On the bed, the stars sat there crying with pear blossoms and rain, and the failure to marry her idol made her miserable, Mrs. Wu kept comforting on the side, "If you don't agree, I'm afraid that no one in the whole Tang Dynasty will dare to preside over this marriage, forget it...... In the future, this affection for Gao Langjun will be buried in my heart, and these woodcuts and scrolls will not be brought after you get married in the future, otherwise it will make your husband suspicious. ”

"I can't marry Gao Langjun and I can't disobey my grandfather, my daughter simply burned these woodcuts, cut off all thoughts, went to the nun temple at home, and prayed for her parents, woo woo woo ......" Xing Xing said while crying.

Since then, Chang'an City has had another sad person.

Uncle Yue didn't like Gao Yue (to the surprise of Wu Zhongru and his wife), and Wu Zhongru couldn't say anything, so he could only express regret and send Gao Yue out of the mansion to find other grooms.

In the following days, Gao Yue almost did not participate in the Jinshi period, and the same was true for several people in Taofen Shed, who continued to stay in the five-frame room to conscientiously write judgments and prepare for the exam.

Finally, on the second day of the first month of March, the election of officials officially began.

The courtyard of the Ministry of Rites is next to the South Courtyard of the Ministry of Rites, and the examination place in the spring is in the South Courtyard of the Ministry of Rites, and it is the turn of the Ministry of Officials Nancao.

The imperial court attached great importance to the two subjects of erudition and calligraphy, and sent Liu Yan, the secretary of the ministry, and Cui Youfu, a scholar of the middle school, to be the chief examiner, and this Nan Cao Ping was sentenced by Si Fenglang Zhongling Huxiang and Taichang Shaoqing Dong Jin.

The Tang Dynasty established an unprecedented centralized rule, and the imperial court firmly held the personnel power of appointing, dismissing, and promoting officials, but in this case, the Tang government has always faced a very thorny and difficult chronic disease:

There are few positions, and there are many officials.

Therefore, he invented the methods of "Shouxuan", "Winter Collection", and "Ranking by Qualification" to alleviate the symptoms.

The so-called election refers to the fact that you have to resign when your term of office as an official expires, which means that you will go home and wait for the election (election), and it also stipulates a number of election periods, and you can only participate in the election after the expiration of the number of years, so as to alleviate the problem of redundant officials (at least the ruler thinks so), for example, the election period of the county order of Ji County is three years, and the county order of the tight and upper counties is five years, what if you don't want to keep the election for these three or five years? It is also simple, there are several ways, such as you can sign up for the erudition of the Ministry of Writing, the Department of Writing and Judgment and the Peace Judgment and other subjects (there are some other subjects, omitted below), these three are different from the customs examination, the customs examination can be said to be just a scene, not as decisive as these three subjects, the examination is "Dengke"; Others, you can also participate in the system presided over by the Son of Heaven himself, but the system is not permanent and has a great temporary; Finally, there is a way, that is, in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, it was very prosperous "into the shogunate", as long as you can win the appreciation of the festival envoy, you can directly award you to the imperial court "inspector", the above ways are feasible, if you are outstanding in the book, you can no longer keep the election, directly continue to be an official, so Bai Juyi proudly said in the poem that he has been in this life since he stepped into the official career, "20 terms of officials, 40 years of food", more than ten times stronger than those who have been in the election for most of their lives, just because he is an examination genius! (Let's stop sympathizing with Bai Juyi, people have lived a better life than ninety percent of people, but from another point of view, most Tang Dynasty officials really spent half their lives in the assessment exam)

So, should the new and first Jinshi keep the election? The answer is, of course, three years. After many people in the Tang Dynasty were admitted to the Jinshi, they all returned to their hometowns in the bright spring light, who is it? Go home and keep the election!

If the jinshi wants to become an official immediately, he can only come to the official department to take the exam like those officials, and if he wins, he will directly cancel the three-year limit and can be directly awarded an official position. And the Ming Jingke is more miserable, because the number of years he has been elected is much longer than that of the Jinshi Branch, which is also the most fundamental reason why Xue Yaoying persuaded Gao Yue not to go to the Ming Jingke before.

Only after the expiration of the election period can you come to the capital to participate in the "Winter Gathering", that is, the election.

However, it should be noted here that at first glance, the winter market is a winter gathering, but in fact, it is not, to be precise, from the beginning of Mengdong last year to the end of the next year's spring These months are called winter gatherings. And those who participated in the winter gathering, theoretically, were all officials from six to nine grades (except for the officials such as the collection and supplement, they were directly appointed by the emperor, not to choose the division), most of them were grassroots officials in the capital or local prefectures and counties - because the officials of the Tang Dynasty were basically divided into three grades according to their ranks, and those above the third grade were called "canonized", and those from the third rank to the fifth rank were called "system conferred", and those from the sixth rank to the ninth rank could only be called "edict", and the selection of the first two was prepared by the prime minister and handed over to the emperor for decision (of course, the emperor could directly appoint him); The civil officials went to the military attache of the Ministry of Officials to go to the military department, until they were promoted to the fifth rank official, so that they did not have to bump on the way to the capital (Xiaoyue Prefecture Song Zhuzhu's father died of illness in Chang'an City during the election), that is, Xue Yaoying said "out of the election door", for the Tang Dynasty officials were happier than getting out of the Abi Hell.

The procedures and standards for the selection are roughly like this, according to what Xue Yaoying told Gao Yue, it is "judging by body words and writing", body is based on your appearance, words are based on whether you speak clearly, books are your calligraphy, and judgment is to try to judge the second way of writing. The process is as follows, first try to judge the text, look at the calligraphy of literature and science, this is called "selection"; After passing, look at your body and words, this is called "Quan", both of which are passed by the consideration of "morality, talent, labor" three items, the preliminary formulation of the official position, this is called "note", and finally approved by the province of the book (written in the general dictionary as the province of the door, not comprehensive, the province is responsible for the final pass), and then announce your official position in public, this is called "singing". If the candidate is dissatisfied with the new official position, he can repeat it three times, and if he is dissatisfied again, he will "listen to the winter set", this sentence is a little puzzling, but in fact, it is to let you go back and continue to "follow the qualification list".

So what is the so-called long name list, in fact, it is also the product of compromise, according to the theory, of course, the country should choose those talents to promote officials, but the world will always be mediocre, and mediocre people also want to be promoted, and they also need the warmth of the country, so there is a person named Pei Xingjian in the Tang Dynasty who made a "long name list", and his son Pei Guangting set up a "follow the qualifications", to put it bluntly, it is to rank seniority, and those who have not passed the examination for many years can also queue up for direct promotion when the seniority is full.

In fact, for Gao Yue, the days when he studied in Guozijian (of course, the dead ghost read) are also counted as the number of years of election (similar to the number of years of service when we are now in the army and studying in college), which is also his superiority over those township tribute scholars, plus there is more or less a little shade, even if he does not participate in the equal judgment, he can be awarded the rank of loose official without guarding.

But Gao Yue's decision is to participate in the equal judgment test of the Ministry of Officials, as long as he passes the examination, he can "harvest several rice grains", and he can get a more beautiful starting official!