Rebirth of the Ming Dynasty: Sixth Generation of Glory, I don't want it

"You know what, this is great. The palace examination will be held next month. I'll talk to my dad and see if I can write a letter to the emperor's grandfather. I'm leaving now, things can't wait for me."

Zhu Gaochi understood it immediately. The more he thought about it, the more he felt it was a good idea, and he wanted to run away in a hurry.

"anything else!"

Zhang Xin grabbed Zhu Gaochi's sleeve and narrowly avoided being pulled down by Zhu Gaochi, which scared everyone in the room half to death. Concubine Wu almost crawled on the ground to catch Zhang Xin.

There was another round of chaos and confusion.

The culprit Zhu Gaochi sat obediently opposite her and did not dare to move.

"Forget it, we can't finish talking about this in a short time. Why don't you go first, Prince? We can talk about it in the evening."

Zhang Xin was frightened by this and her heart beat faster. She decided not to get herself into trouble.

"Oh, if you're not in a hurry, do it tonight. If you're in a hurry, do it now. If you don't tell me, I'll always be worried about it."

Zhu Gaochi confirmed again.

"No hurry, I was just asking you about the flower tea that Prince Ning sent over. How did the discussion go?"

This is another thing Zhang Xin needs to know. She needs to contact Zhao for all matters outside.

Concubine Wu also didn't allow her to see him too often for fear that he would be tired.

But Zhao had no say on the tea issue, so Zhang Xin could only ask Zhu Gaochi for help.

The last time Zhu Gaochi came back, he told him that Prince Ning had sneaked over and he could only accommodate him in the inn. He didn't know whether he had gone back yet.

"Very good. You know what, Uncle Ning is very interesting. Very, very interesting. I'll tell you when I get home tonight. It will be our son's bedtime story."

Zhu Gaochi became very excited when talking about this.

"Cough-cough-"

Wu Shanggong coughed at the right time.

"We don't sleep together! Every day, what are you thinking about!"

Zhu Gaochi glared at Wu Shanggong who was in the way. He stood up much more slowly this time and walked out of the door before speeding up to walk out.

"The prince is really!"

Concubine Wu is getting old, and finally got to see the childish prince. She complained to Zhang Xin with a smile.

"Isn't it cute? Hahaha."

Zhang Xin laughed.

"It's scary. Princess, please take it easy and stop dragging the prince along. This man is careless and will always be the one to lead him."

"Okay, okay, what are we doing today?"

"It's time to set up the confinement room. Princess, just take a walk in the yard. When it's ready, come and take a look?"

"Row."

Zhang Xin obediently held up her sleeves and went for a walk in the yard. This early in the morning, she had solved another important issue in her mind for the future. She was actually very excited.

It was worth it that she spent so much energy thinking about the imperial examination.

He actually brought this matter forward by several decades at this moment. Based on Zhu Gaochi's usual efficiency, it is possible that this matter could be accomplished when his father-in-law ascended the throne.

Because of this incident, all the scholars in the world will look up to my father-in-law. It is hard to say whether Fang Xiaoru will obey his father-in-law at that time.

Even if Fang Xiaoru disagrees,

As long as this solution was proposed by the Prince of Yan's Mansion, this stubborn Fang should not have contradicted his father-in-law in person for the sake of the peace of the literati, causing his father-in-law to commit such a great sin of killing in anger, and causing the literati of the Yongle Dynasty to curse the royal family for so many years.

It’s obviously not my father-in-law’s fault nor the Ming Dynasty’s fault.

The dispute between northern and southern literati has always been a hidden danger in the Ming Dynasty, from the Hongwu Dynasty to the Xuande Dynasty.

In the third year of Hongwu, the country had just been founded and people were needed everywhere. My royal grandfather directly admitted 72 successful candidates as Jinshi.

Later, this group of Jinshi were not very useful, so the imperial examination was suspended and replaced by a recommendation system.

In this way, after more than ten years of tossing and turning, the emperor's grandfather discovered that after the recommendation system was implemented, the court was full of his own people, and there was not a single one of his own. No matter what he said, the people below could find an excuse to evade the question.

Therefore, in the 15th year of Hongwu, the imperial examination was restored, and it became a regular practice to hold the examination every three years.

The entire examination is progressive and is divided into four levels: Tongshi, Xiangshi, Huishi and Dianshi.

The examination process is extremely strict. Identity verification is required to enter the examination room, and there are also regulations on the items you can bring.

After the test, the test papers will be covered with blank names and copied, which completely eliminates the possibility of cheating.

Those who passed the Tongshi were called "Xiucai"; those who passed the Xiangshi were called "Juren";

All the candidates had to go to the capital to take part in the joint examination hosted by the Ministry of Rites. Only after passing the joint examination would the emperor's grandfather personally preside over the palace examination to select candidates. The palace examination would not disqualify candidates, but only rank them. Those selected were called "Jinshi".

Only the top three in the palace examination have special titles: the first is the top scholar, the second is the second place, and the third is the third place.

Originally, from ancient times to the present, from the day when the imperial examination was first established until before the An-Shi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty, all of them were from the north, and nine out of ten who passed the imperial examination were also from the north.

But after the Anshi Rebellion, until the end of the Tang Dynasty, there were frequent wars in the north, while the south was relatively peaceful.

The scholars in the south rose to prominence, and the number of southerners who passed the imperial examinations exceeded 30%.

Then the proportion began to tilt all the way until this year's Southern List, which was entirely made up of southerners, whether they were the top three or ordinary Jinshi, all of them were included.

The northerners had long been dissatisfied, and this dissatisfaction had accumulated from the end of the Tang Dynasty to the early Yuan Dynasty.

In order to appease the Han people, the Qianyuan Dynasty forcibly gave up their quota in the imperial examinations. In each session, there must be 25 Han people from the north and 25 Han people from the south.

This move allowed the Yuan Dynasty people, who were violent and did not know how to manage a country, to gain a foothold. Even in the Ming Dynasty, there were still a large number of Han people in the north who tended to favor the Yuan Dynasty.

Under the foreign rule of the Yuan Dynasty, these Han people could all become officials, but when the Han dynasty came, they were nothing, so they were naturally unhappy.

This time, my royal grandfather wanted to win over the hearts of the northern scholars, so he killed them indiscriminately. This appeased some of the northerners' resentment, but it was only a temporary solution and not a fundamental solution.

The fundamental problem of the serious imbalance between northern and southern literati in the Ming Dynasty was not resolved at all.

People in the north are not as good at studying as people in the south.

After the death of my royal grandfather.

In the class of Zhu Yunwen, there were nearly one hundred Jinshi candidates, and eighty percent of them were from the south.

During my father-in-law's 22-year reign, he selected nearly 2,000 Jinshi scholars, and more than 80% of them were from the south.

The entire court seemed to be dominated by southerners.

Zhang Xin didn’t think much of it at first. As far as the imperial court was concerned, it didn’t matter who became an official.

They also studied hard and got admitted.

Since you are a northerner and cannot perform as well as the southerners in the exam, then just study hard.

It was not until her son came to power and talked to her about it that she realized the huge impact this incident had.

The north has always been unstable.

The former Yuan Dynasty occupied this land for a hundred years and, in order to maintain stability, it gave many preferential policies to the northerners. However, by the Ming Dynasty, the northerners were indeed marginalized.

All the court policies were seriously skewed because there were a large number of southerners in the court and the northerners had no say.

The more stable the south is, the more chaotic the north is.

The south gets richer and the north gets poorer.

Needless to say, the people in the north were unwilling to surrender and the Northern Yuan Dynasty was ready to make moves.

So this is not simply a question of who can become an official if they have studied for a longer time. It is a long-term political issue concerning stabilizing the country, resisting the Northern Yuan Dynasty, calming the people's hearts, and pacifying the north.

This is why my father-in-law’s Yongle Dynasty had to keep fighting wars. If the Northern Yuan Dynasty was not completely defeated, the Northern Yuan Dynasty would always think they could make a comeback.

The war had already emptied the national treasury, and in order to find Zhu Yunwen, a large number of troops had to be mobilized to sail to the West.

During the 22 years that Zhu Gaochi served as the crown prince during the Yongle period, he worried about money every day.

While his father-in-law was spending money on the front line, he was looking for money in the rear.

Zhang Xin was extremely grateful that she had returned a few years earlier, and that everything could still be turned around before the situation got worse.

The idea of ​​dividing the volume into north and south was proposed by Yang Shiqi in the year Zhu Gaochi ascended the throne.

Zhu Gaochi agreed with it very much, but before he could implement it, he fell.

The time when he brought it up again was when his son Zhanji was alive. In the second year of Xuande, the north-south separation system was implemented, and Jinshi were admitted according to the ratio of "six in the south and four in the north". Even though the students in the south were dissatisfied at that time, it was kept within a very small range.

It was at that time that the North began to show a trend of returning home.

The so-called Renzong and Xuanzong's Reign is also the highest praise given by literati.

[Small science - the concrete example of the North-South theory: Among the Eight Great Masters of Tang and Song Dynasties (Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan of the Tang Dynasty; Su Shi, Su Xun, Su Zhe, Wang Anshi, Zeng Gong, and Ouyang Xiu of the Song Dynasty), except for Han Yu (from Luoyang, Henan today) and Liu Zongyuan (from Yuncheng, Shanxi today), who were both from the north, all of them were from the south. ]