It wasn't until Shen Xi finished talking about "business" that Yu Niang was late, but unfortunately Yu Niang came alone, and Shen Xi didn't see the people of Jinyiwei and the Five Cities Soldiers and Horses, nor did he see Jiang Liwei.

"Didn't anyone come?" Yu Niang was slightly relieved to see that Shen Xi and Zhou Fatzi were safe and sound, but she was not sure if the other party had sent someone to come.

Shen Xi thought that he had completed the contact under Liu Daxia's eyes, but when he heard Yu Niang's words that were not hypocritical, he knew that it was just wishful thinking on his part, or the court didn't care about the life or death of such a small character as him, and didn't care about the plan he made.

"People have already come, and after talking about things, they will go back and make an appointment to pay the deposit in two days." Shen Xi gave a general introduction to the situation.

Yu Niang was quite surprised: "So smooth? ”

For Yu Niang, things went almost incredible, and when she first learned of Shen Xi's plan, she always felt that there were many loopholes, such as what if the thief didn't come to contact, or what if he made a secret move...... She thought too much, but lost a normal heart.

Zhou Fatzi replied with a smile: "I don't know that the jade master doesn't do things at all, and after discussing with the other party, the price was finally finalized." I have to admit that if the seventh prince doesn't do academics, he is definitely a good hand in business, and maybe it is not impossible to achieve the same level as Shen Wansan. ”

These words are not only complimentary, but also show the fact that Shen Xi not only has the information advantage of being hundreds of years ahead in learning, but also has a flexible enough mind in business to know how to use the rules to make money. But at present, all the rules revolve around the imperial court, as long as the government says a word, no matter how big a businessman is, he is not even a fart, just like he is a fat man, his family is big, and he still has to be a man with his tail between his legs.

Yu Niang was very comforted when she heard this, and nodded and said: "It's not too early, Zhou Dangjia, please go back, and send the seventh son back to the house first." ”

Zhou Fatzi didn't give Shen Xi the gift list just now. I was about to talk to Shen Xi more, but now that I was leaving, I was a little reluctant.

But Shen Xi is going to take the palace exam tomorrow, and he doesn't have time to talk nonsense with Zhou Fatzi. Go downstairs with Yu Niang and take a carriage.

On the carriage, Yu Niang's face was worried: "I'm really afraid that Shen Gongzi has something long and two short, and the slave family is really hard to apologize." ”

Shen Xi didn't know how much freedom Yu Niang's words were, and smiled and said, "Yu Niang is too polite." ”

But I was thinking about it. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have been involved in this treasury theft case, but since I am doing things for the imperial court, there will definitely be a reward after the deed, even if it can't be completed, at least I can get Liu Daxia's appreciation, which may be helpful for my career in the future.

……

……

In the twelfth year of Hongzhi, March 15.

Before dawn, Shen Xi hurriedly got up to clean up, this day was the day when the tributes entered the palace to participate in the palace examination. It was also the first time he had the opportunity to set foot in the Golden Luang Palace.

Shen Xi went to the Forbidden City not once or twice, but the scale of the imperial palace of the Ming Dynasty was far less than that of the Forbidden City in later generations, but the central axis architecture was in the same vein.

At dawn that day, the 300 newly promoted tributes who participated in the temple examination were already standing outside the Chengtian Gate.

Chengtian is **, and this place is not unfamiliar to Shen Xi.

A total of 14 examineers stood on the left, and 300 tributes stood in three columns on the right.

As the leader of the examination of the Ministry of Rites, Shen Xi is at the top left of the three columns, and next to him are Lun Wenxu and Sun Xu, who happen to be the top three people in the examination of the Ministry of Rites.

It is different from the children's examination, the township examination and the general examination. Candidates are not required to bring their own food and pen, ink, paper and inkstone for the palace examination, and will be prepared by the court.

The venue for this examination was the Mukden Temple.

Fengtian Temple was built in the eighteenth year of Yongle, and was announced to be put into use on the first day of the first month of the following year, and was thundered on the eighth day of the fourth month. "Fengtian, Huagai, and Jinshen three halls disaster", the three major halls were all destroyed by fire. Orthodoxy rebuilt the three major halls in five years, and in September of the following year, "the three halls of Fengtian, Huagai, and Jinshen, and the two palaces of Qianqing and Kunning were completed."

In April of the 36th year of Jiajing, the three major halls were burned down by lightning fire again. And spread more widely, Wenlou, Wulou, Fengtianmen, Zuoshun Gate, Right Shun Gate and the left and right corridors outside the noon gate were also burned down, until Jiajing 41 September was rebuilt, renamed the Huangji Palace, and then repeatedly suffered fires, after the end of the Ming Dynasty was burned down in the early years of the Qing Dynasty to rebuild, Emperor Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty ordered to change the Huangji Hall to the Taihe Palace.

The palace gate was opened before dawn, and the herald came out to deliver a message, and the hall examination examiner entered the palace first, followed by three hundred tributes who participated in the palace examination.

All the tributes are divided into three columns to enter the palace, when passing through the palace gate, they need to go through a body search, no need to wear wide clothes, but they need to hand over their palace test identity credentials, and the people who search and inspect them in detail, and then search their bodies, and then they can enter the palace gate. You need to wait to enter the palace gate first, and after all the candidates have entered the door, the herald will lead the way and go to the direction of Fengtian Temple.

Fengtian Hall is also known as Jinluan Hall in the folk, and it is the main hall of the imperial palace, but Fengtian Hall is not a place where the emperor meets courtiers in the Hongzhi Dynasty, but only as a place where various ceremonies are held in the imperial palace.

The main hall bears the weight on the top of the eaves hall, sits down three layers of white marble steps, below is a wide stone brick courtyard, from south to north to look at the grandeur of the Jinluan Palace.

Shen Xi walked in the front, and as soon as he looked up and glanced left and right, Lun Wenxu next to him reminded in a low voice: "When you enter the palace, you should walk with your head bowed." ”

In this era, it is a very high honor to enter the court and praise and worship the unknown, except for a few ministers, even if the six Shangshu enter the palace, you must walk briskly with your head down, because you can't let the emperor wait for you.

All the tributes are entering the palace for the first time, but they know the basic etiquette very clearly, if the time is delayed, it may not be as simple as being reprimanded, and it is even possible to kill the head.

Outside the Fengtian Temple, three rows of desks were placed on each side of the empty square.

Behind the desk, there is a futon wrapped in cloth, and the test is answered in the hall for a while, and the candidates need to kneel on the futon to answer the questions, and this answer is a whole day.

There is a pen, ink, paper and inkstone on the desk, the paper is scratch paper, held with a paperweight, and there is a pen wash with water, and the water is used to grind ink. There are no meals for the day-long palace exams, and after getting up in the morning to eat, even if you are hungry at noon, you have to endure until the end of the afternoon exams before you can leave the palace.

The tributes stood still and waited patiently, and later the fourteen palace examination examiners would come out to meet the candidates, and then Emperor Hongzhi would also appear.

Or because Zhu Youzhu was not in good health, he got up a little late, and the emperor didn't come. The exam can't start, but the basic process continues.

First of all, the roll call was made, and all the tributes were based on the results of the examination of the Ministry of Rites, from front to back. Click on them in turn, and at the same time, the candidates will be tested twice based on the place of origin and physical characteristics recorded by the Ministry of Rites to prevent the occurrence of substitute examinations.

This is followed by the paper that is issued to answer the questions in the exam, that is, the answer sheet, which is called the "loose paper". All answer sheets have a fixed format, and candidates must answer in columns and columns, not beyond the border, otherwise the results will be cancelled and blank spaces will be used for obfuscation.

Candidates are required to write their names, places of origin and curriculum vitae of the three generations on the answer sheet to prevent the examiner from marking the answer sheet in advance.

At the end of the papers, the candidates have to stand at their desks and wait for the arrival of the 14 markers.

At the end of the day, the sun rose over the eastern horizon, and the fourteen palace examination examiners came out under the leadership of the young master and the crown prince, the head of the household, and Liu Jian, the scholar of the Jinshen Temple. They are lined up on both sides of the main hall.

Then, the eunuch moved out the dragon chair covered with yellow satin and placed it in the center, where Emperor Hongzhi would sit after he came out.

Although Emperor Hongzhi was the examiner and invigilator of the palace exam, he only appeared at the beginning of the exam, and he would not stay here and wait for a whole day, and even the fourteen marking officers had to perform their duties and go back to work, and would not stay outside the Fengtian Hall for too long.

The real invigilator is still the official of the Ministry of Rites, but in this kind of place in the Imperial Palace. Even if the candidate wants to cheat, he doesn't have the courage to do so, and it's not necessary.

Since you're going to the point of cheating, you must not be able to hit the top three, since that's the case. It's just the difference between the Jinshi background and the same Jinshi background, if you cheat and get caught, then you will be directly deprived of your fame, assigned to the army, or even killed. If you don't cheat, even if you make up your articles, you will end up being a Jinshi.

The palace exam is basically the one that you don't have to worry about cheating. Every candidate is cautious, for fear of doing something wrong, in this case, just play normally, as for those crooked things, they don't even dare to think about it.

A group of tributes first visited the hall to try to read the papers, and at the moment of the hour, the Hongzhi Emperor Zhu Youzhu walked out in a thousand calls, and everyone knelt on the ground.

Although they all know that the top of their heads is today, everyone wants to pay homage to Long Yan, but no one dares to raise their heads, because looking at the emperor is also a great sin, if you really want to investigate, it is possible to kill the head.

Shen Xi was in front of the people, and although he was very close to the emperor, he also knew the danger of looking up. In fact, he didn't care much about what Emperor Hongzhi looked like, as long as he got the top three in the first class and entered the Hanlin Academy, he would have a chance to see it in the future. And the edict will be read out soon, and the exam questions for this palace examination will be released.

It was Liu Jian who read out the decree, as the young master and the first assistant of the cabinet, even the emperor had to be honored as a gentleman, and it was most appropriate for him to pass the message on behalf of the Son of Heaven.

And this edict is the one that Zhu Youzhu showed to the hall examination examiners yesterday, although the edict is a kind of expectation and entrustment of the Son of Heaven to the candidates, it also contains several questions about the palace examination.

The temple examination does not test the four books and five classics, but only a policy question, and the questions are very long, among which there are several small questions, which must be answered in turn.

"I have only been governing the Holy Emperor Ming since ancient times, and the law is not limited to one end, and Confucius answered Yan Yuan's question, for the state but to travel in the summer, take the chariot of Yin, serve the crown of Zhou, and dance with music, for the speaker, it is said that the four generations of rites are happy, and the law of the emperor is ......"

This is the main part of the system, and it is also the central idea of the policy, that is, to investigate the "ritual music", and the direction of the investigation is the importance of the ritual music to the "law of the emperor's rule", which then leads to the following questions.

There are four questions, but the questions are not directly stated, but the candidates are required to find them by themselves in the preparation of the edict, which is much more difficult than the Ministry of Rites examination.

Because the venue is too large and there is no megaphone, if Liu Jian shouts out in his old age, most people in front can hear it. As for the topic, after the reading of the edict, it will be sent down for the candidates to study by themselves.

***********

PS: The third update is sent!

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