon as Jiajing saw Yang Cong's name, there was no reason in his heart to be happy, this Ling'er's little lover is really talented, he can rank in the top four with his own ability alone, and then look at Yang Cong's writing method, his eyes are even brighter.

This kid is really a genius, he actually knows how to use his strengths and avoid weaknesses, train the chariot soldiers to deal with the cavalry, and the deployment of troops, the response methods are described in detail, and the most important thing is that Yang Cong's strategy can deal with more than 100,000 Mengyuan iron cavalry as long as he trains 50,000 chariot soldiers, which looks cool compared with those suggestions that are more than 100,000 or 200,000 troops at every turn.

This method is not bad, Jiajing hastily read the remaining chapters of the test papers, and then pretended to ask for the opinions of the paper readers: "This subject is the champion Yang Cong, right?" ”

Yang Cong!

Xia Yan couldn't help but twitch in his heart when he heard Jiajing's words.

If Yang Cong is the champion, then it will be done!

He stubbornly arched his hand and said: "Your Majesty, please forgive Weichen for being rude, although this Yang Cong's literary style is good, but the proposed method is too unrealistic, how can muskets and artillery be so easy to make, even if muskets and artillery are made, tens of thousands of strong war horses are not so easy to get together, in his tactics, these war horses not only have to pull the cart, but also have to wear dozens of catties of heavy armor, ordinary war horses are not good at all." ”

When Jiajing heard this, his brows couldn't help frowning.

You know what a fart, this Yang Cong is Ling'er's future husband, I just want to give Ling'er the name of this champion as a congratulatory gift, what do you want?

He said coldly: "Gongjin, what do you think is unrealistic, is the method proposed by others good?" The method they proposed has not been tried by Daming in the past hundred years, is it useful? ”

When Xia Yan heard this, he couldn't help but shudder.

With this tone, the emperor is already very unhappy, and if he doesn't stop, the emperor will probably clean him up.

He hurriedly arched his hand and said, "The emperor is wise." ”