In December, winter has arrived.

No matter what kind of slaughtering appearance the world of the outer mansion is, but once you enter the rule of Kaifeng Mansion, even if it is surrounded by ice and snow, you can feel a different kind of prosperity. In particular, the triennial imperial examination competition will be held in the spring of the following year.

On the official road in Kaifeng Prefecture, there is an endless stream of people from all over the world to rush to take the exam. The wealthy lifter rode a carriage and horse, with his entourage, and entered Beijing to take the exam. The poor scholars at the end of the year were three or five of their fellow travelers, riding donkeys and carrying burdens, talking about things along the way, with the same heroic spirit.

On the road to heaven through the imperial examination, no matter what rich or poor. Even if you are penniless, as long as the moral essay is good enough, you can still ascend to the Hall of the Son of Heaven. No matter how down-and-out an old pedant looks, on the way to Kaifeng Mansion, no one dares to despise the slightest bit - they are all sage books who read thoroughly, but they don't put their faces on their faces to dislike the poor and love the rich, which is too uncultivated.

Besides, the imperial examination is really impossible. No one stipulates that the poor who are old and look sloppy can't go to high school? Wu Zhongyi, the 561st Jinshi in the third year of Yuan Fu, is an inspirational story in the imperial examination world. 65-year-old high school, married a beautiful woman after high school, and became a father again...... It's so old and strong!

The imperial examination is such a miracle! It is precisely because of its magic and relative fairness that it has completely captured the hearts of the intellectuals of China's landlord class, and for more than a thousand years, they have been obsessed with it.

But how can an examination system that makes the world's readers obsessed and obsessed, but now it is facing an unprecedented crisis!

With the successive opening of the five university palaces and the upcoming holding of the first imperial examination on the right list, everyone who has not yet reached high school on the "Tongtian Road" has a chill down their spine.

Regardless of whether the imperial court will cancel the imperial examination and change it to the school palace to take scholars - in the era when Wang Anshi presided over the reform of the law, he could have moved the idea of abolishing the imperial examination and using Taixue to take scholars - the opening of the five university palaces and the appearance of the corresponding right list of scholars have already shown that the official family is not very satisfied with those scholars who use Confucian scriptures.

The ladder to heaven for millions of scholars in the Great Song Dynasty is already shaking......

Tang Xiaoyao, a scholar from Shuzhong, had already seen the red city wall of the west city of Kaifeng Mansion, revealing a majestic atmosphere under the winter sun.

Unlike the last time he went to Beijing to catch the exam, there were a lot of chariots and horses, this time Tang Xiaoyao just led a donkey, and together with a few colleagues in Shuzhong, he walked step by step from Tangjiabao to Kaifeng Mansion at the foot of the Son of Heaven.

The reason why he didn't bring his entourage and walked to Kaifeng Mansion was not because Tang Xiaoyao was honing his will and exercising his body. It's that he has no evil money in his pocket!

That's right, the Tangmen in Shuzhong is a century-old store, and the old Tang family's store, one of the seventy-two main stores in Kaifeng Mansion, is theirs.

But the Tang Gate in Shuzhong is not a righteous gate that eats big pot rice. Compassion is not in charge of soldiers, and righteousness is not in charge of wealth. Yimen is not good at business, so it is impossible for Shuzhong Tangmen, a family of officials and merchants, to take the Yimen route of a big pot of rice.

Although there are also two benefits of cohesion in the Tang family, "clan field" and "clan science". Moreover, the down-and-out children of the Tang family can also have priority access to the old Tang family store (there is more than one old Tang family store, all of which are opened by the Tang family, but they are not chain stores and do not belong to the family), and they are also easy to be cultivated by the elders of the clan. But the big pot of rice still doesn't exist!

Therefore, after Tang Xiaoyao's old Tang family store opened by his father closed down, his identity has improved by leaps and bounds, and he is no longer a businessman's child who is not in the stream, but a noble landlord class intellectual - his father still has hundreds of acres of land in Shuzhou on the edge of Chengdu Mansion, which can be regarded as a middle-class landlord.

However, in the Northern Song Dynasty, the income from the purchase of land investment by merchants was very small. Buying land is just a means of storing wealth, not acquiring it, unless you can manage it as well as Wu Chengchang.

However, Tang Xiaoyao's father did not know how to farm, so he could only rely on a few rents to maintain the daily life of a large family. There is not much spare energy for Tang Dacai to enter Beijing to take the exam......

And what made Tang Xiaoyao feel even more helpless was that his father, who opened a restaurant and went out of business, didn't learn a lesson at all, and wanted to follow in his footsteps. So I don't approve of him continuing to rush for the exam, but ask him to change careers to learn to open a restaurant, starting with being a chef - and plan to teach him the cooking secrets passed down from his ancestors!

This is ridiculous! How can a dignified genius and a scholar who has passed the liberation test twice become a cook? Although Tang Xiaoyao has already made good dishes, he is probably the one who does the best cooking in the world of talents.

But that's a hobby, not a means of making a living!

Looking at the tall and majestic city wall of Kaifeng Mansion, Tang Xiaoyao, who was not a taste in his heart, had tears flashing in his eyes.

If you don't succeed in this course, you have to be accompanied by a wok-and-cook knife...... Since then, life has been sad!

Yu Wen Huangzhong, a classmate of Chengdu Fuxue who was walking side by side with him, looked at the red wall and looked excited.

In the last subject, his brother Yu Wencui won a Tanhualang, and it was time for him to show his skills in this subject. It doesn't matter if he doesn't win, his brother Tanhua is now the right and left hand of Zhao Mingcheng, the secretary of the Qingcheng Academy, and he will make a living in the Qingcheng Academy......

Behind this Qingcheng School Palace is an official family! If you enter the Qingcheng School Palace, you are equivalent to a disciple of the official family!

"Yuanzhong, do you have a place to go in Kaifeng Mansion? If there is no arrangement, it is better to go to the Qingcheng School Palace together to borrow it. ”

Yuwen's words brought Tang Xiaoyao back to reality.

The last time he went to Beijing to take the exam, he borrowed and lived in the mansion of the Tang family in Kaifeng Mansion - that was the descendant of the Tang family, and the old Tang family's store, one of the seventy-two main stores in Kaifeng Mansion, was theirs. Now Tang Xiaoyao still has a handwritten letter from his father to the manager of the old Tang family in Kaifeng Mansion. Uh, I recommended him to go to the student's mind! If he fails in this scientific examination, he will have to give up his dream......

"Good! Go to Qingcheng School Palace. ”

Tang Xiaoyao really didn't want to go to the Tang family in Kaifeng Mansion, and he was in a bad mood when he thought of them. If you really want to live in it, then it is certain that you will not be on the list!

Qingcheng Palace is in the south of Kaifeng Mansion, occupying the premises of the original Qingcheng Palace, which is quite grand and spacious. As for the manpower of the Qingcheng School Palace, which is still in preparation, it can't be used at all. Therefore, Zhao Mingcheng and Liang Shicheng, who were in charge of this school palace, kindly took out the redundant buildings of the school palace and gave them to live in for the students who went to Beijing to take the exam. And it also provides free food, in order to attract a group of unsuccessful candidates to apply for the Qingcheng Academy.

It is different from the North and South Yuntai and Gezhi School Palaces (now they are also school palaces), which have high tuition fees, and the Biyong School Palace, which does not charge tuition fees but has a high threshold. Qingcheng School Palace does not charge a fee, and does not fight for a father, everything depends on personal talent.

However, this talent is not moral writing, but calligraphy, painting, music, and medicine, and this is a school with the goal of training martial arts.

Because of the free accommodation and food, when Tang Xiaoyao and Yuwen Xuzhong arrived at the Qingcheng School Palace, there were already many scholars who had come to take the exam, and there was a long queue in front of the school palace, waiting for the check-in procedures. The queue was long and the formalities were slow.

Yuwen Huangzhong didn't know where to find his brother Yuwen Cuizhong to open the back door, so he and Tang Xiaoyao followed the queue. Just as the team spreading out along the red wall was slowly moving, Tang Xiaoyao suddenly found that the red wall around him was covered with "notices".

"Shutong, you see the walls are full of notices......"

Yuwen Huangzhong also found that the number of "notices" was extremely large, and almost the entire wall was pasted. He picked out the nearest "notice" and read it: ""Begging for the Right List to Enter the Shi Keshu", the ministers and others heard: The scholar is also the pillar of the country; Industry and commerce, the end of the four people. Today, it is fundamental to go down to the counties and counties, to the scholars to the people, and to assist the country and the people. And the gangsters of giant businessmen and big workers, who get rich by luck, run rampant, exploit the small people, so that the people are not able to make a living, and they are national thieves. However, the thief is still insufficient, rich and noble, and has no talent for mastery, so he uses false learning to bewitch the world, disturb the holy hearing, and want to abolish the scriptures and take scholars and open the road of miscellaneous learning, which is the ......hope of the world's scholars."

"Good! What an eloquent article! ”

Yuwen Huang read half of it, and someone was already applauding loudly.

And there is more than one person who applauded.

"This is a good article that is deafening!"

"It's a pity that the Son of Heaven was deceived by traitors and couldn't see such a heroic text!"

"Abolishing scripture is the right way, and using empirical miscellaneous learning, in the long run, the country is not ......"

"How can we scholars sit back and watch the great rivers and mountains be ruined by traitors!"

"That's right, since the construction of the city, traitors have been rampant, the crowd is being suppressed, and someone needs to come forward!"

"Stand up? Do you want to protect the way with a sword and kill the traitor? ”

was discussing, and I didn't know who it was, so I yelled and said that I wanted to "fight the sword to protect the way", and suddenly the big guy was silent.

"Fighting the sword to protect the way" seems to be the slogan of the Yuntai Academy Doctor Group...... At first glance, this group of doctors is not a good kind, and they shout all day and night what they say, "fight the sword to protect the way", "become benevolent and take righteousness", "educate the four yi", and "kill the national thieves".

I heard that the scholars from the Yuntai School Palace still want to "keep the sword on the body and convince people with reason", which is strange to say, since you are convinced by reason, what do you want the sword to do without leaving your body? If you can't be reasonable, you will cut people?

"A traitor is just a businessman, and our scholars and doctors are like killing a dog."

I don't know which Confucian scholar said more, and everyone cast their admiring eyes over - this is to go to Jiehe Shang City to kill Wu Haogu? How strong is that? However, what everyone saw was a white-faced scholar in his early twenties, polite and polite, and he didn't look like he could kill Wu Haogu with a sword.

"Zhao Ding in Xia Xie Prefecture!" The man arched his hand at the surrounding lifters, and first introduced himself, "I am willing to join forces with you to eliminate the thief!" ”