The sudden dismissal of the palace people still inevitably caused a huge controversy in the court, and of course the main controversy was still on the severance pay. The ministers www.biquge.info of the court still felt that the emperor's approach was too hasty, and that such a huge sum of money was still on a group of slaves, and it was simply not to treat money as money.

In response to the uproar of the government and the opposition, Zheng De sacrificed the ninja magic skills that had already been practiced, and left all the notes on this matter unpublished, let them talk about it, and everything will naturally calm down after a while.

However, on the cusp of this storm, the matter of the Military Aircraft Department had to be postponed again. However, there is still a very important matter to deal with in the DPRK and China at the moment, and that is Kaienke. In fact, the Ming Dynasty rarely opened Enke, but because of the implementation of the retirement system, there was a serious shortage of officials in the DPRK and China, and finally it had to be done.

This was set by Liu Jian when he was still in the court, so Li Dongyang and the other four pavilion elders saw that the time was almost up, so they came to ask the emperor for instructions.

"Who do you think is the right examiner for this imperial examination?" Zheng De has been in the Ming Dynasty for more than half a year, and he naturally knows something about scientific research, so he looked up at them and asked.

Li Dongyang said, "The minister thinks that Wang Jing, the scholar of the Ministry of Rites, and Wang Wei, a scholar of Wenyuan Pavilion, are suitable to serve as the chief examiner regardless of their qualifications and status, I don't know what Your Majesty wants?" ”

In fact, if it weren't for Wang Jing being the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, this matter would really not be his turn. This kind of scientific examination is actually regarded as the welfare of officials from Hanlin, because these Jinshi who are finally promoted are determined to be teachers and students with the examiner who admitted them, and it is impossible to betray them for life. It can be regarded as a channel for cultivating one's own power in the DPRK and China, and it is on the surface, but it will not cause criticism. If you don't have any qualifications, it is difficult to get the opportunity to be the examiner.

Of course, now because Wang Jing is the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, it is difficult to bypass him for this kind of thing. And he's not a bad person, which is why the two of them were finally decided.

Zheng De looked back at Wang Jing and Wang Wei, who looked indifferent, and nodded after a moment's silence, "Then Wang Jing, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, will serve as the president of Enke and Wang Wei as the vice president." However, in the future, the content of the first exam is not allowed to be written in the eight-strand method, the number of words is not limited, and all the regulations must be consistent with the scripture notes. ”

It seems that in the impression of later generations, as long as the imperial examination of the Ming and Qing dynasties is mentioned, it must be Baguwen. In fact, the eight-strand essay was originally a recommended format for writing argumentative essays, and there is no good or bad in itself. Moreover, the Ming Dynasty scientific examination should have three exams to be correct, and only the first one needs to take the Baguwen exam. And at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, there were no rules for the writing or even or scattered. It was not until the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty that Wang Wei, Xie Qian, Zhang Mao and others advocated that the Baguwen gradually formed a relatively strict procedure to pay attention to the rules and steps. To the twenty-third year of Chenghua, from the "Jingyi" to the examination of the eight strands, the provisions should be composed in the way of eight shares, the format is strict, the number of words is limited, not allowed to violate the scriptures, can not be played freely, which is also the origin of the eight-strand text.

After Zheng De learned about the scientific examination of the Ming Dynasty, he did not have any idea of abolishing the imperial examination. After all, in addition to the first one, which requires eight strands of essays to compose, the second test is practical essays, in other words, official document writing, and the third is based on policy questions, that is, current political questions and answers. These are very targeted, and they are also a good test for these jinshi who are about to step into the officialdom. It's just that the first one limits that you must answer with eight strands, and you really need to make some changes.

Regarding one of the culprits who advocated the limitation of eight-strand essays, Xie Qian directly objected, "If there is no eight-strand essay, how can you judge the quality of scholars' essays?" ”

Although the titles, content, and format of the Baguwen are too restrictive, the questions are limited to scriptures, which stifles the candidates' thoughts and creativity. However, under the current circumstances, it can be regarded as a last resort. After all, the current scientific examination is not as good as that of later generations, with a variety of disciplines such as Chinese, foreign languages, mathematics, physics and chemistry. Of course, there is only one option in Chinese, and under the premise of the same topic, thousands of people of the same degree each write an article, and there will definitely be a situation where you say this article is good and I say that article is good, so it is difficult to determine the selection criteria, and it is even more difficult to rank them. This is also the reason why Xie Qian, Wang Wei and others advocated Baguwen.

Zheng De understood the crux of this problem after a little thought, mainly because it was difficult to judge the merits of an essay without a certain format in the exam, which led to the creation of the Bagu essay. However, it cannot be said that the Baguwen is necessarily wrong, mainly because the content of the exam is too narrow. The titles of the Bagu essays are all from the "Four Books" - "University", "The Mean", "Analects", and "Mencius", and the views must be the same as those of Zhu Xi, the "Zhu Sage", which is also a very bad point.

"Then why not change the way the exam is done?" Zheng De made a suggestion.

A different way of taking the exam?

The four pavilion elders were stunned when they heard this, and Xie Qian asked rhetorically, "Your Majesty, does it have a better way than Baguwen?" ”

In fact, the appearance of Baguwen is also a change that Xie Qian and others are trying to make to the way of the examination, at least in their opinion, this is already a change in the level of judges who can be very praised, at least when admitting Jinshi, there is a unified standard, and there will be no situation where the public says that the public is reasonable, and the mother says that the mother is reasonable. As for changing the examination method, it was simply impossible in the eyes of the four elders.

"You can try to convert each exam into a 100-point system, how many points each question in each exam is converted, and the total is 100 points, and the total score of the three exams is added up to rank the scientific examination, isn't it okay?"

Centesimal system?

Although the idea proposed by the emperor is indeed relatively novel, Xie Qian still raised objections, "If it is converted into a 100-point system, how many points should be used for each article in each exam, and what standard should be used to mark the papers?" ”

At the end of the day, the question of metrics has not been addressed.

Zheng De was stunned when he heard this, and he also found that his proposal was still meaningless, and thought for a while, "It's better to change the format of the eight-strand essay in the first exam to three sections of choice, fill in the blanks, and essay for the exam." Among them, the multiple-choice question is to come up with a question, and then give four options for the candidates to choose, and one point is awarded for a correct answer, and a total of 30 multiple-choice questions are 30 points. Then 30 fill-in-the-blank questions will be given, and one point will be given for each correct answer according to the answer required in the given question filling. As for the remaining 40 points, a question is given to the scholar to compose by himself, so as not to reduce the probability of the scholar falling off the list due to the personal preference of the examiner? ”

The four of them didn't expect the emperor to really give an answer, and the four of them glanced at each other, all showing deep thought.

Is it too late to give a straight answer? Moreover, the scholars are familiar with the Four Books and the Five Classics, and filling in the blanks is too simple, so in the end, don't you have to judge the merits by the level of the scholars' composition? Xie Qian put forward his own opinion.

Zheng De glanced at him, "Who said that the questions must come from the Four Books and Five Classics, the purpose of our examination is to select the right talents for the Ming Dynasty, don't you think this way of selecting officials seems too narrow?" ”

"The Four Books and Five Classics are Confucian classics, so why not?" Regarding the emperor's words, Xie Qian was also very dissatisfied.

"What we need in Daming is a comprehensive talent, not some students who just focus on the wisdom of their predecessors, but learn to apply it to the world. Therefore, I think that the first test should be the current situation in all aspects of my Ming Dynasty, only by being familiar with everything in my Ming Dynasty can I be better for the official side and benefit the people, what do you think? ”

"Your Majesty is reasonable, but the Four Books and Five Classics are also the words of a saint and are indispensable." Seeing that Xie Qian's face was red and he still wanted to argue with the emperor about something, Li Dongyang took out his old skills with the mud again and said a word.

Zheng De suddenly said when he heard this, "I heard that you only pay attention to the first eight-strand essay in the imperial examination, and do not pay much attention to the results of the second and third examinations, but is there such a thing?" ”

Li Dongyang was taken aback when he heard this, and hurriedly said, "How did Your Majesty know that this is purely a rumor-mongering, and the minister promises that there will be no such thing." ”

"It's better to do it!" Zheng De glanced at him meaningfully, and finally made a decision, "Okay, this time, I will personally come up with the topic of Enke, and you can check it when the time comes." ”

The emperor himself came up with the question?

Li Dongyang looked at the fifteen or sixteen-year-old boy in front of him, and estimated that he didn't understand anything yet, and he wanted to test others with questions, this person simply regarded this matter as child's play.

Xie Qian even directly objected, "Your Majesty, it is a major matter of the country to take the imperial examination, and you can't just come here." ”

"Do you think I'm going to do nonsense?" Zheng De looked at him with an unhappy face, and deliberately said, "Okay, this matter is settled, you guys go down." ”

After speaking, he couldn't help but say that he directly drove the four pavilion elders out.

"Brother Bin, I think that the ministers of the United Dynasty and China will jointly write to Your Majesty, I don't know what you think?"

Coming out of the Yongsu Palace, the angry Xie Qian looked back at Li Dongyang, the latter also knew that he had to stand on the same front as the former at this time, and nodded approvingly.

"Then I'll leave this matter to me." Wang Wei also stood up and said something at this time.

The four of them agreed on the matter and went their separate ways.