When Liu E was in power, he also installed a lot of henchmen in the court, such as Wang Qinruo is Liu E's diehard loyalist, but Wang Qinruo also has a bottom line, that is, Liu E cannot usurp the throne, but people like Wang Qinruo who have a bottom line are still a minority after all, and most of Liu E's henchmen are some sycophants, and some people's character is even more criticized, and the person recommended by Li Zhang to Zhao Zhen is such a guy with a problematic character.

"Cheng Lin? He...... Can he do it? When Zhao Zhen heard the name of the person from Li Zhang's mouth, he couldn't help but ask with wide eyes.

Cheng Lin's fame is indeed not as good as Ding Wei, and not as good as Wang Qinruo to be the prime minister, but he is still one of Liu E's biggest henchmen.

However, Cheng Lin didn't know whether he was short-sighted or really too loyal to Liu E, so he did a big stupid thing, that is, to present Liu E with "The Picture of the Martial Queen", which was almost a disguised encouragement for Liu E to be the emperor, although this made Liu E more and more favored by him, but Liu E's age was destined to not survive Zhao Zhen, so when Zhao Zhen was in power, Cheng Lin was also tragic.

Zhao Zhen used to stabilize the court, at the beginning, he did not attack Liu E's henchmen, but also gave them officials and knights, but after Zhao Zhen stabilized the throne, these people began to be unlucky, first Cheng Lin lost such an important position as Yin of Kaifeng Mansion, and was transferred to Shangshu Province to be a nominal Shangshu Zuocheng, and later he has been working in the household department and the official department in these nominal places.

It can be said that in those years, Cheng Lin's official position has always been the kind of fictitious position that sounds good, but has no real power. In fact, although Cheng Lin's character is problematic, his ability is still quite strong, and the ghost beggars were exterminated under his personal command, in addition, when he served as the governor of Kaifeng, Kaifeng City was "robbing lawsuits", and when he was in Yizhou, he also killed the local cult to cause chaos.

But the matter of "Martial Empress Linchao" has always been a thorn in Zhao Zhen's heart, so Cheng Lin has always been able to stumble in the officialdom, Zhao Zhen may have seen some in the first two years, and finally gave Cheng Lin a real job, that is, let him go to Beijing Daimyo Mansion to stay behind, although the Daimyo Mansion is an important town in the north, but it is far away from the court, and it is basically impossible to return to the capital.

"Your Majesty, don't underestimate Cheng Lin, in the past two years, he has served in the Daimyo Mansion, and he has also made remarkable achievements in the local area, especially when he attacked Yanyun before, the Daimyo Mansion is the material dispatch center in the rear, it can be said that Cheng Lin has a lot of credit for recovering Yanyun, and when he was the Yin of Kaifeng Mansion, he also governed the capital in an orderly manner, and now there are many people among the people who are grateful for his credit in exterminating the ghost beggars!" Li Zhang replied with a smile at this time.

"The extermination of the ghost beggars is obviously your credit cousin, and the wild dog is the first credit, Cheng Lin, what is he?" Zhao Zhen was also a little displeased when he heard Li Zhang's last words, he still had some prejudice against Cheng Lin in his heart.

"Although I have some credit for the wild dog, but it was Cheng Lin who was in charge of the center later, without his strict deployment, it would not be so easy to clean up the ghost beggars, and later he asked people to build an iron fence underground to prevent anyone from entering the underground and becoming a ghost beggar, and these credits cannot be erased." Li Zhang laughed again.

"But...... But Cheng Lin's reputation is not very good, many officials despise him as a person, even if he is transferred back to the capital, can he really contain Lu Xiang? Zhao Zhen hesitated again at this time, and then confessed worriedly again.

"Actually, Your Majesty doesn't have to worry about this problem, although Cheng Lin's reputation is a little worse, but no matter how bad he is, he can't be as bad as Wang Qinruo back then, and when Wang Qinruo was transferred back to the capital, he also knew that he was despised, so he could only rely on the support of the eldest lady to stand firm in the court, which also made him loyal to the eldest lady, and Cheng Lin was also in the same situation, as long as His Majesty dared to use him, he would definitely be grateful to His Majesty, and he would never dare to have any selfish intentions."

When he said this, he saw Li Zhang pause for a moment and then said: "As for ability, Cheng Lin was able to get the favor of the eldest lady at the beginning, but not just because he could only slap the horse, but this person is indeed talented, Your Majesty can look at his achievements in the local government, it can be said that it is very prominent, and now Your Majesty is a meritocrat, with Cheng Lin's talent, in fact, he can already enter the political hall, and the most important thing is that Cheng Lin is about ten years younger than Lu Xiang!" ”

Li Zhang's words finally moved Zhao Zhen, especially the fact that Cheng Lin was younger than Lu Yijian, which made him almost make a decision on the spot, because this means that if Cheng Lin can do it, he will no longer have to worry about containing Lu Yijian in the future, after all, he didn't bother much about this matter at the beginning, first Li Di and then Wang Zeng, but neither of them could survive Lu Yijian.

"Okay, then transfer Cheng Lin back and try it!" In the end, Zhao Zhen finally nodded and said, if someone else recommended Cheng Lin, he might still wonder if the other party accepted Cheng Lin's bribe, but he never doubted Li Zhang, after all, the two grew up together, and this trust is still there, not to mention that Li Zhang is not very interested in fame and fortune, and he has not held any important positions until now, but only served in medical school, if he wanted, Zhao Zhen would have let him enter the political hall a long time ago.

The candidate to succeed Wang Zeng was determined, Zhao Zhen and Li Zhang discussed the recent rectification of the rule of officials, Fan Zhongyan's ability has been fully brought into play in the Ministry of Officials, and now the framework for the examination has been set up, and even a number of extremely bad officials have been dealt with, and now the functions and powers of some official positions have begun to be thoroughly divided, and some official positions can be abolished if necessary.

One of the major drawbacks of the Great Song Dynasty is redundant officials, that is, multiple officials in one position, which leads to extremely decentralized power, a huge team of officials, coupled with the frequent imperial examinations, and the number of people admitted each time, which also leads to more and more officials, even if the method of using one post and multiple officials, it still leads to many people who have not been assigned official positions for many years after being admitted to the Jinshi.

For the above situation, it must also be changed, after all, too many officials lead to inefficiency, and the income of the officials of the Great Song Dynasty is relatively high, resulting in a large amount of wealth consumed on officials, which is already an extremely heavy problem.

Fortunately, after conquering the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, the state capital there needed a large number of officials, which was originally a good opportunity to divert officials, but many officials were worried that Yanyun had just been unstable and that they were afraid of suffering there, so many officials were reluctant to go to the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun.

The officials of the Great Song Dynasty have a great degree of freedom, if they are not satisfied with the official positions assigned by the superiors, they can even refuse to take office, even if the emperor's holy decree comes down, they can also refuse, for example, the later Wang Anshi has repeatedly refused the imperial court's recruitment, and every time he refuses, his fame will be a little bigger, which is also very rare in the feudal dynasty.

But now it is different, the appointment of officials by the imperial court will be mandatory, and if you don't want to, the imperial court can take back the official status of the official, which is a devastating blow to any official, so in this case, many officials also have to go to office.

Of course, there are also people who are worried that these officials will take office with reluctance, and they will be passive and slack off when they take office, but now that there is an examination system, if these officials are not qualified, they will also be recaptured in the future, after all, there are so many officials in the Great Song Dynasty, maybe it is not easy for core officials to find suitable people, but the middle and lower level official positions are really not afraid of no one available.

With the diversion of a large number of officials in the sixteen states of Yanyun, the problem of redundant officials was finally temporarily alleviated, but the source of redundant officials is the imperial examination, which is too frequent, and Zhao Zhen has been on the throne for more than ten years, it has been held seven or eight times, on average, almost once every two years, and the number of people admitted each time is often hundreds, adding up to thousands of people.

Thousands of officials have been admitted in just over ten years, but people's lifespans are still very long, especially the lifespans of officials are generally longer than ordinary people, so the main force in the officialdom of the Great Song Dynasty is still the officials admitted during the previous Zhao Heng period, and Zhao Heng has been in power for 25 years, and thousands of officials have been admitted.

In this case, the reform of the imperial examination is also on the agenda, because if there is no restriction on the admission of jinshi like now, sooner or later the officialdom of the Great Song Dynasty will be full of idle officials, and although the Great Song Dynasty can still expand outward like now, our ancestors warned us that belligerence will perish, and war can only be used as the last option in any era.

"Cousin, yesterday Fan Zhongyan and their 'Jinggongju' recital, suggested that the Jinshi Department only focus on poetry and change the emphasis on policy theory, and change the Ming Jingke only to memorize the words and phrases of the Confucian scriptures to require the exposition of the meaning and truth of the scriptures, and also set up public schools in the prefectures and counties, so that students must study in the public school for a period of time before they can take the examination, so as to increase the difficulty of the imperial examination and reduce the number of people admitted, but I always feel that this method treats the symptoms but not the root cause." Zhao Zhen finally frowned again.

The imperial examination is related to the country's talent selection, which is one of the fundamentals of the rule of the Great Song Dynasty, so Zhao Zhen also attaches great importance to it, and he did not reply immediately to the suggestions of Fan Zhongyan and others yesterday, but is ready to weigh it carefully before making plans.

"This method does treat the symptoms but not the root cause, even if the content of the imperial examination is changed and the difficulty of the imperial examination is increased, but judging from the current situation, more and more people are studying, and the population of the Great Song Dynasty is also growing, and there will be more people participating in the imperial examination in the future, so sooner or later it will become what it is now." Li Zhang also frowned at the end, in fact, combined with the situation of the later generations, he did not have no solution, but he didn't know if it was suitable for the current situation of the Great Song Dynasty?