Back to Daming to be a genius

Chapter 34
(PS: The second update has been delivered. A new week is about to start, newcomers and new books, please ask for points, tickets, and collections.)
"Long live, if Zhang Haogu is not killed, the common people will not be angry!" Chen Xinjia, a member of the criminal department, was even more ruthless. He sentenced Young Master Zhang to death as soon as he came up, and shouted: "The paper used in the imperial examination paper is to comfort Jing County to pay tribute. Zhang Haogu intentionally damaged something that was used by the royal family, this is clearly a disrespectful and unforgivable crime! Long live my servant, I can push Zhang Haogu out of the Meridian Gate and behead him for public display!"

"Sun! Who is this bastard? I don't seem to have offended him, right?" Young Master Zhang, who was still in a daze, was taken aback. He never thought that Chen Xinjia, who had never met before, would hit him so hard. Of course, if Young Master Zhang knew that Chen Xinjia was actually the wife and uncle of Wang Qia, the censor of the Donglin Party who had been brought down by Young Master Zhang, Young Master Zhang would not be surprised.And the officials of the Donglin Party, who had long been displeased with Young Master Zhang, were not polite. Most of them came forward to impeach him. They all demanded that Young Master Zhang be punished and beheaded for public display. Young Master Zhang next to the examination table.

"Zhang Haogu." Ming Xizong finally opened his mouth, and asked Young Master Zhang with a cold snort: "My civil and military officials all say that they are impeaching you for intentionally polluting the exam papers and being disrespectful. How do you explain it?"

"Long live, the grass-roots dare not deliberately dirty the examination papers." Young Master Zhang replied with a mournful face: "The thing is like this, when Eunuch Wei handed the tea bowl to the grass-min just now, the grass-folk saw the five-clawed golden dragon on the tea bowl, and felt a golden light shoot into it. His eyes stared straight at Baihui Tianling, he was startled, and dropped the teacup with a slip of his hand. Now that I think about it, it should be that the grassroots people's fortune is hard to get rid of, and they can't be used by the real dragon emperor. Please, Your Majesty Forgive me." As he spoke, Young Master Zhang picked up the teacup that fell on the examination table and luckily did not break, looking at the five-clawed golden dragon printed on it, and said: "Elder-in-laws and lords, if you don't believe me, you can see it with your own eyes. Look, is this teacup printed with a five-clawed golden dragon that can only be used by real dragon emperors? Does it have the emperor's dragon aura of long live the emperor? If there is a father-in-law or an adult who thinks there is no such thing, then the grass people are willing to accept the punishment of Ling Chi!"

All the officials of the Donglin Party were speechless, all dumbfounded—just kidding, who dares to say that the imperial objects on the Golden Luan Hall do not have the dragon spirit of the emperor, Wei Zhongxian and the eunuchs will immediately dare to impeach whoever is disrespectful, and arrest them in Donglin. Torture in the factory prison!And Wei Zhongxian and his party all heaved a sigh of relief, they all admire Young Master Zhang's sophistry genius.Ming Xizong was also amused by Young Master Zhang's words, nodded and said with a smile: "Well, it turned out to be my emperor's dragon spirit that surprised you, so I will forgive you this time. Come on, give Zhang Haogu a change." A set of pens, inks, papers, and inkstones, and a cup of hot tea—remember, I’m not allowed to use my dragon bowl, if I startle him again, I’ll give him another set of pens, inks, papers, and inkstones.”

"Your Majesty is right." Several old eunuchs from the Supervisor of Rituals laughed and agreed together, but all the officials of the Donglin Party looked at me and I looked at you, and finally returned to the train in despair.Young Master Zhang kowtowed to Ming Xi Zong to thank him, and then sat back at the examination table and continued to shake his head as if he was asleep. Seeing Young Master Zhang's appearance, Ming Xi Zong couldn't help but asked again: "Zhang Haogu, what are you doing?" What's the matter? Today is the imperial examination, you didn't write a single word, why are you sitting there dozing off?"

"Report to the emperor, I don't know what happened to Caomin today." Young Master Zhang rarely spoke the truth, and replied frankly: "Since entering the palace, Caomin's head has been in a daze and wanted to sleep, and his whole body is limp and not a little bit No matter what you say, you can’t cheer up your energy. Caomin ventured to guess that Caomin might be sick today.”

"Bold!" Chen Xinjia jumped out again and shouted at Young Master Zhang: "The palace examination is a national talent ceremony. You actually said that your head is in a daze and you want to sleep. You are deceiving the emperor and disrespectful! Your majesty, my humble minister! I believe that this Zhang Haogu should be expelled from the palace immediately as a punishment."

"Master Chen, Zhang Haogu should not have dozed off during the palace examination." Wei Zhongxian couldn't stand it any longer, stood up and said grimly: "But that code stipulates that candidates are not allowed to take a break during the palace examination." ? Are you so eager to expel candidates from the examination room because you are afraid that the emperor will select young talents and compare them to the court's wine pockets and food pockets?"

"How dare a humble official?" Chen Xinjia was about to fight back, but Ming Xizong over there interrupted: "Okay, stop fighting, let me step down, now is the palace test, not the morning court where you usually quarrel." Chen Xinjia and Wei Zhongxian Promise together, and return to their respective positions with hatred.Ming Xizong turned to Young Master Zhang and said: "Zhang Haogu, I don't care if you are sick today, but now it is the palace examination. Since you have participated, you have to answer questions for me and make a fuss. If you can't do it, I will let you do it anyway." Failed."

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Young Master Zhang heaved a sigh of relief, and said in his heart that if you fail the ranking, you will fail the ranking. It is better than losing your head by a thousand times or ten thousand times.But at this moment, Young Master Zhang suddenly caught sight of Wei Zhongxian's sinister gaze again, and couldn't help shivering again, and he understood in his heart, "No, if I hand in a blank paper today, the emperor may spare me, but Wei Zhongxian The old man can't spare me! Maybe he pulled out the carrot and brought out the mud, and found out the fact that I was a No. 3, and it would be really unreasonable for the old eunuch Wei not to kill me." ——Young Master Zhang is right. Wei Zhongxian has already made up his mind. If Young Master Zhang, who has been repeatedly praised by him in front of Ming Xizong, dares to make him lose face, he will kill his relatives righteously when he falls into court...

After thinking about this point, Young Master Zhang quickly pulled up his energy and picked up the brush, intending to write a few paragraphs casually to fool him, but Young Master Zhang's head has been in a daze since just now, and he didn't even hear the exam questions clearly. What to write an article to answer policy questions?And to put it bluntly, Young Master Zhang might not be able to write twenty traditional Chinese characters, and he doesn't know the basics of stereotyped essays, so how could he write stereotyped essays full of traditional characters?So even though Young Master Zhang picked up the brush, it was still as heavy as Mount Tai, and he couldn't put it down no matter what he said.

After the incident at the beginning, Young Master Zhang has long been the focus of attention of the hall, and he has been writing for a long time, so naturally not only one person is watching him.Seeing such a situation, Zhang Ruitu, Wang Zhijian and other chief examiners of the examination were naturally sweating, for fear that Young Master Zhang would make a big fuss about the cheating in the examination; Why does the young master look like this? Because logically speaking, the palace examination is usually a cutscene. Ming Xizong is illiterate and illiterate, so he can't tell whether Master Zhang's examination paper is good or bad. At the same time, the palace examination is judged by the cabinet controlled by Gu Bingqian. Covered by Wei Zhongxian and Gu Bingqian, Young Master Zhang can pass the test easily even if he writes nonsense, but why does Young Master Zhang not write a single word?Only a handful of people are secretly happy, knowing that their clever plan has succeeded.

"Zhang Haogu, why didn't you answer the paper?" Out of concern for his own face, Wei Zhongxian couldn't help asking again.Young Master Zhang was about to find an excuse to answer with a weeping face, but Liu Ruozai, who was first on the left, suddenly stood up, walked to the front with the test paper in his hand, knelt down on his knees, and said loudly, "Your Majesty, Cao Min has finished."

"So fast?" There was an exclamation from the audience, and Ming Xizong, who was feeling bored, also regained his spirits, nodded and pretended to say, "Very good, show me his test paper." Dare to be negligent, hurriedly went to Liu Ruozai to take the test paper, and carefully put it down on the Mingxi Zonglong case.At this time, Yu Huang, who was sitting second to the left of Young Master Zhang, also stood up, walked over and knelt beside Liu Ruozai, held up the test paper with both hands and said loudly: "Report to the emperor, the grass people are finished."

"Hey, this is not bad." The whole hall was full of exclamations again, and some people said in a strange way: "Yijia No.1 and No.2 have been finished so quickly, it is worthy of the name, now I will look at No.3." "Ming Xi Zong was even more joyful, and asked Wang Tiqian to present Yu Huang's papers in front of him, picked them up and pretended to appreciate them, comparing the good ones and the bad ones.

After reading the two exam papers with a fake face, Ming Xizong put down the papers and smiled at Liu Ruozai and Yu Huang: "You all answered well and are very satisfied. I heard that you two are No. 1 and No. 2 respectively. .[-], it seems that you two are the number one scholar and the second place in the undergraduate course." Liu Ruozai and Yu Huang kowtowed together, and replied: "Thank you, the emperor, for your commendation, the grassroots are terrified."

Originally, according to the rules, Liu Ruozai and Yu Huang had already handed in the test papers, so they could leave the hall and go home to wait for the results to be released, but Ming Xizong, who couldn't do carpentry work, was really bored, so he asked again, "Two candidates, where are your ancestral homes?" Is it there?"

"Reporting to the emperor, the ancestral home of the grassroots is Kuaiji, Zhejiang." Yu Huang answered quickly.Liu Ruozai was stunned for a moment, hesitating a bit—it was explained in the book that there was a reason for Liu Ruozai's hesitation, because his ancestral home was Liangshan, Shandong, the well-known den of the rebel army!In the Renxu examination in the second year of Tianqi, Liu Ruozai was crossed off the Jinshi list by the chief examiner because of his poor family background, which led to the failure of Sun Shan. Now that Ming Xizong asked this question himself, Liu Ruozai didn't know what to do Shouldn't be telling the truth.

"Brother Yinping, you said that you moved to Liangshan later." Yu Huang, who was kneeling beside him, knew Liu Ruozai's background, so he lowered his voice and kindly suggested.But Liu Ruozai hesitated again and again, and finally he gritted his teeth and replied: "Report to the emperor, the ancestral home of the Caomin is Liangshan, Shuibo, Shandong."

"Shuibo Liangshan in Shandong? Is it the Shuibo Liangshan that Song Jiang rebelled against?" Ming Xizong really lowered his face and hummed: "Then did you move there later? Or did your ancestors live there?"

"Reporting to the emperor, the ancestors of the grass people have been from Liangshan, Shandong for generations." Liu Ruozai replied very simply.As a result, Ming Xizong's complexion was even more ugly. The officials of the Donglin Party who were worried that there would be a Lu Party in the court were all smiles. Qian Qianyi, one of the three famous Jiangzuo masters in history, took the opportunity to come out and played: "Long live Qi, since the first year of Tianqi, comets have repeatedly violated the sun in the daytime, disasters and famines have not occurred in various places, rebels have risen, and slaves have committed crimes." By the way, at this time, I appointed a student who was born in Liangshanshuibo as the number one scholar, I think it is very inappropriate, I hope the emperor thinks twice."

Ming Xizong had no expression on his face, but he had already decided in his heart to adopt Qian Qianyi's opinion and remove this unlucky Liu Ruozai from the list of candidates (Note).Although members of Wei Zhongxian's party disliked the Donglin Party's formation of cliques and exclusion of dissidents, seeing Ming Xizong's unfriendly expression, they still shut up obediently and did not touch Ming Xizong's bad luck.Only Liu Ruozai knew that he was going to be unlucky, but his expression was very calm, he just comforted himself in his heart and said: "The sage said: Honesty, trustworthiness! Alas, if I deceive the king, I may keep the title of number one scholar, but I will lose my trust in the world." .Now, although I may fail the ranking, I am worthy of the world."

"Your Majesty, the grassroots have something to say." Just as Ming Xizong was extremely upset because of Liu Ruozai's background, our Young Master Zhang suddenly spoke up, left the table and bowed down, pointing at Qian Qianyi, who was having fun in secret, and said loudly: " Your Majesty, the grassroots believe that what this lord said is a big mistake, not only deceiving the emperor, but also harming the country and the people, please the emperor punish him for the crime of deceiving the public with his deceitful words!" After finishing speaking, Young Master Zhang pointed to Liu Ruozai and said: "As for this examinee, The grassroots think that the champion must be him."

Before Young Master Zhang finished speaking, the Golden Luan Hall was already full of commotion. Wei Zhongxian and his party were surprised that Young Master Zhang hadn't written a single word so far that he couldn't protect himself, so why did he jump out to speak for Liu Ruozai who had nothing to do with him?Liu Ruozai himself was dumbfounded, he couldn't believe that at this moment someone would dare to offend Tian Yan and speak for himself.However, the officials of the Donglin Party were all furious, and they all said that the new Lu Party was coming, and all of them dared to form cliques to fight against the Donglin Party before they had official positions.As for Qian Qianyi himself, who was accused by Young Master Zhang, he was furious and shouted: "Zhang Haogu, you are a candidate for the imperial examination. If you come to the palace, you don't write articles, you don't write a single word, and you only care about sleeping. Now you dare to criticize me. Is this official’s words of loyalty detrimental to the country and the people? Tell me, what is there in my words that is detrimental to the country and the people?”

"Zhang Haogu!" Ming Xizong snorted in displeasure, "What did Qian Aiqing's words harm the country and the people?"

"Fucking Sun! It's a gamble!" Eldest Young Master Zhang gritted his teeth and said in his heart, "Anyway, the old eunuch Wei will definitely not let me go! I might as well take a gamble, maybe I still have a chance to survive!"

Note: Because Liu Ruozai’s ancestral home was Shuibo Liangshan’s loss of the No. [-] Scholar in the fifth year of Tianqi, it came from unofficial history and folklore, and it was mostly used to encourage the world to be honest.

(End of this chapter)