Father can be an enemy country

Chapter 575 Imperial Examination Reform
When the fourth brother got the order, Zhu Yuanzhang looked at the sullen prince and said slowly:
"We know that you want to be a Mingjun. But to be a Mingjun, you have to have virtuous ministers. Right now, these ministers are either rebellious ministers and thieves who went ashore for nothing, or the remnants of the former Yuan Dynasty turned to the current dynasty. How can there be any integrity? What shame?"

"Father, these words are too absolute. For example, Mr. Song is not like this." The prince said softly.

"Mr. Song is the same!" Zhu Yuanzhang said coldly: "He is a man of morality, but he wants to reform Daming, you, and even us according to what Confucius did 2000 years ago! He is better than those who are corrupt. Seniors, it's even more terrifying!"

"..." The prince bowed his head and remained silent.On such a matter of principle, he cannot back down unconditionally.

"We don't expect the current group of people to be upright and honest. As long as we scare them not to mess around and maintain the court, it will be enough." Zhu Yuanzhang sighed and looked at the silent people aside. The old six said:
"Our hope is in the next generation."

"Ah?" Lao Liu was so shocked that he couldn't open his mouth from ear to ear.

"Ah, what, we're not talking about you, but about the reform of the imperial examination system that you told us about years ago!" Zhu Yuanzhang slapped the table and said firmly, "We want to train a group of different officials ourselves!"

"Oh." Only then did Lao Liu heave a sigh of relief, he thought that his father was going to treat himself like an animal again.

"That's it." The crown prince also looked a little embarrassed, and asked: "How does the father plan to change the system?"

"In the past two months, we have personally read all the "Election Records" of the previous dynasty, as well as related and irrelevant history books, and we have also read a lot." Zhu Yuanzhang pointed to his reading glasses and said: "Old six, again It needs to be paired with a new one.”

"That's simple." Lao Liu nodded and said, "I'll send someone to have an optometry for Father later."

"Yes." Zhu Yuanzhang nodded slightly and said:
"We found that what Lao Liu said was right. Song Lian and the others just lied to us. Jinshi is the imperial examination, and the imperial examination is a Jinshi. There are many subjects such as Law, Mingzi, and Mingshu, and many people applied for each subject, and many talents emerged."

"In the 280th year of Xiangguo in the Tang Dynasty, Jinshi opened 260 subjects four times, with an average of only 26 Jinshi candidates for each subject!" Zhu Yuanzhang obviously worked hard, and said like a treasure:
"Because only one or two Jinshi students are admitted out of a hundred people in each subject. And the Mingjing Department can enroll one or two people out of ten in each subject. No wonder people at that time said 'thirty old Mingjing, fifty young Jinshi'." .”

After a pause, he sneered and said, "Perhaps in the eyes of scholars, Jinshi is valuable because of this. But in the eyes of the emperor, what is the use of this little Jinshi? And he is still so young, so Jinshi is a complete failure. It is far less successful than Ming Jing Ke!"

"Father, you can't say that." The prince smiled wryly, and in order to keep his status in Jinshi, he had to sing the opposite:

"Precisely because the Jinshi subject is the most difficult, the smartest people in the world are all candidates for Jinshi. Therefore, those selected from the Jinshi subject are all the best talents!"

"Can it be that these best talents cannot stand out if they take the economics exam?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked rhetorically.

"It's definitely possible to pass the exam, but the gap can't be widened." The prince smiled wryly.

"Why do we need an exam to sort people into different grades?" Lao Liu endured it again and again, and finally couldn't help but said:
"It's not that the imperial court has no assessment and no big plans. Shouldn't they be judged by their actual achievements?"

"This..." The prince was at a loss for words for a moment, what the sixth child said completely jumped out of his inherent cognition.

"What do you mean, Lao Liu?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked in a deep voice.

"Since scholars tend to focus on Jinshi subjects, then simply cancel the Jinshi subjects and only leave the Ming Jing, Ming Dharma, Ming Shu and the like. Everyone is a Ming scholar, so no one can look down on anyone else, right?" said the old man. Six pairs of scholars used knives, and they were always more ruthless than his father.

"..." The prince was stunned when he heard the words, he still wanted to keep the special status of the Jinshi department, but the sixth son shouted to cancel the Jinshi department directly?
"Well, that's a good idea." On the contrary, Zhu Yuanzhang didn't have those rules and regulations, and he didn't believe in any authority—because no authority could predict it. How could he, a commoner with a beggar background, win the world?

So he only trusts his own judgment.

"They are no longer Jinshi, so no one has the right to discriminate against others." This is the judgment of Boss Zhu.

"You can all be Scholars, and you can't discriminate against others." Zhu Zhen's mentality is much more sunny than his father's.

"For example, the Department of Mingjing can award Jinshi of Mingjing, the department of Mingfa can award Jinshi of Mingfa, the department of Minggong can award Jinshi of Minggong, and the department of Mingshu can award Jinshi of Mingsu..."

"Ming Engineering?" Zhu Yuanzhang was not easy to fool, and he was keenly aware that something had slipped in.

"Shouldn't they correspond to the six ministries and select practical talents for the court?" Zhu Zhen said with a face of course: "The Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of War, and the Ministry of Rites, the three departments with such strong professionalism, shouldn't they all have a special department?"

"Well..." Zhu Yuanzhang thought for a moment and said, "That makes sense, but you won't bite off more than you can chew, right?"

"Father, Mr. Liu said that now is the best time to reform the imperial examination system - the imperial examination has been suspended for several years, and scholars across the country have been suffering for a long time. For them, as long as there is an imperial examination at this time, they don't care what they take. Well, it’s better than nothing.”

"Furthermore, the reason why the father stopped the scientific examination was because the scholars selected by the imperial examination were embarrassing and disappointing. Therefore, everyone expected that the new version of the imperial examination would carry out drastic reforms. So at this time, the reform of the imperial examination The resistance is the least, so you must take a bigger step, don't be afraid of pulling the egg!

"I would rather go too far than go back and change it a little bit, and I can't take too small a step because of too many worries. Once the new version of the imperial examination is launched and becomes a standard, if you want to carry out in-depth reforms, you will face opposition from scholars across the country. Then At that time, it was really troublesome.

"So the most important thing at the beginning is to set up the shelf, and then gradually improve it. And at the beginning, the subjects are simpler, and the advantages outweigh the disadvantages." Zhu Zhen has discussed it with Liu Bowen many times, and he is naturally confident when talking about it. Man Man said:

"For example, in addition to the normal Four Books and Five Classics, you only need to be familiar with the Seven Books of Martial Arts such as "The Thirteen Chapters of the Art of War" before you can participate in the Ming Military Science and become a Ming Soldier Jinshi.

"This can greatly reduce the resistance of candidates, increase their enthusiasm for registration, and also play a better role in attracting talents and winning people's hearts."

"En." Zhu Yuanzhang only felt that every sentence was so reasonable, and every sentence spoke to his heart.Can't help laughing: "It seems that you kid has planned for a long time."

"These were supposed to be my teacher's advice to my father." The sixth son said seriously: "But he has no chance to display his talents in governing the country, so he can only forward it to his father through his sons and ministers, and beg his father to accept it."

"Alas..." Zhu Yuanzhang also said sadly: "Now it seems that among the counselors back then, the most selfless one was Mr. Liu. It's a pity, a pity..."

(End of this chapter)