Chapter 183 Mission 016
Shao Zhi's birth brought a lot of joy to the Shao family, but Shao Zhi's mother Su Ling took the initiative to leave the Shao family after the confinement.
This surprised Xiao Yan very much. After all, Su Ling had bargained with him before to get back the custody of her daughter, but now she was unwilling to wait for her daughter to be weaned. However, he was only surprised for a moment and gave up investigating. Now the heroine could not hinder him, and he did not plan to do the system tasks. The hero and the heroine did not seem to have a chance to be together, so he did not need to pay too much attention to Su Ling.
The hero Jiang Li left Qingyang County and returned to the capital after attending Shao Zhi's full moon banquet.
Mr. Li stayed in the Shao family, and Xiao Yan followed him to learn how to take the imperial examination, while his daughter Shao Zhi was raised by Shao's mother and Wang Nianyun. He only needed to visit her often after studying.
In the blink of an eye, a year passed, and the Spring Examination was approaching.
Xiao Ying said goodbye to everyone in the Shao family. This time he would leave for the capital more than a month in advance because Qingyang County was too far from the capital. However, this time he was accompanied by teacher Li Jushi, and Shao's father had never been to the capital, so he did not insist on accompanying his son to take the exam.
In this way, Xiao Ying carried his luggage and went to the capital with his teacher, carrying the hopes of everyone in the Shao family.
The capital is under the feet of the emperor, with tall and majestic city walls and a long queue at the spacious city gate. They are the outsiders entering the capital. Outsiders entering the capital need to give road permits and documents to the guards at the city gate for inspection, so they lined up in such a long queue. Most of the people in the queue were dressed as scholars, and they should be the candidates who came to the capital from all over the country to participate in the joint examination.
Xiao Ying, who was supposed to line up at the city gate with these candidates, was sitting in a carriage that looked ordinary but was quite extraordinary inside. Although a carriage without shock absorbers was not very comfortable for him, this carriage could be called luxurious.
The carriage was stopped when it reached the city gate. A guard came up and whispered to the coachman. After learning the identity of the carriage owner, he did not check the inside of the carriage and let it go directly.
Xiao Ying retracted his gaze from the carriage window and looked at Mr. Li who was sitting opposite him.
Mr. Li smiled at him and said, "See? There are so many candidates coming to the capital to take the exam now. It is not easy for you to find a suitable place to live. Why don't you live in my house? You can ask me any questions about your homework at any time."
Xiao Ying nodded and didn't say politely to Mr. Li: "Then I will disturb you."
"Don't disturb me, don't disturb me!" Mr. Li stroked his beard and smiled with satisfaction. He was very satisfied with his disciple, so he naturally had to make good plans for him.
In this way, Xiao Ying moved into Mr. Li's house.
Mr. Li was an official in the capital, so of course he had to buy a house in the capital. Although he was only the president of the Hanlin Academy, which was recognized as the most noble and the least lucrative, he had made a lot of money from publishing books and other people paying thousands of gold for calligraphy and paintings over the years. The mansion he lived in the capital occupied a large area, especially because his way of making money was aboveboard and he spent money on enjoyment without any concealment.
Xiao Ying was quite surprised to see this low-key and luxurious Li Mansion. He usually saw Mr. Li's behavior as unrestrained and unrestrained, but he didn't expect that he would enjoy life so much and have good taste.
However, when he entered the mansion with Mr. Li and met Mrs. Li, he realized that it was not Mr. Li who had taste, but Mrs. Li. Mrs. Li, who came from a scholarly family, was also a talented woman, and her taste in life was definitely far superior to Mr. Li.
Xiao Ying only met Madam Li on the first day he followed Li Jushi into the mansion. Her smile was kind and gentle, and she was quite caring towards him, but he never saw this master's wife again. Although maids came to deliver supplements or clothes every day saying that it was Madam Li's order, Xiao Ying still vaguely felt that this master's wife probably had a general feeling towards him.
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On the day of the joint examination, Xiao Ying said goodbye to his teacher Li Jushi with the examination supplies that were said to be prepared by his master's mother, and got on the carriage to the examination room.
The joint examination was the last stage of the imperial examination. Although there was a palace examination later, the palace examination was only for ranking and did not eliminate people, so the joint examination was quite strict, and the number of patrolling soldiers alone was twice that of the provincial examination.
When Xiao Ying stepped into the strict examination room, he couldn't help but look back at the candidates who were still queuing.
In the morning, he was a farmer, and in the evening, he entered the emperor's hall.
In this era and this society, the imperial examination is the only ladder for ordinary people to advance. The competition in this imperial examination can be described as thousands of troops crossing a single-plank bridge, or only one person can cross it at a time, and only the top few hundred can successfully pass through it.
Sitting in his own examination room, Xiao Ying held the white paper that had just been issued, and looked at the wooden sign with the test questions held by a soldier in the aisle outside the examination room, frowning slightly.
He did not expect that in addition to the simple fill-in-the-blank dictation questions at the beginning, the first big question at the end of this examination actually involved the topic of lifting the sea ban that has been making a lot of noise recently.
The general meaning of the question is: Pirates are rampant at sea, repeatedly robbing and killing passing ships. Should a sea ban be opened to stop the pirates?
This world is just before the maritime ban, but because the pirates at sea are becoming more and more rampant, the court navy has never been valued and is not very useful, and they are willing but unable to deal with the pirates. So someone in the court proposed to open a maritime ban to deal with the pirates. These pirates are only powerful at sea. If there are no ships to go out to sea, then no matter how powerful they are, it is useless. Once they dare to go ashore, the garrison in the city on the shore will teach them a lesson in minutes.
Now that the maritime ban has not been officially issued, this topic has caused a lot of discussion inside and outside the court.
Xiao Ying had heard about the maritime ban before participating in the joint examination, and he also discussed his ideas with Li Jushi, but neither he nor Li Jushi expected that there would be questions about the maritime ban in this joint examination. Although there were some questions related to practical affairs in the past joint examinations, after all, we can't select a bunch of officials who can't do practical things, right? But none of the previous questions involved the hottest and latest policies like this time.
Xiao Ying didn't need to think too much about the answer to the question about maritime ban, and he knew that he must write that maritime ban should not be set up. Not only because the world before he traveled through history had told him the consequences of setting up maritime ban, but also because he and his teacher Li Jushi had the same attitude when they talked about this matter.
Li Jushi was a very wise old man. Even he thought that maritime ban should not be set up, which meant that there should be many officials who thought the same as him. Xiao Ying didn't want to go against his conscience and write an opposite answer and offend his teacher and many other officials.
However, if he wanted to answer this question well, he had to write it in a way that people could not help but agree with.
And is there anything in the world that people can agree with more than interests?
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"I have heard that there is an island overseas called..." Xiao Ying wrote down in a fluent manner, first writing about various legends of overseas gods and fairies, then describing how vast and rich the overseas land is, and describing the overseas countries as weak and weak with only a few thousand soldiers in the country, but rich enough to pick up a stone and find gold. He also deliberately wrote down an example that he had heard that someone was having a particularly bad time in the Central Plains and was hunted by his enemies, but ended up fleeing overseas for refuge, and then found a gold mine and made a fortune and came back to avenge his hatred and raise his head. This is a must-have routine for a cool article.
After writing, Xiao Ying gently blew the ink dry, read it once, and nodded slightly with satisfaction when he felt that what he wrote was very provocative.
He dared to write like this, also relying on the reputation of his teacher Shanhai Jushi. After all, everyone knows that Shanhai Jushi likes to wander around, and has published more than one travel journal, which is real and interesting. As for whether he has really been overseas, who cares?
In the face of naked interests, the IQ of greedy people automatically drops by 80%.