When Zheng Kaicheng heard Li Zhi's words, he arched his hand and asked, "Lord Wang, what is the civil service examination?" ”

Li Zhi replied: "The civil service examination is a way to select the best officials from the private sector through examinations. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ”

When Zheng Kaicheng heard Li Zhi's words, he thought about it and didn't speak.

The selection of qualified civil servants is a need that exists in all countries of the world. The quality of civil servants directly determines the administrative efficiency of a country's government. Therefore, in later generations, the selection system of officials with the civil service examination as the core was widely practiced in various countries.

In 1870, Britain established a system of selecting national civil servants by public examination, which has been in practice for more than 100 years. The British civil service examination includes parts such as "identification", "document drafting", "group discussion" and "meeting practice", which test the comprehensive ability of civil servants.

In 1883, the United States passed the Civil Service Act and established the Civil Service Commission in accordance with the law, comprehensively implementing the system of selecting outstanding talents to serve as civil servants through examinations. By the time Li Zhi crossed over, more than 85 percent of the civil servants in the United States had passed the examination.

In later generations of China, civil servants were also selected by examination.

As a traverser, Li Zhi introduced the civil service examination system in one town and seven provinces, especially in Tianjin and Shandong.

In fact, the basis for the civil service examination is also available in one town and seven provinces.

The first is that Tianjin, Shandong, and Liaodong have high literacy rates. Over the years, with Li Zhi's encouragement and support, many workers and farmers have taken the initiative to learn culture. Li Zhi set up a wide range of illiteracy night schools in various places. In Shandong, the literacy rate has risen from a very low level to two and a half percent. In more than 20 prefectures and counties in Tianjin, the literacy rate has reached 40%.

In other words, Li Zhi had more than 4 million literate and hyphenated people in Tianjin and Shandong. These more than 4 million workers, peasants, and intellectuals who were able to read books and newspapers were the basis for Li Zhi's selection of civil servants.

Zheng Kaicheng thought for a while and asked, "Lord Wang, is this civil service examination the same as the imperial examination?" ”

Li Zhi shook his head and said, "It's different, it's very different." ”

"First of all, the civil service examination selects not only officials, but also grassroots civil servants. The imperial examination of the Ming Dynasty only selected officials, while officials were considered lowly and held by people of poor origin. Moreover, the officials are rogue officials, but the officials are nail households that cannot be beaten by iron, so the corruption of the officials cannot be controlled at all. ”

"In our civil service examination, we select both officials and officials. Ensure that all officials are qualified. ”

Hong Chengchou stroked his beard and said: "The prince is wise, if you change it like this, you will sweep away the shortcomings of my imperial examination for more than 200 years in the Ming Dynasty, and clean up the origin of the treacherous officials!" ”

Li Zhi said with a smile: "More importantly, our examination not only tests knowledge and ability, but also uses 60% of the score to test the public morality level of the candidates. ”

Zheng Kaicheng's eyes lit up and said, "In this way, the most tested in the civil service examination is public morality?" ”

Li Zhi nodded and said, "Yes!" Officials who are not very capable but have good character can rely on other people of good caliber to do the right thing. But a person who has no public morality will become a means of doing evil with all his abilities, and the greater the ability, the greater the harm. In the government department, we would rather have an upright posture than a treacherous and capable person! ”

"So this civil service exam is actually a test of public morality. We must collect all the most virtuous people in society into the government as our solid administrative foundation. ”

Zheng Kaicheng and Hong Chengchou arched their hands and said: "The prince is wise! ”

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In a small courtyard of the Tianjin Acropolis, Zeng Zuoze and Feng Zishan both sat in the hall wearing a round neck of Tianjin fine cloth, looking at today's "Tianjin Daily" with great interest.

Zeng Zuoze read the news of the civil service exam again, and his face showed unbearable excitement.

"Brother Feng, our chance has come."

Feng Zishan smiled and said, "I can't imagine that literati like us, who don't have the opportunity to go to primary and secondary schools, also have the opportunity to be admitted to the prince's civil service." ”

Zeng Zuoze and Feng Zishan are both intellectuals. It is said that the two are intellectuals rather than Confucian scholars because they have not read Confucian sages for nearly ten years.

Both of them were originally children, and the identity of Tongsheng is not considered famous, and it is not qualified to be a private school teacher, so it was useless in the first place. After Li Zhi took control of Tianjin, Confucianism was abandoned by Li Zhi, and the two no longer had the intention of being admitted to Xiucai. Instead of reading Confucian classics, they went to the market to find errands to earn a living.

Now both of them are doing accounting for others, and Zeng Zuoze is managing the accounts for a restaurant. Feng Zishan is in a slightly better situation, working as an accountant in a private cement factory.

In a wealthy place like Tianjin, the income from doing a bookkeeping office is very high. Both of them have about five taels of monthly money, which is enough to support their wives, sons and daughters. However, as personnel employed by the "private economy", the income of the two is still much worse than that of the soldiers, workers and officials directly employed by the prince.

Take the soldier of the Tiger Ben Army of the prince as an example, now the monthly money has risen to five taels, and there are three meals a day with meat. What's more, the prince's soldiers will be divided into Liaodong according to their merits. The income from this field was much higher than the monthly salary of a soldier. Basically, as long as he is directly hired by the prince, he will not be able to run away from Ronglu for a lifetime.

Therefore, in one town and seven provinces, everyone sharpened their heads and wanted to become workers, soldiers and officials directly employed by the prince.

However, because Zeng and Feng had no experience, they failed to apply for factory craftsmen several times. The two have families, and it is impossible for them to take a leave of absence to go to middle school for three years, and they can't be officials, so they have not been able to squeeze into the prince's team.

But this civil service exam gave the two of them a chance.

Feng Zishan said with a smile: "Brother Xian, this civil service exam is about public morality and law, are you proficient?" ”

Zeng Zuoze laughed and said, "Brother Feng, don't hide it, I have read these two books distributed by the prince for free dozens of times over the years, and I can really recite them upside down." ”

Feng Zishan said: "I think this exam is not just to memorize it to get a high score, but to learn and use it." The newspaper said, especially in the field of public morality, that the questions of the exam are derived from the textbook, but they are completely higher than the textbook. It is really necessary to be truly convinced and practice the sense of public morality in order to get high scores. ”

Zeng Zuoze said with a smile: "Brother Feng, of course Brother Feng knows this. However, the foolish brother has been reading newspapers every day over the years, and he has been exposed to it every day, and he can be regarded as being influenced by the culture of public morality, and he is confident to get a good score. ”

Feng Zishan slapped his thigh and said: "There is no basis for what you say, there is a 'mock exam question' in the supplement of this newspaper, let's do it and see how many points we can get?" ”

Zeng Zuoze was full of confidence and said: "Okay, I want to get a job in the court, and I will be a judge who is the master of the people in the future." I'm going to do this mock question to see if I've read the newspaper in vain in the past ten years. ”