In the afternoon, the sky suddenly changed, and it snowed even more near evening, and the wind was deserted, and the temperature plummeted, and the first snow of the year arrived without warning, and the snowflakes were mixed with the rain.

The cabinet is located near the Wenhua Hall on the right side of the noon gate of the imperial city, and at this moment, a thin layer of snow chips has been piled up on the steps outside the cabinet door, and it has been dripping with pitholes by the eaves.

The stove in the house is lit with fine smokeless charcoal, and the blazing charcoal fire warms the surroundings.

At this moment, Yang Tinghe, the first assistant of the cabinet, and Liang Chu, a scholar of Huagai Palace, are processing the transcripts sent by the General Political Envoy.

In the fifteenth year of Zhengde, there were only four auxiliary ministers in the cabinet, namely the first assistant Yang Tinghe, the second assistant Liang Chu, the Wenyuan Pavilion scholar Jiang Mian, and the Dongge University scholar Mao Ji.

Therefore, as a left-behind cabinet minister, Yang Tinghe and Liang Chu had a lot of work pressure, and they returned to the cabinet to deal with the mountain of scripts since the sixth day of the Lunar New Year.

Yang Tinghe, a native of Xindu, Sichuan, is sixty years old this year, but he still has black hair, strong spirits, sparse eyebrows, and elegant temperament, and he can see that he must have been a handsome guy with a good demeanor when he was young.

This is indeed the case, and Yang Tinghe is still a prodigy, he won the township examination at the age of 12, and he was promoted to the rank of sergeant at the age of 19, and this record has not been broken yet.

In addition, Yang Tinghe is still the emperor's teacher, when today's son Zhu Houzhao is still the prince, he served as a waiter in the East Palace, teaching the prince's knowledge, Zhengde entered the cabinet counselor in the second year, and Zhengde succeeded Li Dongyang in the seventh year to become the first assistant of the cabinet, which can be said to have been on the rise.

Yang Tinghe is a well-trained person, with a steady temperament and a law, there is no doubt that he is a capable official, although today's son favors eunuchs, as well as Jiang Bin, Qian Ning and other ministers, but he is extremely dependent on Yang Tinghe, and all government affairs are assured to be handed over to him to take care of.

At this time, Yang Tinghe reviewed the manuscripts from various places, but his brows were getting deeper and deeper, because there had been several reports of civil unrest, but fortunately, they were all small-scale civil uprisings, and the local government had easily extinguished them.

As the first and auxiliary minister of the cabinet, Yang Tinghe naturally understands that the root cause of the ups and downs of the people in various places is because there are too many displaced people who have lost their land, among which the most displaced people have accumulated in the vicinity of Beijing, Shandong, Henan and other places.

In fact, the problem of displaced people has become a major problem for the Ming court at this stage, and there are more than 6 million displaced people in the country, accounting for one-tenth of the total population, which is enough to endanger the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

Moreover, the reason for the increasing number of displaced people was the serious land annexation, and the feudal kings in various places continued to encroach on the land of the people, the official land, and even the land of the military camp of the guard. Among them, the biggest land encroacher was actually today, when the internal officials and eunuchs encroached on a large amount of private land in the name of tribute to establish the imperial village, as many as 100,000 hectares.

In order to complete the task of collecting taxes, the local officials had to distribute this part of the tax to other peasants who had land, causing these peasants to be overwhelmed and simply abandoned their fields and fled to become displaced people. This vicious cycle has led to more and more displaced people.

However, although Yang Tinghe understood the root of the problem, he obviously didn't realize that the problem had become so serious, and even if he realized it, he didn't have the courage to correct it, because the interests of too many people were involved, including the current son, the vassal kings of various places, and the magnates in the court.

Yang Tinghe and Liang Chu were reviewing the transcript, when an official wearing a crimson official robe entered the cabinet, and it was Shi Xuan, a scholar of Hanlin and the right attendant of the Ministry of Rites.

"I've seen two adults!" Shi Xuan saluted Yang Liang and the others.

Liang Chu put down his pen and smiled: "Shi Shilang is here!" ”

Yang Tinghe finished approving the copy at hand before putting down his pen and said, "Shi Shilang sit down!" ”

Hearing this, Shi Xuan sat down on the chair next to him, which showed Yang Tinghe's authority as the first assistant of the cabinet.

After Shi Heng sat down, his own tea boy served fragrant tea. Yang Tinghe said straight to the point: "The emperor sent an internal official to pass on the message, and ordered Shuhou (Liang Chu) and Shi Shilang to preside over the current examination. ”

Shi Xuan hurriedly stood up and said respectfully: "The ministers receive the emperor's order, and they should do their best and do their best." ”

Yang Tinghe nodded and said, "Well, Shuhou, you and Shi Shilang should discuss the candidate for the same examiner." ”

After Yang Tinghe finished speaking, he continued to review the recital, and after Liang Chu went to preside over the examination, he was left alone to take care of the cabinet, and I am afraid that he would be even more busy.

Liang Chu stood up and smiled: "Shi Shilang, let's go to the Wenhua Hall to discuss the matter of the examination, so as not to disturb the Jiefu." ”

Liang Chu is a cousin, nine out of sixty this year, nine years older than Yang Tinghe, a native of Shunde, Guangdong, Xu Jin met Liang Kuan, a native of Guangdong, yesterday, is the same fellow villager of Liang Ge Lao.

Liang Chu is honest and generous, known as a gentleman, he was the first assistant of the cabinet, but he thought that his ability was not as good as Yang Tinghe, and took the initiative to give up the position of first assistant, which became a good story.

When Liang Chu and Shi Xuan arrived at the Wenhua Palace, the two began to discuss the matter of presiding over the examination.

The examination is held on the ninth day of February, and a total of two examiners (called the president) are required, and 18 examiners are also required. The emperor personally appointed Liang Chu and Shi Xuan as the main examiners, and the same examiners were decided by Liang Chu and Shi Xuan after consultation. When the same examiner is selected, all the examiners must move to the Gongyuan for a while, and then discuss the question together, during which they are not allowed to leave the Gongyuan and not contact the candidates, so as to prevent anyone from leaking the questions for personal gain.

Soon, Liang Chu and Shi Xuan finalized the candidates for the same examiner for the examination, and made a list and sent someone to notify the selected officials to report to the Gongyuan tomorrow.

After the business was over, Shi Xuan said bluntly: "Duke Liang, seeing that the trial is imminent, the emperor is still stranded in Jinling, and he should be urged." ”

Under normal circumstances, the palace examination will be held in the next month after the examination, that is, in March, and the chief examiner of the palace examination is actually the emperor, if the emperor is not in Beijing, this palace examination will naturally not be held.

Liang Chu couldn't help but say helplessly: "Shi Shilang, the old man and the Jiefu (Yang Tinghe) urged the recital has gone more than dozens of times, and the emperor ignores it, so he can't do anything about it!" ”

Shi Xuan frowned and said, "How can this be true, it must be those eunuchs who bewitch the emperor and not return." Jiang Ge Lao, Mao Ge Lao is a cabinet minister, and he is derelict in his duties! ”

The Jiang Ge Lao and Mao Ge Lao in Shi Xuan's mouth are the two cabinet ministers Jiang Mian and Mao Ji who accompanied Zhu Houzhao on his southern tour this time.

Liang Chu couldn't help but smile bitterly: "They didn't have no advice, it's just that the emperor is stubborn." ”

Shi Xuan was silent, but he could see that he was still dissatisfied. Originally, with the status of Shi Xuan's squire in the Ministry of Rites, he was not qualified to criticize the cabinet ministers, but this person is known for his integrity and outspokenness, and he is a tough one, and he even accused Zhu Houzhao in person, not to mention the cabinet minister.

……

Last night's cold sleet, Xu Jin hugged Xiaowan's soft delicate body, and slept until the third pole of the sun before waking up, opened the door to see, and found that the courtyard was covered with silver, and there was a layer of ice and snow on the garden trees and rockeries.

Erniu and Dabao were tightly wrapped, shoveling snow and deicing ice in the courtyard, like two fat crabs, panting for white air.

At this time, Yue'er walked back from the direction of the kitchen with a bucket of hot water, but almost fell down, Xu Jin hurriedly stepped forward to help, and said: "Be careful, knock out the front teeth carefully, the master doesn't have the ability to fill your teeth, and you don't have to do the work of carrying water back!" ”

The beautiful maid glanced at Xu Jin sweetly, pouted and said, "Master, there is a girl in the house, if I don't do it, do I want Mrs. to do it!" ”

Xu Jin was right to think about it, it seems that he should add a few servants who are summoned, and go back and let Dabao pay attention to it.

After washing up and eating breakfast, Xu Jin put on a cotton robe and cloak under the service of his wife and maid, but took Erniu out to the Jiangxi Hall.

When Xu Jin entered the Jiangxi Hall, he actually met Gong Xiang in the corridor, as well as Xiao Wan and Zhou Xu, so the iron triangle of "sniping" Xu Jin at the Luming banquet that day arrived. Moreover, there is another unfamiliar lifter, Xu Jin does not know, and it is estimated that he is also a former lifter in Jiangxi.

It is worth mentioning here that as long as you get the status of the lifter, you do not need to take the re-examination, and you can register for each session of the examination. Therefore, Jiangxi only admitted 45 new imperial examination candidates in the township examination last year, but this time there are more than 100 Jiangxi people who came to Beijing to participate in the examination, and more than half of them are from the previous session or even the previous sessions.

Gong Xiang saw Xu Jin and immediately blackened his face and was silent, yesterday he originally wanted to get rid of Jin to brush his fame, but he was reprimanded by the honest man Huang Dacan.

"It turns out that Xu Jieyuan has arrived!" Although Zhou Xu and Xiao Wan were a little unnatural, they still bowed and greeted each other.

Xu Jin calmly returned the courtesy, and exchanged a few words of greeting with each other very notoriously before staggering. The strange man sighed: "It turns out that this person is Xu Siyuan, but he is very young, and his future life is terrifying, by the way, he doesn't live in the guild hall?" ”

Zhou Xu shook his head and said: "It is said that Xu Xie Yuan brought his family to Beijing this time, and he bought a house in Ming Shifang. ”

The strange man said suddenly: "Tsk, this house in Ming Shifang is not cheap, dare to love this Xu Jieyuan is still a rich master, it's amazing!" ”

Xiao Wan said lightly: "Unrighteous and rich and expensive, like floating clouds to me, Brother Song, let's go!" ”

The strange man said sourly: "What Brother Xiao said is very true, let's go to a third-rate restaurant to drink our third-rate turbid wine!" ”

For thousands of years, hatred of the rich has always been the common characteristic of Chinese people, and they feel that the reason why others are rich is not because others are hardworking and smarter than themselves, but because others have plundered wealth through improper means.