The Red Mansions

Chapter 110 Study, trade routes, imperial examinations
Although Jia Yun doesn't know much about the situation in the DPRK and China.

But he also knew that there would be no Donglin Party in this world, and naturally there would be no Qingshan Party.

Even if there is, it is estimated that it is still in its infancy and has not really become a climate.

However, there are many political factions formed due to geographical relations in the court, such as the Zhejiang Party, the Chu Party, the Qi Party, the Kun Party, and the Xuan Party.

These parties only use their own people, and no one else is used.

Not only do they not use it, but they also find excuses to frame people from other parties and attack each other, making the court full of chaos.

Even so, the combined power of these parties in the court is not very strong.

Now the ones who can really control the situation in the court are the old Xungui Group of Four Kings and Eight Dukes headed by Beijing County King Shui Rong, and the new Xungui Group headed by Prince Zhongshun.

One of the two sides stood behind the Supreme Emperor, and the other stood the New Emperor, representing different interests.

Therefore, before these two forces decide the winner, other political forces can only stand aside, the faster they jump, the faster they die.

Although Jia Yun wondered why so many court officials came to Qingshan Academy, he was obviously not qualified to inquire about it in his current capacity.

So he calmed down, stopped thinking about things, and followed Zhao Jin to see the head of the mountain.

However, what happened next was beyond Jia Yun's expectations.

Shan Chang saw him, but only made a face-to-face meeting. Then Shan Zhang handed him a note with a paragraph written on it, and then asked Zhao Jin to take him to the next room to write an stereotyped essay.

Jia Yun was at a loss, thinking that this might be a kind of assessment for him, so she sat down to write honestly.

Before writing the article, Jia Yun thought to herself: "If you want to teach scholars to pass the exam, the teacher must have a Jinshi reputation, and it is impossible for the college to be careless in treating top students."

Top students are valued no matter what college they are in.

There are a lot of scholars and so on, but juren is different. They are already qualified to be officials, and they are full of gold. The real achievement of the academy is the number of students who pass the provincial examination every time.

The larger the number, the more people who are likely to be admitted to Jinshi in the next year's general examination, the greater the reputation and prestige of the college, and the wider the source of students.

And the tilting of resources puts top students up first, just to ensure stability.

Through the assessment, the academy first selects the top students who are likely to pass the exam, and gives resources to them first, and then other students can be taken care of.

Therefore, when Jia Yun wrote the article, she paid special attention to it, and directly regarded this assessment as a provincial examination, demanding herself with high standards, and at the same time seeing how good she is.

Time passed slowly, and Jia Yun did not finish writing an article until the sun was setting.

This is the most devoted article he has written since he came to this world.

If this article does not allow him to pass the assessment, then there is no need to take the provincial examination this year, lest he go to embarrassment.

After leaving the room, Zhao Jin was no longer there, and a seven or eight-year-old book boy was guarding the door.

After paying respects to Jia Yun, the school boy said, "Brother, just put the test paper back in its original place. Someone will come over to review overnight. When brother comes tomorrow morning, he should know which gentleman he is going to school under."

After Jia Yun put the examination papers back in place and came out, the bookboy locked the door and sent Jia Yun out of the hall.

On the way down the mountain, the air is warm, and the scorching heat on the ground is transmitted to the soles of the feet through the cloth shoes.

The sky is blue, the brilliance of the setting sun is slowly fading, the mountains are green, and the air is filled with the fragrance of earth and flowers.

Jia Yun walked towards the dormitory at a leisurely pace. Although she had passed a big exam, she felt extraordinarily peaceful in her heart.

This is not because he has blind confidence in the test results, but because he has gained the confidence after passing on the knowledge of the wisdom fruit.

Before arriving at the dormitory, Zhou Kun was leaning against the door, biting a piece of grass in his mouth, bored.

Jia Yun invited Zhou Kun to go to the Zhuangzi for a drink. Zhou Kun shook his head and said, "I won't go today. I brought a letter home and asked the family to send a few maids over tomorrow, and then move to live in your Zhuangzi."

Jia Yun said: "Okay, that's the deal, we must move in tomorrow!"

Because it was getting late, Jia Yun didn't delay any longer. After making an appointment with Zhou Kun, she went straight down the mountain.

After the sun went down, the town below the mountain became lively. Jia Yun walked straight along the street, walked not far, then turned around and entered a small alley, and then stopped in front of a delicate courtyard.

The small door was closed tightly, and Jia Yun knocked lightly.

After a while, the door opened from the inside, revealing Suyun's delicate and pretty face.

"Brother Yun!" Su Yun's face brightened, she was at a loss for what to do, and then she shouted excitedly into the room: "Grandma, come out quickly, grandma, Brother Yun is here!"

Jia Yun laughed and said, "It's been a long time since I saw you, Suyun, you are more and more lively."

Su Yun smiled, stepped back a few steps, let Jia Yun in, and closed the door.

As soon as Jia Yun arrived in the courtyard, she saw Li Wan trotting out of a room in a hurry, his expression both excited and excited.

Jia Yun smiled and said, "Slow down, slow down, don't fall down!"

Li Wan, however, acted as if he hadn't heard it, but ran even faster. After a few steps, he rushed over and threw himself into Jia Yun's arms, hugged him tightly, closed his eyes, and said involuntarily:
"The surprise came so suddenly, my family didn't dream, did they?"

Jia Yun patted her on the shoulder and said with a smile: "How can it be a dream in broad daylight? But you just hug me like this right now, aren't you afraid that Brother Lang will see it?"

Li Wan shook his head in his arms and said: "Don't be afraid, you came at the right time. Brother Lan went to play at a classmate's house today, and will come back tomorrow."

Jia Yun nodded, picked her up by the waist, and said to Suyun next to her, "Young girl Yun, lead the way!"

……

Jia Yun embraced the sweating Li Wan and said, "Baochai wants to invite you to the Zhuangzi as a guest, why don't you come with me today?"

Seeing Li Wan's hesitation, he said again: "We always have to see each other. It will be good for us to get along well in the future if you have a good relationship with her. It's quite a generous move for her to take the initiative to ask you over. You can't hesitate."

Li Wan stuck out his tongue, licked his dry lips, pondered for a moment, nodded and said: "Okay, for the sake of your enemy, I'll go and be a little girl, and meet Miss Bao!"

Jia Yun knew that no matter what she said, she was still the grandma of the Jia family, so she seemed to be desperate to say such a thing, so she tightened her willow waist, and whispered: "After passing a test, you will come to my house in the future. convenient."

"Well, I don't want to live this kind of life in hiding." Li Wan said weakly, "Go and accompany Yun girl, she is the girl of Huang Hua who follows you, and her feelings for you are deep and pure."

Jia Yun nodded, put Li Wan down, and went to appease Suyun...

As night fell, there was finally a slight breeze in the air.

On the carriage, Jia Yun held Li Wan and Su Yun's hands and asked Li Wan, "Did you bring any other servants here?"

Li Wan smiled and said: "I took a few rough envoys, because Lan'er went to her classmate's house, the slave's house was worried, so I sent them to follow."

Jia Yun said with a smile: "Your way of doing this is also ridiculous. Some maids are not sent, but rough envoys are sent to follow. What are you talking about?"

"I'm thinking of Lan'er, I don't want him to break his body too early." Li Wan pursed his lips and said.

At the beginning, Li Wan's husband, Jia Zhu, also passed the examination as a scholar, but he was greedy for women, and the pressure of the scientific examination was too great, his body was weak, and he died of illness at a young age.

Jia Yun said: "Exercise is also very important. Let him run around so that he will be energetic."

Because it was a hired carriage and it was night, it was a lot slower to go back.

After arriving home, Xue Baochai took Li Wan and Suyun to the back house to talk, while Jia Yun bathed and changed clothes under the service of Xiang'er and other women.

After he went to the back house, he found that Xue Baochai and Li Wan were talking and laughing, and they got along fairly harmoniously, so he was relieved.

Silent all night.

Jia Yun went to the academy early the next day.

As for Li Wan's master and servant, in the afternoon, just ask the servants at home to send them back.

Castle Peak Academy, Middle School.

Jia Yun bowed to Wenchang Xiao, and from today onwards, he will learn the eight-legged art from Wenchang Xiao.

Castle Peak Academy is divided into upper, middle and lower branches.

Among them, the lower court mainly teaches students without fame, the middle court teaches students who have achieved fame as scholars, and the upper court teaches students who have achieved fame.

There are only about [-] students in the middle school, including Jia Yun, and only [-] scholars belong to the top students, all of whom study under the name of Wenchang Xiao.

Xiao Wenchang is a second-class Jinshi who is serious and honest. He is only in his 30s, so he is considered a very young Jinshi.

As for why he didn't become an official, but instead taught at Qingshan Academy, it can only be said that everyone has their own ambitions, and Jia Yun doesn't know the details.

When Jia Yun met with the head of the mountain yesterday, the head of the mountain once said that he doesn't need to wear a belt to repair, and the academy will give him ten taels of silver every month to ensure that he can live without worry.

But today when Jia Yun came over, she still brought a good inkstone and gave it to Xiao Wenchang.

Xiao Wenchang accepted it with a smile on his face. People are so sophisticated and need it everywhere. If you really listen to Shanchang’s words and don’t take anything with you, you will be confused in reading.

After Xiao Wenchang played with the inkstone for a while, he said, "You are the latest one. Everyone else has learned some skills about writing stereotyped essays, but you have not."

"So in the next month, in addition to writing three articles a day like everyone else, you also have to come to me to listen to lectures for half an hour. I will make corresponding adjustments based on your learning progress."

The benefits are immediately apparent!

Jia Yun had inquired that among the former students, those who came later would go directly to the students who came first to ask for notes.

But here with Jia Yun, Xiao Wenchang has to give him a lecture in person, which is not as effective as reading other people's notes.

So from the second day of June, Jia Yun went to listen to Xiao Wenchang's lecture every morning. After listening to the class, Xiao Wenchang would give him three topics, and he would write three stereotyped essays according to the topics, and hand them over to Xiao Wenchang for review the next day.

Xiao Wenchang is a second-class Jinshi after all, so his skills are naturally profound. Even though Jia Yun has received the Wisdom Fruit inheritance and has a lot of knowledge, he is very immature in the skills and methods of writing stereotyped essays.

But after being taught by Xiao Wenchang, Jia Yun's writing skills developed rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye, and even a month later, the article he wrote shocked even the head of the mountain.

So Xiao Wenchang, he taught more attentively, and spared no effort to find many classic articles for Jia Yun from previous years' exams for Jia Yun's reference, broadening her horizons.

As a result, Jia Yun became more comfortable on the road of learning.

In addition to studying, Jia Yun didn't care about the business of Xue's family.

He asked Xue Pan to invite dozens of accountants who are proficient in accounts to come to the manor to conduct closed accounting within eight years, that is, after Xue's father passed away, the accounts of the headquarters of Xue's business road.

The ledgers were piled up in several rooms, and it took nearly forty days to clean them up. There were many problems found, and naturally there were more problems that were not found.

Jia Yun never pays attention to the details, but only pays attention to the general direction.

According to calculations, in recent years, the chief managers of several provinces near the capital have embezzled at least 50 taels of silver on Xue's business route.

This is not a small sum!
On average, they embezzle nearly 6 to [-] taels of silver every year, plus the money embezzled by the deacons, shopkeepers, and clerks, it is estimated that the Xue family will lose at least more than [-] taels every year.

Then he looked at all parts of the country together, and at the end of the calculation, in the past ten years, the total amount of money embezzled by the Xue family was nearly 300 million taels.

You must know that this is pure profit, so it is wiped out every year. Even Xue Pan, who is completely ignorant of economic affairs, became angry and his eyes turned red when he heard the result.

"How courageous!" Xue Pan slapped the table and yelled, "I think the total property of my Xue family now is only two to three million taels. I didn't expect that these bastards not only greedy all the money the Xue family earned these years, but also He took a bite out of my old book too!"

The Xue family naturally had more than this little money before, after all, the Xue family's wealth is not just a joke.

But after Prince Zhongyi's accident, the Xue family also spent a lot of money to save their lives, otherwise the Xue family would have been gone.

Jia Yun ignored Xue Pan's incompetent roar, the so-called geese leave traces, and wind leaves its sound.

Although these managers, deacons, shopkeepers, etc. keep their accounting books flawless, it is still easy to find problems as long as they check carefully and peel back the cocoons.

Of course, the problems we are looking for are only big ones, and many of the details are hard to explain except by reasoning.

So Jia Yun turned to look at Liu Xianglian and Ni Er in the room, cupped her hands and said:

"The next step is to trouble Brother Liu and Second Brother Ni. You will take the manpower you recruited earlier and bring the account books to collect evidence all over the country. After the matter is completed, you will have the benefits of the two brothers!"

Liu Xianglian cupped her hands and said solemnly: "Brother Yun, don't worry, I also hate those things that eat inside and outside, and I will not give up until I investigate them to the bottom!"

Ni Er nodded, and said loudly: "These dogs have eaten the hearts of bears and leopards, and they have done things that even I, a rascal, can't see."

"You don't need to be told by Brother Yun, I will lead my brothers to do my best to help, and strive to bring those dogs to justice as soon as possible!"

Jia Yun stepped forward and shook the hands of the two of them: "The little brother is waiting for the good news of the two brothers in the capital, and I ask the two brothers to step up the investigation, and it is best to have a result before the year..."

Village head.

After sending Liu Xianglian and Ni Er away, Xue Pan asked Jia Yun, "Brother-in-law, can these two be useful?"

"It doesn't matter if it's useful or not." Jia Yun smiled and said, "Now that we have cleared up the account books, half of the success is already achieved. The other half is not with them, but with me."

"You?" Xue Pan asked suspiciously.

Jia Yun nodded and said: "That's right, it's me. If I fail to pass the Juren examination next month, then naturally there will be no way to be a Jinshi. We can only think of other ways."

"If I can pass the Jinshi exam, I will be qualified to find someone who can help us."

"As for the evidence that Brother Liu and Second Brother Ni went to investigate, it's just twigs and icing on the cake. It doesn't affect anything."

Xue Pan disturbed his head, and became even more puzzled: "Since they are useless, why should we waste money and ask them to investigate?"

Jia Yun smiled, but did not reply to Xue Pan's words.

Some things, it is enough for Jia Yun to be clear on her own, there is no need to explain so clearly to Xue Pan, this is not only useless, but harmful.

After arranging the business route of Xue's family, Jia Yun still studied in the academy, and at the same time, she didn't forget to weave contacts.

Now he is studying in the middle school, and the students here are all Jinshi. Through getting to know them, Jia Yun also got to know some classmates and friends who were officials in the court.

Whenever there is something in those people's family, Jia Yun will take the time to visit one or two. Although it is not possible to quickly establish a friendship, it is good to get acquainted, and even as long as the other party knows her name, it is considered a gain.

At the end of July, Jia Yun's family evacuated from Dazhu Village and returned to the capital.

Although they returned home, Xue Baochai and the others were not overjoyed, but rather nervous, because in a few days, the township examination was about to start.

Jia Yun himself is very relaxed. After nearly two months of surprise study, as long as there are no accidents, he is very sure that he will pass the exam.

He also persuaded Xue Baochai and the others countless times, but it was useless. Should they be nervous or nervous.

So Jia Yun stopped persuading them. Anyway, the exam is only a few days away. After the exam, they should calm down.

Because the township examination is mostly held in August, it is also called autumn examination and autumn examination.

Regular subjects in the imperial examinations are held regularly.

The exam is divided into three sessions, and each session takes three days. All three sessions need to enter the exam room one day in advance, that is, enter the exam hall on the eighth, eleventh, and fourteenth days of the first day, and leave the exam hall one day after the exam.

Unless a major event occurs in the country, the general test time will not change, so there is no need to issue a notice in advance, and candidates across the country will automatically prepare for the test.

In case of celebrations such as the imperial court's birthday and enthronement, there will be a temporary addition, called Enke.

The place of the examination is in the Gongyuan established in the southeast of each provincial capital. As the examination room for the rural examination, a large plaque with the word "Gongyuan" hangs in the middle of the gate.

August eighth.

Early in the morning, Jia Yun took a pen, ink, paper and inkstone, dry food, and came to the Gongyuan in Beizhili in a carriage to wait for the examination.

Northern Zhili has jurisdiction over Shuntian Mansion, Baoding Mansion, Hejian Mansion, Zhending Mansion, Shunde Mansion, Daming Mansion, Guangping Mansion, Yongping Mansion, Xuan Mansion, Yanqing Zhili Prefecture, and Baoan Zhili State, a total of nine prefectures and two State.

In other words, Jia Yun is about to compete with scholars from nine prefectures and two prefectures on the same stage. It is not an exaggeration to say that thousands of troops cross the single-plank bridge.

If you are on the list, you will be a serious Juren master from now on, and you will be among the "scholars" from then on.

At the local level, the social status is equal to that of magistrates, and they and their families are exempted from corvée and grain, and even exempted from the privilege of paying taxes on fields under their names.

In addition, at the same time, they are qualified to participate in the general examination and also have the qualifications to be an official, but they may not be able to be an official.

If you fail, you will naturally stop mentioning everything.

(Give me a general introduction to the content of the imperial examination, and I will not use the numbers. Book friends who want to read it can go to the old books to read.)
(End of this chapter)