Chen Yutai (Dalai), Liu Ruozai (Yinping), Cao Xun (Yunda) and Shi Kefa (Xianzhi) were all Jinshi in the first year of Chongzhen (1628) in terms of historical standards. These four people were in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.

In that turbulent era, Liu Ruozai was lucky and died in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen. Shi Kefa died a heroic death for his country. The other two, after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, no matter how forced or conscripted the Qing court, they remained in office for the rest of their lives.

In short, these are four bottom-line moves.

Of course, when the candidates gathered together, they naturally started talking about the exam.

"Brother Dalai has a good academic background and writes excellent articles. It is hard to say that Huiyuan will be in Brother Dalai's pocket this time."

"Xianzhi is joking. Brother Yu is a remnant of Donglin. If the imperial examination was not about to be overhauled this time, he would not want to take part in the examination."

"Um, Brother Dalai is only over thirty this year, so why is it the Donglin Party? Didn't the Donglin Party fall more than ten years ago? Is it possible that Brother Dalai is only a teenager?"

"Brother Yu was already sixteen years old when the Donglin Party conspired to kill Jinshang." With a wry smile, Chen Yutai said: "Brother Yu is from Wuxi. He entered Donglin Academy at the age of thirteen. At that time, he was a worshipper.

Mr. Cunzhi (Gao Panlong) is my teacher."

"Hey! What's the problem? It's just a part of the Donglin Party that is plotting rebellion. Mr. Cunzhi, for example, has no involvement at all. And I heard that Mr. Cunzhi is now in power in Japan and taxing Japan's land.

It has been reduced from 50% to 30%. There are countless people alive and the merits are immeasurable!"

"That is, the emperor is magnanimous and does not even pursue Mr. Cunzhi. Brother Dalai does not need to worry too much."

"Ahem, thank you for your kind words. Brother Yu, I don't ask for much. As long as I can win the top three and Jinshi in this examination, and be appointed as a county official in the future, and can benefit the local people, I will be satisfied. Hey, it still comes to mind.

The reform of the imperial examination is forcing me, everyone, have you ever done that test question? I am stupid, stupid brother, a question with a score of 100 points can only get 70 points at most."

"Hahaha, brother Dalai is joking. I can't finish the hundred questions in one and a half hours when I take that test!"

"That's right, the word questions are a bit better. Those numerical questions, oh, they look simple, but I can't figure it out."

"So, everyone must work hard in this subject. Otherwise, there will really be no chance in the future."

"Shh~" After drinking a glass of wine, Liu Ruozai said in a loud tone: "Actually, if you really want to talk about it, isn't the imperial court building new middle schools in various prefectures based on the model of Fangshan Middle School? It is said that if you can graduate from Fangshan Middle School, you can start

Is it disadvantageous for the test questions to come and go?"

"Hey, brother Yinping, it's easy to say, but the middle school in this city is not that easy to get into."

"Oh? Dear brother Xianzhi, how do you say this?"

Shi Kefa stood up and cupped his hands: "Everyone, I am from Kaifeng Prefecture in Henan Province. Because this is the provincial capital, Kaifeng Middle School and Primary School are also the first batch of new schools established by the imperial court.

As for the school building, teaching aids, and teachers, they are really good. But the students, hey!"

"What did the students say?"

"Everyone, Kaifeng Middle School enrolls 100 students in the first year. Everyone knows that after entering this school, it is almost guaranteed to become an official in the future, so naturally there are countless people who want to go to school. In order to show fairness, this school

, I took the entrance exam. The content of the exam was divided into four subjects, Chinese, mathematics, general knowledge, and physical education. I won’t talk about Chinese. I, the scholars, are not afraid of this, and neither are the children in our family. But mathematics

Together, we are far from the rivals of those sons of merchants. As for common sense, the test is actually some world history, geography of countries and dynasties published in the six major newspapers. But how many ordinary scholars can persist in reading newspapers every day?

?On the contrary, in order to understand the market conditions, the merchants insisted on reading more newspapers every day. And what about Laoshizi Sports? Those sons of merchants have been following their fathers from house to house since they were young. How can we scholars who study hard behind closed doors every day win?

So? So, when Kaifeng Middle School first enrolled students, more than 60% of the 100 admitted students were the sons of merchants. So I said that if you can't pass this subject, it will be extremely difficult to go to middle schools in various places for tutoring.

.”

"What Brother Xian Zhi said is quite good. Although the sons of merchants have an advantage in this examination method, it is still a fair examination after all."

Liu Ruozai stood up: "Brother Yu is from Anqing Prefecture, Nanzhili. In recent years, we in Nanzhili have discovered some shocking cases because King Xin came to serve as the censor. For example, the immigration funds were misappropriated, and the construction of

The six major newspapers have already published about the cutting of corners and materials in the new dam, so I won’t go into details.

Last year, His Highness King Xin traced the flow of stolen money and traced it to a big businessman in our Anqing Prefecture. This guy usually ran rampant in the countryside, had no law, and seemed extremely arrogant. Who knew that after being sneaked in by King Xin, his whole body became soft?

A puddle of mud, everything that should be said and should not be said. In addition to bribing local officials to get the new construction project of the Yangtze River Embankment in Anqing, this guy also bribed the principal of Anqing Middle School to get the test questions for him before the entrance exam.

Hahaha, everyone, if you pay attention to the six major newspapers, you should know what kind of temper His Highness King Xin is. Based on this clue, His Highness continued to investigate and almost brought down the entire Anqing middle school and elementary school principals and vice principals.

It’s all wasted!”

"Hey~" Cao Xun let out a long sigh: "My family has always been in contact with Mr. Yuan Ge, so my father often teaches me. The times are changing dramatically, and it is difficult for officials selected by the original imperial examination to cope with today's increasing

The more complicated the situation, I admit that. But we have to abolish the old and build a new one. If this new thing cannot guarantee fairness, it is not as good as the old one."

After listening in the corner for a while, Zhu Youxiao and others lost interest in continuing to eat and drink. After hurriedly paying the bill, they returned to the palace: During the Lantern Festival, they still had to return to the palace to accompany Queen Mother Guo before the Spring Festival.

"Youxiao, you have been a supervisor in the past few years, haven't you noticed the problems in education?"

"Uh, eldest sister." Zhu Youxiao smiled awkwardly: "Of course I noticed it."

"Then how to solve this problem? Although my sister is a woman, she also knows that if all the official careers are taken over by profiteers, there will be problems with the foundation of this country."

"Sister, my brother has been supervising the country for the second time after all. How come he doesn't know that once the class circulation channel is blocked, the class who have lost their upward path will abandon our royal family? But solving this problem is not an ordinary difficulty."

"Why is it so difficult? Let me listen."

"I have also written to my elder brother for instructions on these problems. My elder brother said that the root cause of these problems lies in the shortage of low-cost and high-quality educational resources.

Sister, in the Ming Dynasty's imperial examination, I only tested the Four Books and Five Classics. If students buy these books, their families can bear it. As for asking your husband for advice after buying the books, if you have money, ask for it right away. If you don't have money, just be honest.

Accumulation, if one generation does not accumulate enough, then it must be accumulated by two generations. But now with the Fangshan model, from primary school (four years) to middle school (four years), a total of eight years of study, Chinese, mathematics, general knowledge (physics, chemistry, biology, history, geography, etc.),

Extended physical education time and more subjects are definitely not affordable for ordinary farmers and workers today. Therefore, the eldest brother does not hesitate to invest 15% of the court's income into education every year and establishes compulsory education schools across the country, just to make ordinary people

Children of workers and farmers can afford to read.

However, the imperial court's current annual income is only over 100 million, and it invests more than 10 million every year. At first, it didn't feel like it was a big deal. In recent years, more and more schools have been established, and the annual expenditure to maintain the existing schools

, gnawed away 70-80% of the more than 10 million, and the progress of the new school naturally slowed down.

So, the problem now is that everyone understands that after the reform of the imperial examination system, if you want to be an official in the future, you can only pass the exam after finishing primary school and middle school under the Fangshan model. But the imperial court is unable to build more compulsory education.

School.

When high-quality educational resources are extremely scarce, people from all walks of life naturally try their best to provide their children with a good future. Big brother said that if the problem of resource shortage is not solved,

, even if you kill every one you catch, this kind of education cannot be banned."

"I see, then why doesn't eldest brother slow down a little and wait until the imperial court has the strength to fully roll out compulsory education before reforming the imperial examination?"

"This won't work, sister." Zhu Youxiao smiled bitterly: "Now our Ming Dynasty's technological development has reached a bottleneck. In the words of the eldest brother, in the early stages, he will give some guidance, and then gather some of our Ming's talented scientists.

can achieve great results. But now, with the promotion of steam engines, all walks of life across the country are developing, which requires a huge scientific research team. However, if the imperial examination does not change, the value orientation of the people in Ming Dynasty will not change. This number

It is impossible to form a scientific research team of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands."

Seeing that Zhu Huijuan was still a little confused, Zhu Youxiao continued to explain: "My younger brother is now the chief designer at Binhai Shipyard, but today's ship design requires thousands of sketches. With such a large workload, how can my younger brother do it alone?"

Can it be done? This must have an assistant. And if my brother’s assistant is from Fangshan School, I only need to give a brief outline, and he will know how to do it himself. If there are those who have never studied elementary physics, chemistry, etc.

Shipyard boy, you have to draw the sketch over and over again and explain it in detail, but you have already done this, what else do I need you to do? And this is just design. When it comes to production and final assembly, the workload will be huge

It is bigger and requires more assistants. Therefore, without tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of ordinary scientific researchers, it would be absolutely impossible for our Ming Dynasty to climb to new scientific and technological peaks."

"Oh, does this mean that the current problem is that in order to cultivate scientific researchers as quickly as possible, the imperial examination must be reformed. However, the imperial court is limited by financial resources and cannot popularize compulsory education. This leads to the scarcity of high-quality educational resources, and then education appears."

"Haha, the eldest sister is the eldest sister. This summary is very accurate."

"After all, it's still a matter of money. Is there a solution?"

"I have also asked my elder brother for instructions, and he said that this is a two-pronged approach. One is to establish several normal colleges to train teachers. The other is to introduce private capital to supplement the lack of financial resources of the imperial court."

"Yeah." He nodded slightly and his expression relaxed a little: "Lulu Lang, after my father passed away in the past, my eldest brother gave me some of Ciqing Palace's shares in Honghe Industrial and Fangshan Grocery Store. I think it's better to

Why don’t we use this money to open a school?”

"Okay, as long as the emperor gives permission, we will open a school. When the time comes, I will recruit my classmates from the military school to be part-time teachers."

"Well, I will take care of this after the Lantern Festival. Also!" Zhu Huijuan turned to glare at Zhu Youxiao and said: "I don't care what the eldest brother says, anyway, my attitude is the same as that of the sixth brother when it comes to education.

No mercy! If you ask me, anything done in education should be regarded as treason! If we don’t give hope to the lower class in education, then the lower class people will really abandon our Zhu family completely. This is a matter of national importance.

thing!"
Chapter completed!