ps. Come with today's update and get some votes for Qidian 515 Fan Festival. Everyone has 8 votes, and they also get Qidian coins for voting. I beg everyone to support and appreciate it!

Because Shen Mingwen suddenly disappeared, some clues of Shen Mingyou were found. The three uncles and nephews who were originally scheduled to return to their hometown after the exam decided to delay their departure for a few days. In order to reassure their family, Chen Xi wrote two letters and explained the situation to the Tingzhou Fucheng and Ninghua family respectively.

On August 19th, three days after the provincial examination, there was no news about northern merchants for the time being, so Su Tong came to invite Chen Xi to go out to attend the cultural meeting.

Su Tong seemed very serious this time, especially the popular candidates for Jie Yuan in this provincial examination will participate, and even the Senate of the General Secretary will appear.

This governor's senator, named Lin She, was appointed as the fourth rank and was considered the top five Qing officials in the governor's ranks. Although Lin She was not an outer curtain official in this provincial examination, according to Su Tong, the two examiners of this provincial examination were from his recommendations.

Chen Xi thought a little bit, the test questions for this provincial examination are most likely leaked by Lin She.

"Brother Su, it's not that I have to pour cold water on you. The provincial examination has not yet been released. I will meet with the important personnel of the General Administration and the General Office in this way. Will it have any bad effects among the scholars?"

What Chen Xi was worried about was that this was not an ordinary literary meeting, but that the candidates who got the exam questions were interested in bribing the external curtain officer.

You should know that the provincial examinations are held every three years, and the Administrators Department will gain a lot of benefits from beginning to end, so they naturally have to buy them with money. Now that the exam is over, they still have to "express" them. I hope the examiner can take more care of them when he is admitted.

Since the outer curtain officer and the inner curtain officer cannot show up in person to receive bribes, Lin She was pushed forward.

Su Tong probably understood what Chen Xi meant and smiled and comforted: "Brother Shen is so worried. In fact, those talented scholars will attend this literary meeting, and even Mr. Wu will be invited to go. As far as I know, many of the scholars who attended the meeting were from poor backgrounds and were specially invited to go."

Chen Xi nodded, he probably knew what was going on this literary story.

A trick to fool!

In order to prevent the outside world from rumoring bribes and cheating in this provincial examination, this literary conference was held with great fanfare. While being able to collect bribes, it also made the illusion that scholars only talked about their knowledge and not their background. When others saw that those attending the literary conference were all famous students from all over the country, either from the head of the college or from a famous family. In this way, others would feel a pity that they could not be invited to participate in such literary conferences, but they would not doubt the nature of the literary conference itself.

Su Tong: "Brother Shen is twelve years old this year, so he achieved the second best result in our Tingzhou Prefecture Examination. Many people want to see your reputation... The voice is so high that it is not good if they don't go."

Chen Xi wanted to refuse, but Su Tong talked about this, and it would be bad if he didn't go. So he cleaned up and went to the tea garden where the literary gathering was held with Su Tong.

Because it was a cultural conference of a certain official nature held after the end of this provincial examination, the venue was very cautious and a relatively elegant tea garden was booked. The singers and dancers were invited to cheer them up. These were Ling people invited from the Fuzhou Jiaofangsi.

It seems that in order to gain power, Zi Qian was unable to open the door from Fang Guan, the commander of Fujian, for a while, so he turned to the path of the governor. Even if the Jiaofangsi lost money, he would send the girl over to perform to cheer him up.

The scholars attending this literary meeting, Chen Xi, apart from knowing Su Tong and Wu Shengyu, who were also candidates in Tingzhou Prefecture, only knew Lu Cheng and Chen Chen who had a banquet together in Huaiyang Tower.

Because the Fujian Chenggong announced that Lin She, the Senator of the Political Envoy Department, had not attended, the atmosphere among the scholars seemed extremely relaxed, but the scholars who were dressed relatively ordinary were not very popular, and many of them sat alone, as if they were treated coldly.

The luxuriously dressed young master sat in a group, talking loudly, laughing loudly, and even flirted with the girl from Jiaofangsi.

Although the concept of the aristocratic family no longer existed in the Ming Dynasty. Both scholars who achieved scholarship fame and reputation had equal social status, but due to different family backgrounds, the division of social hierarchies became more and more clear.

The young master who is truly from a wealthy family is disdainful to associate with scholars from poor families. They have family support behind them and their relationship network covers all aspects of the officialdom. Even if they only pass the imperial examination, they can enter the court and become officials and step by step to a high position. However, if a poor scholar, even if he is a Jinshi, he will not be able to obtain a real lack of official position for a long time and he will have to waste his time as a candidate in the Ministry of Personnel for many years.

Su Tong is the absolute core in his usual literary gatherings, but in such official literary gatherings, he is "not getting high or not getting low or not". Ordinary scholars have a generation gap with him, and both sides have no common language.

As for the children of officials, they look down on Su Tong. You are just a "local rich man" from the countryside. Even if you have a lot of land at home, there are tea gardens and farms, and you even know some people in the officialdom, it will not be of much substantial help to your career.

After Su Tong came to the tea garden, he was treated coldly and could only find a secluded seat with Chen Xi. As soon as he raised the tea cup, someone came to say hello. They were all snobbish scholars who were born in a humble background but wanted to cling to the powerful.

These people cannot be recognized by the children of officials, so they can only come to Su Tong to try their luck. It is not in vain to be able to make friends with scholars of Su Tong at the level.

Although Su Tong himself was a little snobbish, he would not be negligent when he came to say hello. After giving the salute, Su Tong sat down with Chen Xi and sighed: "It's a pity that I am not very familiar with this Senator Lin."

Chen Xi thought to himself: "You said you are not familiar with Lin She, so where did you get the provincial examination questions?"

This is hard to ask. Just when the second floor of the Tea Garden was bustling, a compliment suddenly came from downstairs. It turned out that Lin She had arrived.

Su Tong put down the teacup, stood up and said, "Let's go down to welcome him together."

I didn't know each other before, but it doesn't mean I can be neglected in the greeting. Su Tong himself has money and power, so it is still easy to use money to curry favor with the powerful.

But when the two went downstairs, Lin She had been surrounded by a group of scholars because Lin She was from Fujian Houguan, some people had already gone up to catch up with relatives and called "Shibo".

Lin family is a big surname in Fujian. There are many scholars with Lin surname. Over the years, people from the Lin family have been awarded the Jie Yuan exams in Fujian. There are many people who have won the imperial examinations. Today, 100% of the people who invited to the Tea Garden to participate in the literary gathering were Lin. When they went up to get relatives with Lin Shepan, these people seemed very reasonable. Look, these are senior officials of our same clan. You outsiders should stand aside!

In this era, the township party was spread all over the government and the country. If you become an official and don’t know a few fellow villagers and clans in the court, you will be embarrassed to say hello to others. Even if you don’t have one, you should quickly find a teacher and then climb to the same subject. In the same year, two people who are completely unrelated can be connected through some kind of bond. As for people with the same hometown and the same surname, they can be said to be the township party among the township party.

Su Tong and Chen Xi stood behind for a while, but they couldn't squeeze forward and say hello.

Seeing that Lin She was surrounded by him, it was too difficult to go up the second floor, so she simply chose to stay on the first floor. In this way, all the scholars who participated in the literary club could only go downstairs, and there were only a few scholars from poor backgrounds who deliberately made a decent appearance. After going downstairs, she went out directly and left, and Lin She had no time to take care of them.

"Mr. Lin holds an important position in the General Administration and Commissioner, and is truly an example of our scholars. The students have admired each other for a long time, and the small meeting ceremony is not respected."

Just after Lin She sat down, candidates who were "unaware of their appearance" began to give gifts.

The gift is not precious, it is just a fan, not like it was written by a famous artist, but it has a jade pendant that looks worth a few dollars.

Lin She smiled and waved her hand and said, "I came here today to drink tea with the scholars, purely for learning. I never accept gifts."

Chen Xi suddenly realized that the person who came up to give gifts was a "command" that Wenhui deliberately invited to show that Lin She was a clear-headed official.

Sure enough, after Lin She said this, a group of people praised Lin She for being honest and noble in her official position, and said it in a similar manner, which made Chen Xi almost believe it after hearing it.

Some people specially recorded Lin She's words with a pen, then shook their heads and muttered, praising them... There are always people who flatter them by doing whatever they want, even if they slapped the horse's hooves.

"People, please sit, please sit."

Lin She seemed very enthusiastic and invited all the scholars to sit down. Su Tong and Shen Xi could not squeeze in front of him, and they didn't want to go up the second floor alone, so they quickly found a seat to lean on the side.

Those who were desperately trying to squeeze into the seats ahead, but in the end they didn’t even have a seat. In the end, they could not block others’ sight and could only stand in the corner and obey Shangguan’s “teachings”.

Lin Shedao: "When I was the same age as you, I studied hard in the window. Every day, the rooster crowed five drums and started to get up to study. At night, I still hang my head and thorn my head. This is the way to do academic research."

"It's reasonable, it's reasonable. No wonder Lord Lin was able to pass the Jinshi, but he was really a role model for us." Someone started to flatter him again.

Some scholars are all the same age as Lin She, and may be a few years older than Lin She. These people are not inferior to those of flattery, and they even regard Lin She as their grandfather.

Lin She continued: "The way of heaven is fair, and the scholars in the world are on the list of gold. Which one does not require more than ten years or even decades of hard study? If you want to reach the sky in one step, or even learn for three or five or seven years, you want to seek wealth in the imperial examination all the time. It is really arrogant."

This sentence sounds like it is to make the candidates work hard to learn, but those who don’t know think he is mocking "some people".

Among all the scholars present, two of them belonged to Lin She's "alternative" words, one was Wu Shengyu who was only sixteen years old, and the other was Chen Xi who was only twelve years old.

Wu Shengyu was five or six years old and could barely meet the standard that Lin She said was a hard work for more than ten years. Chen Xi was only twelve years old. If she wanted to meet this standard, Chen Xi had to be two years old at the age of two... A two-year-old baby could speak, so how could he read and read?

After Lin She said that, the old ones naturally stood up straight, as if saying: "Look at me, how consistent with the standards set by Lord Lin, how can you, a group of young people, compete with me?"

Most people nodded and agreed, while others didn't like those who came to participate in the provincial examination at a young age, so they looked at Chen Xi.

Su Tong whispered: "Brother Shen, don't be surprised. Lord Lin admires young talents very much."

Chen Xi knew what his identity was now, so he would not be so stupid as to argue with a fourth-rank official in the court.

However, Chen Xi could calm down, but some people couldn't calm down. Wu Shengyu had already stood up, walked forward two steps, and saluted slightly, "I don't agree with Senator Lin's words."

************

ps: The fifth update!

The emperor has worked hard, and you must not relax your monthly tickets for brothers and sisters. Today, one ticket can match the next two tickets. Don’t miss the opportunity, come on!

The emperor quickly write and try to update more so that everyone can enjoy reading it!

Please subscribe! Please give me a monthly ticket! Please give me a reward! Please give me a thumbs up on 515 Fan Festival!

[The 515 is coming soon. I hope to continue to hit the 515 red envelope list. By May 15th, the red envelope rain can give back to readers and promote works. It is also love, so it will definitely be better!]
Chapter completed!