A square ancient city is located in the northern Xinjiang plain of the Ming Dynasty, and a north-south axis runs through the ancient city, at first the central axis is flanked by gray houses, but suddenly a palace composed of red and gold suddenly crosses out in the middle.

This palace is a treasure of China, the imperial palace of the Ming Empire - the Forbidden City.

In the morning glow of the morning sun, this solemn palace seemed to wake up and rang a long bell. Under the city wall more than ten meters high, hundreds of civil and military officials and royal ministers wearing court clothes stood in the square in front of the palace with more than 300 tributes.

A group of spring swallows were awakened by the sound of the bells, some flew out of the city gate, and some leaned down from the cornices of the city tower and soared in the square. There is also a spring swallow with Lingyunzhi, spreading its wings and flying high in the morning sun.

"When the auspicious time comes, the hundred officials will pay tribute to meet you!"

As the three main doors and two doors of the south gate of the Forbidden City slowly opened, the voice of a eunuch came from the Forbidden City.

At the same time, except for the city gate in the middle, there are soldiers at the four gates who walked out of the palace gate with neat steps, holding halberds, standing on both sides of the white marble road, with a solemn and murderous expression.

There are no soldiers standing in the middle of the gate, the special gate of the Son of Heaven, and those who cross it die.

But there are also special circumstances, the queen's wedding day can enter once, and the new champion, Bangyan and Tanhua can go out of this door once. But despite this, the only person who can enter and exit through this gate is the Son of Heaven.

Lin Haoran let the morning sun fall on his face, looked up at the incomparably majestic palace gate, and found that he still underestimated the royal power of this era.

In his previous life, the Forbidden City he visited was dead, like a dead corpse. And now the Forbidden City, which was in front of him, was like a giant beast, looking down on all of them.

Take the royal road in the middle as an example, in the previous life, he dared to pee on it. But in this life, if he dares to walk over and step on it, he will be torn to pieces by the giant beast of royal power.

In this Forbidden City, there are too many taboos, even if he is about to become an official of the Ming Dynasty, he will die if he transgresses it.

The civil and military officials walked separately from the ministers, and if they were on weekdays, they would enter through the left and right gates of the Forbidden City. However, since it is a grand ceremony, it is entered through the doors on the left and the right.

Under the guidance of the officials of the Ministry of Rites, Lin Haoran still stood at the forefront, leading three hundred and fifty-six tributes to follow behind the civil and military officials. Walked into the Forbidden City from the gate and began to pass on the grand ceremony of the ceremony.

Passing through the deep city gate, everyone is presented with an open area.

It is extremely vast, there are no trees, the ground is paved with bricks, and there is a river called Jinshui in the middle. There are five bridges made of white marble in the middle of the river, which are named after the river, so they are called Jinshui Bridge.

In front of the Jinshui Bridge, the civil and military officials and the royal ministers gathered together again and started the whole team again. After a brief grooming, we continued through the Jinshui Bridge.

It's just that after crossing the Jinshui Bridge, Gong Sheng, who was following behind, looked at each other, and many people's lips were slightly open. Not shocked, more surprised.

On the five-meter-high platform, what appears in front of you is the temple of the body. It's just that except for the brand that is new, the rest of the temple has been scorched, and even most of it has collapsed.

At this solemn moment, no one expected that the Forbidden City would present such an "unbearable" scene.

Lin Haoran was also stunned for a moment, but looked at a royal historian looking at him, holding a wat board in one hand and a brush in the other, and was about to write. Frightened, he hurriedly lowered his head, no longer paying attention to what was going on in this temple of the body.

This is the sorrow of the Ming officials, who are obviously ordinary people, and they all do some male thieves and female prostitutes in private. But on the bright side, everyone has to be like a saint, otherwise they can refer to each other.

Although it suffered a fire, the temple was built on a high platform more than five meters high, and its height was more than 20 meters, so it brought a sense of shock.

Walking up the white marble steps, after passing through the half-burned temple, everyone came to a vast blank area. This is a white jade railing, carved dragon pillar, and a wide square.

At the end of this square, there is a three-story white marble platform, which is only presented in front of the tributes, and it is a Fengtian Temple that has suffered a fire. Although it is better than the temple of the body, it does not seem to be much better, and the right side has almost burned down.

After everyone passed through the square, it was a royal road of nearly 20 meters in the middle of the steps, and there was a relief of the Nine Dragons playing with pearls on it, which seemed to be lifelike.

The civil and military officials and the royal ministers entered the Fengtian Palace, and their group of tributes could only kneel honestly on both sides of the imperial road, and among their three hundred and fifty-seven people, only three of them could enter the palace.

"I was hit by a natural fire in April last year, but I didn't expect it to be so serious!"

But there were restless tributes, who took advantage of the unpreparedness of those imperial histories to spread the news to the people around them.

After Lin Haoran heard the news, his brows furrowed slightly, but he thought more.

If it had been a fire that started in April last year, then it would have been rebuilt, but there is no trace of construction here. But I don't know if I didn't choose to rebuild it, because the saint couldn't live here, or because the Ming treasury had no money.

According to his guess, it should be the latter, and this Ming Dynasty's finances are not optimistic. Suddenly found that their gang of tributes were very sad, after this heavy screening, finally succeeded in the interview, and found that the company they joined may not be able to pay the "salary".

Of course, let any of them know about this situation, and I am afraid that they will still choose to join this company.

Not long after, Emperor Jiajing's ceremonial staff team appeared, and palace music and firecrackers rang out.

There was an overwhelming sound of "long live" in the Fengtian Temple, and some officials were reading: "...... Today, the 37th year of Jiajing Wuwu Branch Palace Examination ended, and His Majesty planned to test the world's tribute scholars, and gave the first class jinshi, the second class jinshi, and the third class with the jinshi! ”

Gong Le rose again, and Xu Jie, the second assistant of the Ming Dynasty, walked out of the Fengtian Palace, stood on the steps in front of the tributes, unfolded a beautiful yellow book, cleared his throat and said: "Listen to the announcement."

Hearing this, everyone held their breath, especially the twelve people on the list, who could hear their own pounding heartbeats and longed for their names to appear.

It's me! No one can beat me!

Yan Beichen looked extremely confident, kneeling on the steps, but his eyes revealed a light of excitement.

Because of the hint he received from the clan uncle, he strongly admired the city ship division in the article, and even proposed that the four city ship divisions be reopened. Coupled with his literary brilliance, this champion must be him, who can compete with him?

Xu Jie's pause was a little long, and when all the tributes couldn't help but look up, they heard Xu Jie's not loud voice and said with all his might: "The first place in the palace examination - Lin Haoran!" ”