Regarding the matter of tax collection, Jiang Xinghuo is very concerned.

Needless to say, even if the commercial road started to be built in Zhejiang as a pilot, it also needs to be maintained by the tax guards, and at the same time, the imperial power will inevitably face a lot of problems in the countryside, and because the domestic business network has just begun to be built, the tax must be grasped from scratch, so it is more necessary to pay attention to it.

And the maritime trade is slightly better.

At present, the taxation of maritime trade, because the Judicial Temple has revised the provisions of the Tianxian of the sea ban, so the era of strict sea ban in the Hongwu era is gone, and the tariff is showing a gradual recovery of growth.

Based on the existing three city departments of Ningbo, Quanzhou, and Guangzhou, Zhao Yi began to gradually rectify and train officials and establish a complete anti-smuggling fleet, which required a large number of manpower.

The existing manpower is definitely not enough.

And the main source of talent in Jiang Xinghuo's hands is the prison students who graduated from the senior school of Guozijian "Frank Hall", these people are all studying from childhood to adulthood, and some of them have accumulated experience and ability from observing politics (similar to internships) when they are about to graduate.

However, these people cannot be completely supplemented into the large number of vacant positions, because these prisoners are all rushing to become officials, especially when Beijing officials, such talents are not too few but very important, if there is no suitable opportunity, it is not easy to use them in other places.

To this end, Jiang Xinghuo put forward a bold reform proposal.

Well, it's still in the name of Lao Zhu.

When it comes to this, I want to briefly talk about Lao Zhu's attitude towards the imperial examination, highlighting a capriciousness.

During the period of King Wu, Lao Zhu issued an edict to prepare for the opening of the imperial examination, and said cruelly, "so that Chinese and foreign scholars can enter through the imperial examination, and those who are not subject to the imperial examination will not be able to be officials".

But the slap in the face soon came, when Hongwu was six years old, Lao Zhu found out that the people recruited by the imperial examination can be used with a pen, but they can't really do things, so he said, "Even if it is said that there are many young people who have taken it, there are few people who can do what they have learned, but they have ordered the inspectors to raise talents, and they don't need to boycott the imperial examination", and the imperial examination was temporarily deposed.

But what is the use of not using the imperial examination? Relying on Guozijian alone, it is definitely not possible, the territory of the Ming Dynasty is too big, so we have to give other scholars who are far away from the capital area a way out.

Moreover, the Hu Weiyong case and the empty seal case occurred one after another, and the official vacancies were really serious.

Therefore, Lao Zhu ordered the restoration of the imperial examination system in the fifteenth year of Hongwu, and the Beijing Division and the political envoys held the township examination once every three years, and those who were admitted were the lifters, and the next year they would be tested in the Beijing Division, and the admitted ones were Jinshi, and they could become officials immediately after winning the Jinshi.

This situation has continued to this day.

But as the so-called thousands of troops and horses crowd the single-plank bridge, Jinshi is a smooth road to the sky, but it is much more difficult to raise people who want to be officials.

What is obvious is that although this kind of personnel system in which the future is determined by examinations is fair, there is a fact that the actual efficiency is low, which is not conducive to tapping the potential of talented people and arousing the enthusiasm of those who have fallen off the list.

This lack of ability may be partially compensated for through the rotation training and targeted training of the Daming Administrative School, but the institutional shortcomings are obviously not completely compensable.

And right now, there is indeed a shortage of local grassroots officials who are unwilling to engage in the positions of Jinshi and Guozi Prison Supervisors, so what should I do?

The promotion of a small official to an official is not even a thought, the current resistance is not ordinarily large, so it can only be empty?

But although it's empty, you can't learn to sell the official mantle, right?

The method given by Jiang Xinghuo is to increase the opportunities for people to become officials and open up new upward channels.

"The employment of the country wants it to be famous, to establish meritorious deeds, in order to achieve prosperity together, not in vain to the short length of a day, so it is a lifelong rule, and therefore there is some stagnation in the meantime. Today, from the state and county officials, most of them are all subjects. And the subject score, Jinshi ranks third, and lifts people to seventh, the so-called Jinshi lifts people, but if this is the tool of the Gangluo, in order to observe what other days are, not to say that this must be virtuous in the other. And today's eunuchs, whose people are from the background, are very thin.

Jinshi may not all be virtuous, lifting people may not be virtuous, as for promotion, then the lowest of the Jinshi's performance, is better than the highest of the performance, that is, fortunately one or two with the Jinshi promotion, but the day after that, the Jinshi's less and the promotion is higher, the more and the promotion is inferior. This is the case, so that the morale of the people is always strong, and the popularity of the people is often timid. The surplus is arrogant, and every attack is less substantial; The cowardly are depressed, and they fall and sweat.

The minister thinks that if he wants to rule the road, it is advisable to break the shackles, and to open up the road to fame, all those who are selected are only awarded officials with qualifications at the beginning, and after the official is awarded, they only test their political achievements, and do not need to ask their origins. Lifting people and being inferior is the last, and it is not necessarily inferior that is, it is okay to be a jinshi first.

The officials visit on their own, but they are meritocracy, and a case of promotion must not be low. If the husband lifts people and Jinshi together, then Jinshi does not dare to be arrogant and there will be more good governance; If the Jinshi does not dare to be arrogant, everyone will benefit themselves, and there will be more good governance; If there is more good governance, the people will be safe, and if the people are safe, the country will be rich, and education will be feasible.

Yongle is prosperous, but there are a few hopes. ”

Jiang Xinghuo's writing is quite level, first stating the current situation of the problem, then stating the reasons for reforming the system, then talking about specific methods, and finally looking forward to the future.

Especially the penultimate paragraph, to put it bluntly, is the catfish effect.

Zhu Di is very happy to see it, the solution to the practical problem is a good way, Zhu Di's head is not so rigid, let the person be an official, in his opinion, there is nothing wrong, it does not necessarily have to be a jinshi, and the education level of the person in the north is already very high.

Therefore, Zhu Di waved his pen and instructed, "The ancestors did not restrict their qualifications, but recently the employment system of the country and the dynasty has caused people to be useless and not prosperous.

In the local personnel system, Jiang Xinghuo has also made a lot of efforts.

At the prefectural and state levels, the status quo is still maintained, but for the grass-roots officials at the county level, in order to cooperate with the action of the imperial power to go to the countryside, the appointment of new people from grass-roots officials such as experience, zhaoma, master book, and canonical history has been opened, but it is necessary to ensure that the employment of people in different places, that is, the place of residence and the place of office of the person must be at least one political envoy, that is, the flow of officials is still maintained, but the qualification requirements are reduced, saving the long time of queuing for the assignment, and at the same time, this is to prevent this policy from becoming a measure to strengthen local control in turn.

At the same time, a certain amount of reform has also been made to the recusal system, that is, flexible avoidance, for officials who do not enter the stream and basically only have responsibilities and no oil and water, such as school officials, teachers, post officials, lock and dam officials, etc., when there is no position, they are allowed to serve in 2-3 prefectures, and it is no longer mandatory to arrange them in other political envoys.

Of course, if there is a relaxation of the system, then there must be a tightening of the place, and the changes made in order to expand the scope and efficiency of employment must be matched in supervision.

The scope of the inspection of the Metropolitan Procuratorate and the Ministry of Officials has also been expanded accordingly.

In the past, general inspections were usually carried out only at the grass-roots level such as the magistrate county, but now, since the chief officials and assistant officials of other grass-roots units have enjoyed the treatment of relaxed policies, they have to bear corresponding obligations, and these grass-roots officials are directly responsible for the management of civil affairs at the local level, even if they are not the "soil emperors", they are also "soil kings", and there are many people who flaunt their military power in the localities, and there are also many evildoers, so the personnel inspection system must be expanded to this level.

According to the opinions on the revision of this system, the Ministry of Officials and the Metropolitan Procuratorate also revised the corresponding system, and announced it to the world in the "Di Bao".

"The story of the impeachment of the Metropolitan Procuratorate is not applied to the state and county officials, but not to the second and the teaching positions, although there are unscrupulous people in the middle, they will be deposed for three years in the distance, and they will be promoted to the official in the near future, which is lenient and not enough to show punishment. Now the Metropolitan Procuratorate and the Ministry of Officials, but the supervision, then belong to the two of the following crimes are significant, follow the order to arrest and question, and those who are poor are dismissed and idle, and have a question every quarter for repetition. ”

According to Jiang Xinghuo's "technique of eliminating stupidity and treachery", since the effect of Jingcha is good, then the reform of the rule of officials, with the end of the Taixue Society, the change of the direction of public opinion in the entire government and the opposition has also begun to advance unstoppable.

One is less criticized, the second is to revitalize discipline, the third is to reinforce the edict, and the fourth is to verify the name and truth, one by one, and it has been gradually implemented.

Article 4 of the Rule, which lays down redundant personnel in various yamen, restricts the power of 'hidden officials', and severely punishes the theft and sale of state materials, has caused a lot of chaos in the capital.

But it's like a house that has a new owner and must be cleaned, even if it's a little temporary dusty, it's inevitable.

Many small officials who came in by going through the relationship were dismissed, and the officials who stole and sold the materials of the national warehouse before were uprooted by the Jinyi Guard, although it was not comparable to the scale of the big case at that time in the Hongwu Dynasty, but it was also a lot of involvement, and there was no need to worry about the vacant position, and someone would naturally make up for it.

In Daming, there is no shortage of people who want to be officials.

So many scholars have studied hard for I don't know how many years, just to become officials.

In fact, for them, no matter how many positions there are in the imperial court, they can be filled, and there is no phenomenon that there are officials and no one does it, unless it is the terrifying Lianxing case during the Hongwu Dynasty, which scares people.

Through the examination of the law and the Beijing inspection, with a thorny radish in one hand and a bloody stick in the other, he first focused on beating the officials in Beijing, and then rectified the atmosphere of the eunuch field, cleared the redundant personnel, supplemented the grassroots officials, and the rest was a supplement to the serious Beijing officials.

This point, naturally, depends on this year's Jiashenko will try.

In the history of Jiang Xinghuo's previous life, the Jiashenke examination was a well-known and doubtful case, the chief examiners at that time were Xie Jin and Huang Huai, and the examiners were Hu Guang, Hu Yan, Yang Shiqi, and Jin Youzi.

Everyone in the world thinks that Liu Ziqin should have been the champion, but because the examiner Xie Jin doesn't like Liu Ziqin, he thinks that he has no one in his eyes and is arrogant (same-sex repulsion?). So he privately leaked the exam questions to Zeng Di, resulting in Zeng Di's high school champion, Liu Ziqin was only the twelfth in the second grade, and Zeng Di was a Yongfeng person and Xie Jin had an old relationship, Zhou Shu, Zhou Yujian, who was both a disciple of Zeng Di and a fellow villager of Xie Jin, Jishui, this ranking was generally considered by the government and the opposition to cultivate Xie Jin's cronies to envelop the party, which buried a big thunder for Xie Jin's later life and career.

At the same time, candidates from Jiangxi still maintained a strong position, occupying the top seven in this subject, including three first-class jinshi: Zeng Di (Yongfeng), Zhou Shu (Jishui), Zhou Mengjian (Jishui), and the top four second-class jinshi: Yang Xiang (Taihe), Song Zihuan (Luling), Wang Xun (Ji'an), Wang Zhi (Taihe).

In terms of the overall admission ratio, Jiangxi people also account for as much as 30%.

And in this time and space, Xie Jin and Huang Huai were both released, and at this time, Xie Jin was returning to his hometown for his teacher Dong Lun, so it was not his turn to step on Jiashenke's thunder.

According to the Ming system, the township examination Chinese-style lifter entered Beijing in February to participate in the examination presided over by the Ministry of Rites, and the lifters who were not selected in the previous sessions of the examination can also take the exam together.

Therefore, the three months that the eldest prince had been thinking about behind closed doors had not yet ended, and the chief examiner was not surprisingly appointed to Yao Guangxiao and Song Li, and the marking officer was the third Yang of the cabinet.

Well, Jiang Xinghuo really didn't do anything to Yang Shiqi.

There is a saying in this, that is, the rules of the imperial examination in the early Ming Dynasty were completely different from those after the middle of the Ming Dynasty.

For example, the number of examiners has not changed, but in the late Ming Dynasty, it must have been used by the cabinet to cultivate party henchmen.

In Xuande and orthodoxy, it is required that the three products of Zhengqing and the bachelor of the Hanlin Academy, after the Hongli, generally one scholar, one bachelor of the Hanlin Academy, or "the scholar is the prime minister, or the two members of the squire".

But at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, it was the same examiner who was not limited to grade and background, and was originally elected by the Ministry of Rites, and the officials of the Hanlin Academy, Beijing officials, and instructors could all be on.

Well, the key point, "Ministry of Rites Election".

The examination is one of the key tasks of the Ministry of Rites, and the Ministry of Rites is now in the hands of the Fa Reform faction, so who is elected, as long as the emperor does not interfere, it is Jiang Xinghuo who has the final say.

Will try to mess up or not, the national teacher has the final say.

But the national teacher was embarrassed to go in person, so he let the black-clothed prime minister with deep qualifications go to the court, and with a waiter from the Ministry of Rites, no one could find anything wrong.

The Taixue meeting that ended on the twenty-sixth day of the first month of the second year of Yongle did not take a few days.

On the eighth day of the second month, the Yongle Emperor ordered the Ministry of Rites Shangshu Zhuo Jing to go to the Confucian Temple to worship the great sage and the holy master Confucius.

On the ninth day of the second lunar month, Yao Guangxiao, Song Li, Sanyang and others all followed the candidates into the examination room.

The Jiashenko examination is no different from the past in terms of system, the main difference is in the exam questions.

The procedures such as sealing, transcription, proofreading, marking, and filling in the list during the examination are the same as those of the township examination, the venue is in the Gongyuan of Confucius Temple in Nanjing, and the candidates are all taking the exam in a single room, and they are searched before entering, and each person is given three candles, and the door is immediately blocked after entering, and the candidates answer the questions inside, and they also rest in the evening.

There are two boards in the single room, sitting is a chair, unfolding is a bed, and there is a toilet underneath, eating, drinking, and Lazar are all in it, and you have to prepare your own food, because it lasts for many days, so you generally bring food that is not easy to spoil, usually flatbread and rice, and then with bacon and pickles, otherwise, if the food is rancid, and the stomach is thin, then you have to sleep on the toilet at night.

In short, since the exam began on the ninth day of the second month, the Confucius Temple Tribute Courtyard was locked, and the outside was surrounded by armor soldiers, and even if the capital was about to be breached, the people inside could not come out.

Anyway, Yao Guangxiao, Song Li, and Sanyang of the cabinet, all had to stay in the marking room of the examination room at this time, and no one could get out, and only Hu Guang was left in the cabinet to work.

It's harder over there, but it's not a good judgment.

Although the examination starts on the ninth day of the first month, it is generally necessary to start filling in the list on the 25th and 26th, and the list must be released on the 29th (non-leap month), and the time is very tight.

Elimination, in fact, has started since the ninth day of the first month.

In the first test, there are three meanings (limited to 300 words) and four meanings (limited to 500 words) in the five books (new "Xunzi").

Although there is no stipulated time to write the first scripture in the exam time, theoretically only need to hand it in before the second session, but the earlier you submit it, the greater the probability of winning the exam in theory, because the ranking and screening are generally done early.

Of course, the examiners can't see the exam papers they received for the time being, and there are still several checkpoints after the scholars hand in the papers.

The first level is the sealing officer, and the receiving officer classifies the scriptures according to the governance, and then sends it to the sealing officer to seal it, and stamps the corner of the name on the test paper with the seal seal.

The second level is the examiner, who uses a red pen to copy the test paper without missing words, and the examiner only looks at the copy of the copy, and the original is sealed separately for safekeeping, which is to prevent the marker from identifying the handwriting and eliminate the possibility of collusion outside the field.

At the same time, the recording officer needs to screen out all the non-compliant papers that do not pay attention to avoid the emperor's secrets, describe personal information such as the family number, make special marks on the surface of the volume, do not meet the number of words, and carry scratch paper, etc., which are all screened out, this is the examination regulations, and has nothing to do with the content, it doesn't matter whether you write well or not, as long as you violate the rules, then you must be screened out.

The third level is to read the official, that is to say, the recorded copy will also be read by a special person responsible for the reading officer, one person reads the red scroll, one person reads the ink scroll, two people in a group, must read word by word, to ensure that nothing goes wrong.

In this way, after the three checkpoints of sealing, recording and reading, the copy of the test paper with no name, no mark and no omission will be handed over to the examiner.

And because it is necessary to ensure the fairness and justice of the examination, the same answer sheet often needs to be corrected by several examiners respectively, the actual workload is very, very large, and the work for a long time will definitely be dizzy and make mistakes, resulting in unfairness to the candidates who will mark the papers, so not all the test papers are Yao Guangxiao, Song Li and Sanyang to mark the papers, there are many "same examiners".

These "fellow examiners" are basically members of the Hanlin Academy who were dragged out of the editing team of the "Yongle Canon".

The evaluation of the examination paper is carried out after the first examination, and the two examiners, the three marking officers and dozens of the same examiners use the same method in the evaluation process to face the same test paper, mainly including comparative evaluation method, word and sentence evaluation method, evidence examination evaluation method, and Jingyi evaluation method.

And not only are the examiners not allowed to go out of the courtyard, but in order to prevent contact with each other, the system stipulates that the same examiners who judge different topics cannot interact with each other, and they have to eat, drink, and laze in their own rooms.

It can only be said that the candidates are painful, and the examiners are also very painful, starting from the evening of the ninth day of the new year, they have to work all night to review the test papers, and the workload is too large, so it is basically day and night.

In the first exam, the examination is the Five Books and the Five Classics, so the same examiners are divided into two groups, one is the Five Books, and the other is the Five Classics, and the number of examiners in this different group is assigned according to their respective areas of expertise, and it is also related to the questions.

Belch. There is another point that is usually not mentioned on the surface, but it does exist, and that is the influence of the popularity of the imperial examination.

Scholars' choice of He Jing in the Five Classics as this scripture is often related to his family origins, teachers, and county schools where he studied, but from the analysis of big data, the number of people who study "Poems", "Yi" and "Shu" is far greater than that of "The Book of Rites" and "Spring and Autumn" (there is a digression here, it should have been tested for the Six Classics, but the "Book of Music" has been lost), which is also related to the fact that the number of words and difficulty of the first three are much simpler than the latter two, especially the subtle words of "Spring and Autumn", which often make the scholars who specialize in it difficult to retreat.

It is precisely because of this phenomenon that when the questions are generally presented in the imperial examination, they will also be biased towards the "Book of Rites" and "Spring and Autumn" or not biased.

In other words, since the imperial court knows what the subjects that the scholars learn the most, they can actually artificially control the "big and small years", which is a bit of a gambling on luck.

And this kind of "big and small year", scholars are often judged by the needs of the imperial court for employment.

This year, because the imperial court has a great demand for employing people, the scholars generally believe that the probability of the first test of "Poems", "Yi" and "Shu" is far greater than that of "The Book of Rites" and "Spring and Autumn", because this will cause a "big year" for the imperial examination.

It's a pity that Jiang Xinghuo is not a person who likes to play according to routines.

Therefore, this year's Five Classics focus on "Spring and Autumn", and the Five Books focus on "Xunzi".

Because it is mainly the "same examiner" who is responsible for marking the test papers, and the chief examiner and the marking officer are responsible for the later review, so the "same examiner" is actually the person who really controls the fate of the lifters, they usually use the "green pen" to write comments, the better the general comment, the higher the probability of the test, usually the average number of words is about 30 words, if a bunch of praise is written, it means that the "same examiner" gambled on his career to recommend the candidate's paper to the marking officer, and the general marking officer will focus on it.

However, because of the limited number of places, generally more than 300 people will be admitted to the top three jinshi, so the marking officer and the final decision examiner are cautious, and will screen out a piece of the papers recommended by dozens of "same examiners", and then select the best of the best from the remaining papers to rank the first exam.

On February 12, the second year of Yongle, the second exam, the examination theory (limited to 600 words), five sentences, edicts, edicts, and table answers, the test theory is the meaning of the argumentative essay, and the topic is also from the five books and five classics, but it is different from the first one, you don't need to answer with eight strands, whatever you want to answer, the prose can be written, the focus is on the quality of the argumentative essay itself; The judgment is an administrative document, that is, the approval of the various yamen in Beijing on the documents submitted by the lower-level units, Jiang Xinghuo discussed with the old monk that the documents of the two presidents of the law change affairs yamen, two six departments, and one temple can be regarded as screening practical talents for the country; Edicts, edicts, and tables are the emperor's official document writing, requiring scholars to imitate the words and deeds of the superiors, and write the corresponding edicts, edicts, and tables, which are generally Han edicts, Tang edicts, and Song tables, that is to say, scenario simulation, to write the emperor's official documents to the past dynasties, which is to avoid someone from angering the current emperor, this year's three topics are "Proposed Han Wu Emperor and the Western Regions Dayue Clan Edicts", "Proposed Tang Dynasty to Zhang Jiuling as the Chinese Book Order", "Proposed Song Qunchen He Xiaozong to do the Respect for Heaven Chart".

February 15, the third exam.

The third session is much simpler, just a question, a policy question, the test is the current policy (more than 1000 words), the policy question requires the text to be flat and straightforward, not yet literary.

Asking is to start with "ask", give a piece of material, and after reading the material, write your own understanding.

Generally speaking, the question is an additional question, and in terms of importance, the test will focus on the eight strands of the first Jingyi, and then the second test judgment and edict, edict, and table are optional, and finally the policy question.

But this year is different, this year, before the exam, it was clearly said that the three are of the same importance, which means that the proportion of the score of the question has increased.

Sure enough, the topic of this year's policy question is "On the National Policy of the Song Dynasty and the Four Peoples of the Song Dynasty and the Opening of the Sea and the Prosperity of the Country".

It's about the Song Dynasty, but all the people who participated in the examination know that this is today's Ming Dynasty.

And since Jiashenke's examination, from the organizer to the examiner, are all people who change the law, then naturally the "standard answer" of this question or the examiner's preference is needless to say.

Of course, it is also possible that the "fellow examiner" who marked the paper was a conservative and secretly dismissed the paper on the policy that tended to change the law, but this probability is always unlikely.

Is there a head iron? There are, but this is something that you can't get along with.

Therefore, the vast majority of Juzi, whether they are really inclined to change the law, or for their own future, have chosen to write about the benefits of these Song Dynasty national policies.

And this is one of the purposes of mastering the imperial examination, you don't care if you are reluctant or not, as long as you write, you will be labeled as a "law changer" in the future, and if the imperial examination is always this standard, then in the future, the scholars of the Ming Dynasty will definitely focus on studying these things of changing the law, and their thoughts and actions will naturally tend to change the law. In addition, Guozijian has now fully transformed the ideological trend, and the Daming Administrative School is completely controlled by Jiang Xinghuo, and the three employment channels are under control, so the future is a change of law.

On February 16, after handing in the papers, for the candidates of Jiashenke, even if this imperial examination is temporarily over, the next thing is completely out of their control.

On February 25th, all the examiners gathered together, filled in the number of the lined test papers, and then locked the door, and numbered the red and ink papers one by one.

On February 26, Yao Guangxiao and others gathered together again and began to fill in the second list.

On February 27, the first list, also known as the main list, was filled in from the sixth place, and the decision of the sixth to the eighteenth place was mainly in the hands of the examiner, and the rest was directly reported to Zhu Di and Jiang Xinghuo, who were already waiting in the palace.

(End of chapter)