Although the first imperial examination of the Chinese Empire caused discussion among the scholars because of the addition of practical studies such as arithmetic and gewu, many people even objected to it so much that they declared that they would not refer to it.

However, after all, the Chinese Empire is different from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has also held imperial examinations, but the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is inherently opposed to the scholar class, and the traditional Confucian scholars are eager to destroy the Confucian Temple and delete the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of the scriptures.

But this was not the case with the Chinese Empire, and in general, although the rise of the Chinese Empire made many people who were loyal to the Manchus resentful, there were also many people who supported the Chinese Empire.

Why?

First of all, a very important point is that the Chinese Empire did not abolish Confucianism on a large scale, destroy Confucian temples, and change scriptures, and at the same time did not exclude traditional Confucian students, or even accepted them on a large scale.

In addition, although the Chinese Empire has carried out innovations in the official system, it still adopts some of the traditional systems of the Confucian feudal dynasty on the whole, which can be seen from Lin Zhe's enthronement ceremony and Dingdu ceremony, which basically adopted the ancient system and carried out extremely important traditional activities such as 'worshipping the heavens'.

Lin Zhe's ascension to the throne is in line with traditional etiquette, and this is very important to those traditional scholars who admit death!

Sometimes, fame is a very important thing, especially for a feudal dynasty, if Lin Zhe did not choose to ascend the throne directly at the beginning of the year, then he directly used a so-called 'Chinese marshal' to call his name is self-evident, it is impossible to get the support of the majority of the gentry, and it is impossible to make many former Qing officials so simply surrender.

Therefore, Lin Zhe at that time ascended the throne and became the emperor when he occupied a small amount of land, not to be addicted to the emperor, but to let the nascent Chinese regime obtain a righteous name that conformed to the ancient system. In this way, the gentry and common people in the control area will support themselves, and the military and political officials will see hope.

Therefore, in the eyes of many people, especially the people and gentry in Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu and other areas controlled by the Chinese army, although the new Chinese empire has just risen. However, it is already an orthodox dynasty, and as long as it continues to develop, there is hope that he will completely replace the Qing Dynasty and become the master of the land of Shenzhou.

In addition to these nominal things, it is also related to some interests.

Those gentry and bureaucrats supported Lin Zhe? It's because you can get the opportunity to continue to be an official.

Those ordinary people supported Lin Zhe because Lin Zhe ensured the stability of Zhejiang and Susongtai, and did not have to be destroyed by war like Anhui, Hubei and other provinces.

The merchants of industry and commerce supported Lin Zhe. It was because Lin Zhe ensured their commercial profits that these businessmen became the main support group of the Chinese army.

What was the foundation of the Chinese Empire? It's the Shanghai Business Zone!

Who was the largest supporter of the Chinese Empire? The major trading houses in the business area!

The taxes collected from industry and commerce in the trade zone and the ordnance and materials purchased in the trade zone almost completely supported the expansion and development of the Chinese army, and in return, the Chinese army not only greatly expanded the area in the trade zone, but also implemented many policies conducive to the development of industry and commerce.

In the past few years, the support of the raw silk industry, tea, porcelain and other industries is a clear proof, in the business zone policy to promote, a large number of silk reeling factories have sprung up, just a few years of silk is to completely defeat the traditional silk, exports increased year after year.

This is not just a joy for the raw silk companies that have invested in silk reeling mills. It also makes the foreign companies who buy raw silk happy, the farmers who raise silkworm cocoons around Shanghai happy, the farmers who grow mulberry leaves, and the financial institutions that provide loans to silk reeling factories and farmers' money banks are happy, and the increase in industry profits is a favorable promotion for the entire raw silk industry.

And in the south of the Yangtze River, what industry is the largest?

Raw silk is undoubtedly the same.

The Empire's promotion of industry and commerce was not only reflected in the raw silk industry, but also in other industries, and the first decree issued after the establishment of the Empire was the 'Imperial Companies Act'. It has supported the formalization of industry and commerce, and promoted the transformation of a large number of traditional commercial guilds into modern enterprises, allowing them to obtain more profits.

Taken together, the largest group of supporters of the Chinese Empire was not the peasants at the bottom of society. And not the feudal bureaucrats, but the industrial and commercial class!

If we use the words of history textbooks, the rebellion of the Chinese Empire was a 'capitalist revolution' of great historical significance, which brought hope for the rise of the nation......

And to put it pragmatically, that is, the Chinese empire brought practical benefits to all strata of society!

Therefore, in the territory of the Chinese Empire, although there were also some scholars who disdained or even opposed the nascent empire. But there are also many people who support it.

According to tradition, the imperial examination is generally divided into county examinations, government examinations, hospital examinations, township examinations, meeting examinations, and palace examinations.

However, due to the fact that the examination will be held in September, the time is urgent, so this time the examination is somewhat subversive to the tradition, skipping the three-level examination of the county examination, the government examination, and the college examination for the purpose of admitting students, and leaving it for the follow-up to be carried out, directly from the township, as long as the students are famous, they can participate directly.

At the same time, in order to take care of the previous lifters, they can go directly to Nanjing to participate in the township examination without taking the township examination.

Since the imperial examination has to test other content except for the eight-strand article, and the bulletin also explains the detailed subjects of the examination at that time:

It includes four main subjects: classics, physics, history, and strategy, as well as four sub-subjects of arithmetic, physics, chemistry, and nature.

Because it is the first time to hold this kind of imperial examination, in order to reduce the difficulty to attract more scholars to participate, in fact, the requirements for scientific knowledge are still relatively low, and the required Gewu is actually a superficial summary of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and nature, and the test questions in it will not require scholars to verify why one plus one equals two, nor will they let scholars discuss physical topics such as electromagnetism and particles, but only test some basic scientific knowledge.

The four small subjects subdivided into selected exams are the key points, and the difficulty of the basic examination is already equivalent to the graduation exam of military cadets, and it is estimated that few of these ordinary soldiers can answer it.

As soon as the examination subjects were announced, the bookstores were robbed of relevant books and other related books, and the Ministry of Education printed and distributed a total of 13 kinds of books in advance, each of which printed as many as 5,000 copies, which were sold in bookstores in major cities, but within a few days, they were coaxed by students from all over the world.

Whether it is the Ministry of Education or Lin Zhe, they have underestimated the attraction of the imperial examination and being an official to these students, as long as there is a way to advance, these students can no longer care how difficult the content of your exam is.

As a last resort, the Ministry of Education once again stepped up the printing of these books that introduced basic scientific knowledge and foreign current affairs, but the scholars would not be empty, and the booksellers would not be empty.

The new books printed by the Ministry of Education have not yet been printed, and some pirated booksellers have just sold simple pirated books, and many of them are hand-copied books, and it is difficult for some students from poor families to directly buy a complete set of more than a dozen new books, so they copy books directly when they go to county schools or academies to listen to lectures.

What's interesting is that the teachers of these county schools or academies are also old scholars, and they know what kind of scientific knowledge they have, so they all read the book and read it directly.

However, there are also smart people who can see that although Gewu is also a compulsory exam, it is enough to master some basic content, and among the four compulsory subjects, in addition to Gewu and traditional scriptures, there are two subjects: history and policy.

As for what exactly these two subjects are, some students with great powers also peeked at their test questions from army officers.

In last year's graduation examination of the Army Military Academy, there were also historical theories and policy theories, among which there was a historical theory entitled "Qin Shang Ying's reform of the law is to strengthen the unification of the six countries; Song Xining changed the law and chaotic party struggled for weakness, try to discuss the difference between the two! ”

There is another question: "The Ming army household system was strong before and weak, and the green battalion of the Qing Eight Banners was also strong and weak, why?" How to avoid it? ”

The topics of this historical theory seem to be broad and empty, and this kind of topic is extremely controversial, and it requires a very high degree of independent thinking of candidates.

And this kind of topic is also in line with the contemporary times, it is a very pragmatic topic, one is about reform and law change, and the other is about military reform, which are all problems that need to be faced by the Chinese Empire.

If the history theory is still within the normal range of students, then the policy theory subject makes people even bigger, and it is also close to the times, and there is such a policy in the graduation examination of the Army Military Academy last year:

"Since the Sino-British war, foreign businessmen have flocked to foreign goods everywhere, and after the establishment of the trade zone, the rapid development of commercial taxes has surged, try to discuss the pros and cons of opening the port and trade and the countermeasures!"

For some ordinary students who only know the Four Books and the Five Classics, the difficulty of these test and policy topics is quite large, but fortunately, the previous imperial examination was not without strategy, so those students are generally acceptable, and they are all grinding their fists and palms, trying to play well and win the championship in one fell swoop.

Dong Li, one of the many scholars, is no exception, because the township test is scheduled in August, the time is urgent, in this short period of time, he is almost every day in many books, fortunately, Wen Changlin gave him a set of new books before, otherwise he can't even afford to buy books, so he can only copy books like other poor students.

Just when the students in the jurisdiction of the Chinese Empire studied hard, waiting for the township exam in August! (To be continued.) )