In its own right, the imperial examination system is one of the greatest systems for electing officials invented in China, and it is a ladder of social mobility.

It has an important and far-reaching impact in China's history, but at the same time it has many problems.

As far as the system is concerned, he is already very good, and there is no better one than him in his contemporaries, and there is no system that can replace him, but he is not perfect, because any system and regulation is the wise man and the ruler to restrain the common people and protect their interests.

The same is true of the imperial examination, there is nothing wrong with the way the official is selected, but the content of the examination, and what to test, is in the hands of the ruler.

If the emperor is enlightened and the scholars rule together, the content of the exam will be relatively flexible, but if you meet a dictatorial monarch who is just for the world, the content of the exam will naturally be limited, and the content of the exam will overemphasize loyalty to the king, limit the content of the exam, and rigify people's thinking.

Wang Yan's position is now a little embarrassing, he can't go up, he can't go down, he must no longer be able to choose officials for the emperor, to emphasize loyalty to the emperor, so the original eight shares were abolished, the original examination content was limited to some Confucian classics, emphasizing Confucius and ignoring Mengzi, and now he attaches importance to Mencius and joins miscellaneous studies.

These are all to dilute the idea of loyalty, so that people can also read Mencius's "the people are precious, the community is secondary, and the monarch is light", as well as to promote the study of mind.

This is all for Wang Yan's current behavior and position, to find legitimacy, Wang Yan does not want to be infamy.

Of course, it may be futile for him to do this, but how can people see that in the future, no matter what the future generations say, what he should do will still be done.

However, the Ming Dynasty has always been inseparable from the family and the country, and blindly suppressing the loyal monarch will inevitably hurt the cohesion of the entire Ming Dynasty.

It turns out that everyone has an object of allegiance, and now it is suddenly gone and suppressed, so who should be allegiance?

The reality is very cruel, people are born unequal, among a hundred people, there will always be smart and stupid, and stupid people account for the majority. And that's just the inequality of qualifications, the inequality of family, the inequality of identity.

For the vast majority of people, they still need an emperor, which makes their hearts feel stable, and it is also where the cohesion of the world lies.

So how can this problem be solved, and how has it been solved historically?

Most dynasties eventually accomplished this transformation by offering allegiance to their own nation, to the state, and to an imaginary community instead of the king or the church.

At this time, the Ming Dynasty was also at the moment of this ideological change, Wang Yan was very respectful of Gu Yanwu's idea of "the rise and fall of the world, and the husband is responsible", and he is replacing loyalty to the emperor's family with loyalty to the Ming Dynasty and loyalty to the world.

This change in thinking, especially the flourishing of the doctrine of mind and Mencius, made some people begin to question the imperial power, but at the same time it also brought about another effect, they also questioned Wang Yan and the king of Chu, the prison state.

The people are precious, the community is secondary, and the monarch is light, since the monarch is light, then Wang Yan, the prison country, is not much heavier, and some people even studied Mozi.

This makes the rulers feel terrified!

This is not only questioning the emperor, but also questioning Wang Yan, questioning the cabinet, questioning all those in power, this is the real emancipation of the mind, it is the scholars themselves who have figured it out and had an epiphany, not who will teach them how to do it.

In this way, according to the idea of the people, if Wang Yan wants to maintain his legitimacy, he must do more good things for the people, so that he can be recognized, otherwise he will occupy the throne of the prison country but not do personnel, which will run counter to what he advocates.

Regardless of whether Wang Yan is lifting a stone to shoot himself in the foot, he always needs to do things for the people and be recognized by the world, which has become the driving force for Wang Yan's reform to do facts.

When the emperor treats the imperial examination and selects officials, most of them are not able to say whether they have the ability to say first, but first pick those who are loyal to the emperor, and at present, there is no idea of loyalty to the ministers, Wang Yan can only choose those who can do things.

He will select talents who are capable and capable of doing things, the world will be stable, the people will be rich, and the people will fall the king only if they have a bag in their heads. In this way, Wang Yan, the treasure of the country, also sits steadily.

The further reform of the imperial examination was actually a foundation for the reform of the official system in the entire Ming Dynasty, and it was also the first step in the future reform.

In the room, the voices on both sides came from time to time, Wang Yan, Gu Yanwu, and Qian Qianyi sat at a table, with a few plates of side dishes on it, and a pot of good wine.

After listening to it for a while, Qian Qianyi slapped Wang Yan on the back, "Prison country, this time the imperial examination is divided into political science and affairs, which is really a great innovation in the past thousand years. ”

At the beginning of the imperial examination, it was divided into many types, and later it was gradually unified, and Wang Yanzhi was not a pioneering feat at all, but he still gladly accepted the sycophants of the Shilin leader.

Wang Yan put down his chopsticks, "The problem of party contention has been going on for a long time, and it consumes the country's vitality the most, consumes talents, delays political affairs, and how many ministers are ruined in party disputes." ”

Wang Yan paused and laughed at himself, "When I was an official at the beginning, I was very disgusted with this, and I also advised Emperor Gaozong to abolish and prohibit party strife, but in fact, Lone was a party struggle all the way to today." In retrospect, it was too idealistic at the beginning, and this partisan struggle cannot be forbidden. ”

Speaking of party contention, Qian Qianyi was more emotional than Wang Yan, but Gu Yanwu on the side said with a smile, "It is precisely because of the fact that the party struggle cannot be prohibited, so the prison wants to change the official position of the imperial court and divide it into political officials and administrative officials who do specific things?" ”

Wang Yan also smiled, "Yes, since party strife cannot be banned, there is no need for the imperial court to hide it, in the future, the political officials can clearly identify which party they belong to, but the affairs officers and military attaches are forbidden to form parties, so that even if the party fights fiercely, the specific affairs of the imperial court will not be chaotic!" ”

Qian Qianyi said: "In the past, party disputes were often implicated, many generals or local officials were implicated, and capable people were dismissed, resulting in a shortage of capable people in the court, and only some people who could say that they would not do it could be replaced, which resulted in a catastrophe and caused losses to the court and the people." The superintendent divides officials into administrative officials and administrative officials, and the ministers think that it is a great good governance, but how to divide this administrative officer and administrative officials needs to be more refined. ”

Wang Yan and Gu Yanwu both bowed slightly, and the latter said to Wang Yan and Qian Qianyi: "Prison country, Lord Qian, this division should indeed be clarified, such as the Criminal Department, Dali Temple and Jitai, how to divide it is very important. ”

The reform of the official system is a major event, involving too many things, and Wang Yan is also crossing the river by feeling the stones, but with such an idea, even the cabinet has not yet passed it.

"This specific division will be discussed by the cabinet and the imperial court." Wang Yan said his thoughts, "However, Gu's general assumption is that the administrative officer will argue with the various pre-deliberations of the imperial court, decide what the imperial court will do and the direction of development, make plans and goals, and the administrative officer will implement them specifically!" ”

Wang Yan's general meaning is that since party struggle cannot be avoided, the idea should be controlled within a certain range.

The previous council hall system has actually limited the scale of party struggle to a certain extent and changed the mode of party struggle, but Wang Yan feels that it is not thorough enough, and the main reason is that he does not want to see one party control many departments in the court and become corrupt, and hopes to have a restriction on each faction, so he makes a affairs official who prohibits the formation of parties and specifically implements affairs.

He envisioned that the various factions would fight mainly in the cabinet and the council hall to decide the major affairs of the imperial court, and then hand them over to the ministers of the ministries to carry them out. In this way, the various factions are deprived of participation in specific affairs, which can reduce the emergence of corruption and the protection of officials.

In particular, the Criminal Department, the Imperial Table, and the Dali Temple, these important departments, must not be controlled by a certain faction. Officials have no partisan background, are corrupt, and are not easily sheltered, while if they are partisans, they may be hidden.

Of course, this requires the formulation of rules to divide the official positions of the various ministries of the Ming Dynasty, once assigned to the affairs officer, it must be strictly forbidden to join a certain party, if it is violated, the official will be dismissed, and even the trial must be taken.

Wang Yan had this idea, mainly because of the infighting between Jinyiwei and the Ministry of War, which involved a corruption case in the Ministry of War, involving several officials of the Ministry of War, but the Ministry of Criminal Affairs wanted to suppress it. This is to wake up Wang Yan that for a unified empire, the biggest enemy is always his own people.

However, it is not an easy matter to carry out reforms, and it also involves the issue of making the Chu Party and the Zhejiang Party in the DPRK and Central China public, and it can be said that it is very complicated to manipulate.

As the three of them were talking, the voices of the scholars on both sides came again. The scholar surnamed Zhang continued: "Brother Li is right, the subject is biased towards miscellaneous studies, the requirements for the scriptures are lower, and there are more people admitted, which is relatively easy to take the test, and it is easy to be promoted, but this subject will be an official in the future, but there are some bottlenecks. ”

"Brother Zhang's talent must rely on political science!"

"Indeed, my father wants me to take the political science exam, so what about you, Brother Li?"

"I was going to take the political science exam, but after listening to Brother Zhang's words, I felt that I had a better grasp of this subject. My study is just so-so, not as good as Brother Zhang, so I might as well take the exam, and concentrate on doing something small for the world in the future. ”

Listening to the conversation, Gu Yanwu said: "Prison country, it seems that the scholars don't have too many complaints about this reform!" ”

Qian Qianyi said with a smile: "Since ancient times, what the imperial court exams are, and the world's scholars learn what they do, even if they have complaints, they will wait until the exam is over!" ”

Wang Yan nodded, "Yes, there must be complaints, after all, the subject is relatively easy, but most of the places are divided, those who are very good at learning are not in the political science subject, and they are not successful in the examination subject when they can't learn it, and they will definitely scold the lonely after the list is released." ”

Gu Yanwu said: "Now that there are vacancies in Nanyang and northern provinces, there are vacancies, and the ministers think that the imperial court can increase the number of places and reduce the grievances of some fallen scholars. ”

Qian Qianyi shook his head and said: "Gu Shilang doesn't understand, this has nothing to do with whether the number of places is increased or not, as long as the recording is not completed, someone will scold him······"

The three of them were talking, when the door of the house was pushed open, and Lu Shikui came in and saluted: "Jian Guo, the information on the Jin country's side has been clarified." ”

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(End of chapter)