Time flies. In the spring of the eleventh year of Xuanhe in the Song Dynasty, the Song army finally launched an army from Youzhou to attack the Liao Kingdom. The banner it raised was to restore a hundred years of hatred to save the people of the world, but it regarded the Liao Kingdom as a devil who harmed the world.

In order to win this battle, the Song Dynasty devoted all the country's strength to the forefront. The main elites of the Hebei Army and the Western Army alone had a total of 230,000. In addition, the young and strong soldiers selected from the imperial guards of the Fang army everywhere in the country expanded the number of the Northern Expedition Army to nearly 500,000.

More people and civilians transported various materials and weapons to the north continuously. In this way, the statement that the Song Dynasty court mentioned in the letter of declaration of war was not too exaggerated.

When the people of the world learned the numbers from various channels, they were all very excited and decided that the Song Dynasty would win this battle. After all, the Liao Kingdom is no longer as good as before. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is too late to survive. In this way, facing the Song Dynasty's all-out Northern Expedition by millions of Heavenly Army, it will inevitably be defeated. It is only a matter of time before the Liao Kingdom is destroyed.

Under such a good situation, the people who bought government bonds were naturally even more happy. Many people began to worry about the war ahead, only calculating how much profit they could get from it after the victory of the Great War.

However, all this is just a topic that the people outside the capital have been talking about recently. Since February 13, the attention of the people in Bianjing City has long shifted from the war ahead and has fallen to the new imperial examination. Yes, this year's spring examination has finally started on this day of the Northern Expedition. All candidates from all over the country gathered in Tokyo, and in uniform clothes and lined up in neat rows that morning, they entered the examination room to participate in the exam that can change themselves and even many people's fate.

Although the current trend of the literary and noble and military officials in the Song Dynasty has changed greatly due to Sun Tu's various measures, the trend of cultural and educational are still there, especially for the people in the capital, they are willing to pay attention to discussing every imperial examination, and are keen to comment on those famous or those who have achieved good grades during this period.

In several large gambling houses, many handicaps have been opened in the past two days, and the odds of famous talents in the area who won the top scorer, attracting countless gambling players to lose money. It is really the participation of the whole people and enjoy it.

However, all this seems to have nothing to do with Cai Qi, a candidate who can only live in a remote Taoist temple in the west of the city. When he walked into the examination room with the crowd, he seemed so inconspicuous. In fact, he didn't have much hope for this exam in his heart. After all, in terms of knowledge and articles, he is too far from those candidates who have been through ten years of hard work.

In fact, Cai Qi, a candidate from Zhuji County, Shaoxing Prefecture, Jiangnan Road, is not a serious scholar. He is just an ordinary person who has been studying for a while. It was just because of the previous incident in Hangzhou that thousands of candidates in Jiangnan were deprived of the imperial examination qualification for the next ten years. So a person like him was raised by a short man and passed the imperial examination and obtained the qualification to come to Tokyo to take the imperial examination.

Of course, this is also Cai Qi's wish forever. But he didn't expect that his years of wish will come true today. He actually came to Tokyo as a student and entered the examination room. Even if this period of life in the capital was so hard, he was willing to accept it.

But when he entered the examination room and sat in a separate room, when he saw the stack of papers in his hand, Cai Qi felt a burst of nervousness and excitement. After a while, he calmed down and then carefully looked at the questions above.

To be honest, with his attainment in poetry and articles and his understanding of the classics of saints, it is impossible to make any good articles in such a formal examination, and he was prepared to fail to win the Jinshi. However, when he saw the content of the test questions, he was stunned-

The above did not imagine that he would write poems by typing things to express his aspirations, nor did he use classics to express his understanding of certain great principles, but two very straightforward topics: one is a discussion of the gains and losses of all dynasties, and the other is a proposal for what advice does the court have today and how to strengthen the country and the people.

There is nothing that is whining without any silence, and there are only the most real and straightforward questions that can be seen by a person. This suddenly makes Cai Qi's spirit suddenly refreshed. You should know that although he is in the county government office, he is just a small clerk in the household, but he still has some views on the gains and losses of the court's actions, and can calmly write a good article.

What surprised him even more was that the test questions were clearly written, and they could use ancient fu to write essays, but at the same time they also advocated expressing their views in the most straightforward words. This is exactly what Cai Qi is good at, because he is not very knowledgeable, and he needs to have a clear expression of many official duties in the yamen, so he really uses daily spoken language to record them, and has long been used to writing essays like this.

Without much hesitation, Cai Qi chose the second topic, analyzed and explained some of the current inappropriate things in the Song Dynasty from the perspective of being a low-level official, and put forward some of his own suggestions. Perhaps these things may not be really adopted by the court, and he could not even pass the imperial examination. However, having such a person who can make him speak freely in the most familiar way, and there must be something that the senior officials in the court saw, which is enough to make him feel excited.

In this way, Cai Qi was writing in the exam room, writing nearly 10,000 words from morning to night before he stopped writing and rubbing his wrists. He felt a sense of joy in his heart. At this moment, there was not much time left to the final time for the paper submission. He had no time to do more examinations, and then he could only hand over the test paper, and then he did not think about anything else, so he returned to his residence.

Five days later, when Cai Qi went to the Imperial City with a nervous mood to check his results, a small servant from the Ministry of Rites went to the Taoist temple where he was staying, spreading the good news that he had passed the imperial examination and participating in the final palace examination on the second day of this March.

When he saw that his name was indeed on the published list of emperors, Cai Qi couldn't believe his eyes. He, a small county clerk who had mediocre knowledge and had not even read all the classic books, actually passed the Jinshi exam?

Although he cannot be called a Jinshi now, and he must pass another palace examination to confirm his identity. But everyone knows that the palace examination is no longer the same as before, as he was before, but all candidates participating in the palace examination can get the title of a Jinshi or a Jinshi, and then the smooth road of officialdom will also be opened for them.

Such good news really made Cai Qi feel dizzy and unreal. Even if a few days have passed, he still feels that he is in a dream.

It was not until the day came that he entered the palace with dozens of equally excited candidates in the same year, sat in front of those new cases, and saw the solemn official Zhu Zi standing on both sides and the heroic and intimidating man at the top that he was sure that his land was indeed about to become a Jinshi that countless scholars dreamed of and could not find.

The man who appeared in front of everyone was naturally the real ruler of the Song Dynasty, King Yue, Grand Tu, Grand Tu. Even if he just looked at him from a distance, Cai Qi was shocked, as if the person standing in front of him was not a person, but an ancient divine sword that was unsheathed and shining with its brilliance, an ancient god that could be worshipped by countless people.

It was not until Sun Tu spoke slowly that he calmed down and listened carefully. After all, the next exam was the most important, which would be related to what kind of results he could get in this palace examination.

"Today, because Your Majesty is in good health, I issued an order for me to set up the exam for him." Sun Tu's first words made everyone present change slightly, but neither the officials nor the candidates dared to raise objections at this moment.

Since the founding of the imperial examination in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the emperor has always been the chief examination for the last palace examination. This is not only to reflect the imperial emperor's attention to the candidates and this examination system, but also to allow the emperor to understand the character and abilities of these future ministers earlier and to bring closer the relationship between the monarch and the ministers.

It can be said that no matter how wise or stupid the emperors of each dynasty were, no matter how busy they were at that time, as long as it was during the palace examination, there would be nothing that would not appear. Even if it was Zhao Ji himself, he had not been able to leave even once in the past decades.

But this year, he disappeared because he was "ill" and replaced by Sun Tu, the Grand Marshal. What this means, in fact, many people have already vaguely guessed in their hearts. The emperor has really become a puppet, and what Sun Tu is doing now is to take away all these superficial powers from him one by one.

Then what would he do if he went on? No one dared to think of the answer to this question, and he dared not go against him. The fate of Li Gang and others is still fresh in memory, so all officials could only be silent.

Sun Tu's eyes only glanced at the silent officials, and then said, "Today's palace examination, we do not test poetry, songs, or write beautiful articles. There is only one question for this test, which is based on your own opinions, discussing the changes in the current century of the Song Dynasty, and the differences between this Northern Expedition of Liao and the past few times, and what is the chance of winning.

"You don't have to worry too much about what is missing. As long as you can speak something and make sense, your Majesty will choose it. If you can explain some profound truths or make everything in the Song Dynasty go further, I promise you that you can also promote it in an extraordinary way. No matter what your status is now, you can go directly to the six ministries and other important yamen!"
Chapter completed!