After eating and resting in Wuxi, Chen Zilong and Xia Yunyi went north by boat again, and this time there were many more scholars with them. Seeing that the other party's boat was small, Chen Zilong even invited Xu Du and other scholars to get on the big boat he was on.

Chen Zilong was born as an official eunuch, and his family was a big family in Songjiang, so renting a big ship was nothing at all. For Xu Du and other poor scholars, the boat fare is a lot of money, and Xu Du and others are naturally grateful for Chen Zilong's generosity.

Chen Zilong was good at communication, and soon got along with the scholars, but compared to Xia Yunyi, he seemed a little wooden, just sitting on the side and smiling.

Talking along the way, time passed quickly, and after another day, the boat arrived at Zhenjiang Wharf and then disembarked.

Just outside Zhenjiang City, there are several large tents, and many students are queuing. After everyone got off the boat and asked, they learned that it was the registration office. All the scholars who come to take the exam from all over the world register here.

Chen Zilong took the lead, and a group of scholars began to line up, and saw that there were hundreds or thousands of soldiers queuing up, and some scholars got off the boat from time to time to join.

"This brother is invited!" Chen Zilong saluted at the scholars in front of him. After some greetings, I knew that this scholar's name was Xin Yongfeng, a native of Danyang, and he was famous.

"Friend Xin is from Danyang, not far from Zhenjiang, can I hear the details of His Majesty's examination this time, how many scholars are going to be admitted, and how will they be used after admission?" Chen Zilong asked.

Xin Yongfeng said: "I don't know the details very well, I only heard that the number of scholars admitted this time is uncertain, as long as they pass the exam, they may be admitted." It is said that after admission, he will be appointed as a town officer. ”

"Townsman?" Chen Zilong was stunned for a moment, "What is a town official?" ”

"That is, several towns should be set up below each county, and each town should manage a number of villages, and be responsible for civil affairs, taxation, education, and so on. The town has mayor, deputy mayor, tax officer, inspection and other official positions, and the rank is nine and eight grades. I'm just a showman, and if I can be admitted to be a nine-grade official, I will be satisfied. Senior, you are a lifter, at least you can be the mayor of Bapin! Xin Yongfeng replied.

"Each county has a number of towns, and each town manages a number of ......villages," Chen Zilong muttered, setting off a huge wave in his heart. The emperor's actions are clearly to completely subvert the current official position of the Ming Dynasty!

Since the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial power has become customized without going to the countryside, and the imperial court is only in charge of the county level, and the family autonomy or gentry below the county level is responsible for education. And now the establishment of town officials is clearly to take back the power of managing and educating the people from the hands of the gentry!

It's going to change, it's really going to change! The Ming Dynasty has not changed, it is still the Ming Dynasty, the emperor has not changed, it is still the Son of Heaven, but the gentry's sky is about to change!

"With so many officials, the burden on the people will inevitably increase a lot." Chen Zilong didn't speak, and Xia Yunyi behind him couldn't help but say.

"Hey, you can't say that. It is true that the number of officials will be increased, but the land tax and commercial tax will certainly increase, and the extra tax will fully support the increased town officials. Xin Yongfeng shook his head and said.

In the past, because the imperial power did not go to the countryside, the government did not understand the situation of the people at all, and the official servants only arrived in the countryside when collecting taxes. The government did not know how many acres of private land there was, and the government could not figure out the actual number of people in the county, and the gentry could rely on their status to collude with the government to evade taxes wantonly. After the establishment of a town, each town is in charge of more than ten miles of villages, and the town officials will naturally be very familiar with the local situation, and some people will hardly be able to evade taxes again. The government's tax revenue will inevitably increase!

And since the emperor has set up a town under the county for the first time, how can he have no other means? The prefectural and county bureaucratic system will definitely be reformed, and it will be very difficult for the gentry to collude with the government to evade taxes as before!

As representatives of the smartest scholars, Chen Zilong and Xia Yunyi naturally understood the meaning of Xin Yongfeng's words, and knew that the salaries of the extra town officials were not difficult to solve, and would not add much burden to the imperial court. In the past, the embezzled money and grain of the county officials were enough to feed the town officials.

"It's really unprecedented for a county to have a town." Xia Yunyi sighed.

Chen Zilong shook his head, unprecedented, not see! During the two Han Dynasty, the county level set up Qiangfu, Youjiao, Sanlao, and Pavilion Changneng official positions, and the imperial court controlled the local area very strictly, and the centralization of power was unprecedented! And in the Ming Dynasty, the imperial power did not go to the countryside, the imperial court completely lost control of the countryside, and the countryside became the world of the gentry!

"I heard that His Majesty did this in Shandong, recruiting a lot of scholars to be town officials, and I heard that if the town officials do well, they can also become county officials, and it is even possible to enter the court to do six books!" Xin Yongfeng said with great interest.

"In that case, what else do you need to do with the imperial examination? The appointment and dismissal of officials is the business of the Ministry of Officials, and with so many counties in the country, if all counties have towns, how many tens of thousands of town officials are needed? Did His Majesty appoint him? Xia Yunyi shook his head and said.

"Then we don't know, the affairs of the court are naturally decided by Your Majesty, and Your Majesty will always have a way." Xin Yongfeng said with a smile.

The affairs of the imperial court are decided by His Majesty, Xia Yunyi was silent, and Chen Zilong didn't know what to say.

Daming is naturally the Zhu family, but the world is the world of the people of the world! Neither the original intention of the establishment of the societies nor the purpose of the resumption of the societies is like this.

Huang Zongxi, a famous scholar of the Restoration Society, wrote an article called "Yuan Jun", in which he said that "my great selfishness is the great public of the world", which is actually "a great harm to the world". For Huang Zongxi's thoughts, Chen Zilong and Xia Yunyi deeply agreed. The emperor only became the emperor because of his bloodline, and he is not really a son of heaven.

But Chen Zilong and Xia Yunyi also know that in the hearts of most people in the world, the emperor really represents the Ming Dynasty, and the emperor's words are really golden mouths. Xin Yongfeng is still thinking like this, and it is even more conceivable how ordinary people think.

Chen Zilong and He Xia Yunyi know that in fact, the emperor has no power to set up towns under the county at all, and he has no power to subvert the current official system of the Ming Dynasty! Although the emperor is the lord of the world, there is still a system and an ancestral system above the emperor! If the emperor relies on his status to act recklessly, it will inevitably make the court system out of balance, and the result is likely to lead to chaos in the world!

For example, the Sui Dynasty, when Emperor Wen of Sui Emperor Yang Jian was there, the Sui Dynasty was so powerful, the grain in the warehouse could not be eaten for decades, and the rope that wore money was rotten. However, after Yang Guang ascended the throne, he acted recklessly, angering most of the families at that time and destroying the balance of power, so that the Sui Dynasty died in two lifetimes......

And today's Emperor Chongzhen, how similar is his behavior to that Yang Guang? No, even farther than Yang Guang. At the very least, Yang Guang did not openly declare war on the family of the Sui Dynasty. And Chongzhen's behavior is tantamount to opening a knife to the entire gentry class!

Chongzhen's series of behaviors on the southern tour are all to put aside the imperial court and do its own thing, and treat the imperial court and various rules as decorations! If you don't set up official positions privately through the ministry, you will regard the imperial court election system as nothing! Unauthorized investigation and disposal of officials, malicious seizure of gentry, landlords, merchants, land wealth, punishment and murder are all based on personal preference, the three legal divisions of the imperial court and the provincial judicial departments have completely become decorations!

As far as Chongzhen's actions in the past year go south, there is actually no difference between him and a single husband!

Chen Zilong naturally admired Chongzhen's great martial arts in recovering Liaodong and pacifying Mongolia, but he did not agree with Chongzhen's actions in the south. It was only with the intention of serving the people of the world that he came to Zhenjiang, hoping to persuade the emperor to change his ways. After all, if the world is in turmoil, it is the ordinary people who suffer.

Chen Zilong thinks that his ideas are absolutely selfless, and he can fully represent the voice of Jiangnan Shizi!

But now, looking at the ardent expectations on the faces of Xin Yongfeng and other ordinary scholars, Chen Zilong hesitated and was no longer so confident.

At this moment, he suddenly realized that Jiangnan Shizi was not only himself and the famous scholars of the Fushe behind him, but also the large number of ordinary scholars in front of him, they were also a member of the scholars, and there were more and more of them!

These large number of ordinary scholars, these children, and these ordinary talents, they have little hope in the scientific field, and they may not be able to pass the examination for a lifetime. When the official career is hopeless, many people will eventually give up studying, or go to a private school to become a teacher, or try to become a small official in the government, or work in business, earn some money to support their families, and become a member of the crowd.

But these readers, at the beginning of their studies, they also have ideals, many people have had the dream of being an official in the entrance examination, and the family rules the country and the world, which reader has not thought about it?

However, the cruelty of the imperial examination doomed many scholars to fail the examination for a lifetime, and doomed countless scholars to become officials and change their fate!

And now, the emperor holds an exam, and those who pass the exam can become officials, although they are only nine and eight town officials, but they promise to be good officials who can be promoted, be the prefect of the county, and even be able to enter the court to do six books!

For these desperate scholars in the imperial examination, this is undoubtedly a dead end! Every county has a town, and the number of town officials needed is so large, this kind of examination acceptance rate must be very amazing, and how can these ordinary scholars not flock to it?

With this single move, the emperor captured the hearts of these ordinary scholars. And compared to this large number of ordinary scholars, what are the 2,000 scholars of the Restoration Society?

With the support of such a large number of ordinary scholars, what is the idea of celebrities and celebrities?

Zhang Pu also wanted to use the influence of the Fushe and the Donglin Party to incite the imperial court and local officials to resign, so as to blackmail the emperor.

"In terms of manipulating people's hearts, Your Majesty is really perfect." Chen Zilong whispered to Xia Yunyi. Xia Yunyi nodded, her face was also very heavy.

"You are a lifter, you don't wait to be admitted to the Jinshi, why do you have to take the exam?" When it was Chen Zilong's turn, an official in charge of registration asked in surprise.

said that he was an official, but he was white-faced, but he was actually a eunuch beside the emperor. There was no way, after sending officials to serve in the Salt Transportation Division, Zhu Youzhen was really short of people around him, so he had to send the little eunuch who was waiting with him to be responsible for the registration work.

Admitted to the Jinshi? Can we wait until the imperial examination is held? Chen Zilong sighed in his heart. Looking at the emperor's behavior, it is a earth-shaking change in the Ming Dynasty, and it is estimated that in a short period of time, there will be no more imperial examinations. Because the emperor did not need officials from the imperial examination, but chose officials by holding his own examinations. Maybe it's hard to say whether the imperial examination will exist in the future!

"It's all for the court and for His Majesty, there's no difference." Chen Zilong said lightly.

"How is it no difference? In the examination, the jinshi is an official, at least he can be the magistrate of the county, and he can only be the mayor of Bapin Town when he comes out of this exam. The eunuch laughed.

Chen Zilong smiled: "I only hope that what I have learned in my heart can be put to use, and I have the opportunity to serve His Majesty, and I don't care about the official position." ”

"Okay." The eunuch pursed his lips and registered Chen Zilong's name, place of origin, family situation and other information, and also kept Chen Zilong's Xia Yunyi's name in his heart. Among the so many scholars who signed up for the exam, there were only a few such as Chen Zilong.

After signing up, they were not allowed to leave, but they were taken to a camp and told that they had to stay in the camp before the exam and could not leave until after the exam.

Just by the river, hundreds of tents were set up, Chen Zilong and others thought that this was a military camp, but they didn't expect it to be for the soldiers who signed up for the exam.

There is a tent for every eight registered soldiers, and meals are provided three times a day, and they do not need to spend their own money. Xu Du and other poor scholars were very happy, after all, there was free food to eat, and there was a place to live without money. Chen Zilong and Xia Yunyi are a little uncomfortable, but the conditions here are too poor, the accommodation is poor, the food is also poor, and seven or eight people live in a tent, which is too stuffy and crowded.

Chen Zilong and Xia Yunyi are both from big families, and their families have silver, so they can naturally afford to live in a good inn, and they thought that the officials who managed the camp could talk about whether they could go to Zhenjiang City to live, and when the time came, they went to take the exam, but they were told that they were not allowed. Anyone who leaves the camp without permission will be disqualified!

There are many rules in the camp, such as tidying up the beds in the tent, no open defecation, no frolicking, no scolding, and queuing during meals. Every day after dinner, everyone was forced to stand in line and stand in a neat queue. Then they were given a lecture and told them the rules. There were also people who gave them lessons, told about the heroic deeds of the Janissaries in attacking Liaodong and pacifying Mongolia, preached the idea of loyalty to the monarch and patriotism, and so on.

What Chen Zilong couldn't bear the most was the identity of the lecturer, many of them turned out to be some soldiers in the army, I heard that they were all supervisors of the Praetorian Guard, but they did not have official ranks, but their usual task in the army was to supervise and educate them, etc., many "supervisors" looked like poor people who had never read books, and they stammered in speech, but they wanted to give lectures to themselves, a scholar all over the world, which was really a joke.

The content of the lectures was even more messy, there were anecdotes in the army, there were battlefield battles, and there were even short stories from parents, some of the prison soldiers actually talked about their lives before becoming soldiers, how they were poor before they became soldiers, how they were oppressed by the gentry and landlords, and all kinds of misery were all heard by Chen Zilong with compassion in his heart.

"For the first time since joining the Janissaries, I had enough to eat, and my family had a plot of land, so that my parents and brothers were no longer hungry. When I went home to visit my relatives last year, my father told me that I must do a good job in the army, I must fight bravely for His Majesty, and whoever dares to oppose His Majesty will be killed! The prison soldier finally said, but Chen Zilong shuddered when he heard it!

ps: Four thousand words are no longer divided into chapters.