The Prosperous Era of Longwan

Wei Guangde didn't care much about what happened after that. Most of the time, Wang Xilie was in charge.

However, during the period when they were imprisoned in Gongyuan, the outside world still had a lot of criticism about the chief examiner and deputy examiner selected by the palace.

In the past, the palace had decided to test the examiners, but such an oversight had never happened.

In fact, the outside world had already speculated that Wei Guangde would become the president of the examination, but they did not expect that Wang Xilie would become the deputy examiner.

When Tan Lun heard the news in the Yamen, he was also shocked.

Every round of the imperial examination is an opportunity for the examiners to accumulate merit and gather connections, but it is also a test.

Since the Jiajing Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, nearly 10,000 candidates have gathered for each examination. This time, there are more than 8,000 applicants. Although the admission has not been determined, it is usually only 300 people according to the convention. The difficulty can be imagined. Know.

Those who can stand out from the examination are either very talented or very lucky, otherwise there is nothing else.

With so many people referring to it, you can imagine how complicated it is, especially for candidates to check.

In fact, in addition to leaking questions and cheating, impostor is also a kind of imperial examination fraud, but this method is generally difficult to detect when it comes to the level of examination.

Because there are so many people participating in the exam, even if the candidates are familiar with each other from the same hometown, it is difficult to determine whether the person in the examination room is the person they are familiar with.

After all, once you enter the examination room, you can't move around casually.

In short, the Ming Dynasty has always adopted a zero-tolerance attitude towards fraud in imperial examinations, and the penalties for those who commit fraud are extremely severe. However, there have been no cases of fraud reported in some days.

Of course, the absence of cases does not mean the absence of fraud.

In fact, most of the real fraud in imperial examinations occurs in college examinations and provincial examinations.

After all, in the countryside, the status of scholar and scholar is still very popular.

Most of the people who obtained the status of civil servants through fraud will no longer be determined to gamble and take exams. Instead, they will use their family wealth to buy an official position in the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

You know, the examination is in the capital, and if you make any mistakes, you will be heard by Datian, and by then it will be too late.

Moreover, because the National Examination is a major national examination, the supervision system for the National Examination is also very complete. It is not as easy to break through the joints as the college examination and the provincial examination.

Two days before the examination, Wei Guangde and Wang Xilie called all the supervisors and examiners together to discuss the candidates.

"You are all Jinshi, and you probably know the imperial court's attitude towards fraud in imperial examinations.

Although Shandai had never presided over an imperial examination before, he had passed the examination at the same level as all the other officials, and he had heard a lot about fraud in the examination room.

When it comes to the general examination, it is even more important than the final palace examination. It will not be removed, and it also shows His Majesty's trust in you and me.

The National Talent Promotion Ceremony, I hope you will not take it lightly, especially the selection of candidates. "

Wei Guangde said this and saw that everyone seemed to be hesitant to speak. In fact, he didn't know that there was no photography technology in the Ming Dynasty, so local descriptions of candidates' faces naturally brought a lot of inconvenience.

It is also impossible to call candidates' sponsors to identify them on the spot like in the college examination and provincial examination. They can only conduct a simple screening based on the appearance of the candidates recorded by the Ministry of Etiquette and the precautions they have written. Naturally, the invigilators dare not pat their chests and say that they are sharp-eyed and do not know how to do it. Let Xiaoxiao escape.

The candidates all queued up and were searched by soldiers and officers, and then passed through their hands with the etiquette procedures.

But with thousands of people entering the examination room in such a short period of time, it is naturally impossible to cover everything. Even if there is a slight suspicion, it will not ruin the future of the candidates.

After all, there is no way to screen candidates in such a short period of time.

Therefore, if there is any suspicion, you should let people in. Unless the candidates have extremely different faces and figures, they will not be stopped outside the examination room.

People who cheat will naturally not be stupid enough to randomly find someone to take the exam for them, and they will naturally carefully select people with a similar figure and appearance to themselves.

"I came here today to tell you one thing. If you have any doubts about the candidates, please send them directly to me. Zizhong and I and the other examiners will identify them again."

Wei Guangde took it upon himself to identify the candidates, and he, Wang Xilie, and other inspectors conducted the screening together.

This kind of thing happens every time you take an exam. Among the thousands of candidates, there will always be dozens or hundreds whose actual appearance is different from the records. Excluding the young candidates who are growing up, it is actually relatively small. Able to identify.

"Mr. Wei Ge, in addition to taking the exam for you, I heard that there are also candidates who collude to cheat."

An invigilator said.

"That's a matter of patrolling the examination room and the yamen. When the time comes, everyone should move around the examination rooms more. Not only should they pay attention to the conditions of the candidates, but they should also check whether the yamen in each room behave unusually. Once found, they will be replaced directly."

Wei Guangde said.

When candidates collude to cheat, candidates with poor grades usually pay large sums of money to bribe people in the Gongyuan Academy to pass the test papers to them.

Someone with outstanding literary talent, either because of money or because of family background, wrote the volume on his behalf.

The most outstanding example of this cheating method is the fraud case of Shen Tonghe, a candidate from Wujiang in South Zhili, who colluded with his son-in-law Zhao Mingyang in the 44th Wanli examination.

This method was used in this matter. Shen Tonghe bribed the invigilator and arranged for him and Zhao Mingyang to take exams in adjacent or similar exam rooms. Zhao Mingyang would then pass the answers to other places.

With this method, Shen Tonghe and Zhao Mingyang successfully passed the college examination and the provincial examination. It was not until the joint examination that Zhao Mingyang was so outstanding in his spear skills that he was directly considered as a member by the examiner, and the truth was revealed.

When the examination results were released, some students from Wujiang gathered in front of the results and saw that Shen Tonghe, a candidate from Wujiang, was ranked first in the high school. They were immediately furious.

What's more, they grabbed a handful of mud on the spot and covered up Shen Tonghe's name on the list. Then everyone went to the Yamen in a fuss and demanded justice from the court.

Southern Zhili is a large area, and although not all the candidates are familiar with each other, how could the local candidates in Wujiang not know who Shen Tonghe is.

Shen Tonghe, a man who usually has no knowledge and skills, idles around and does evil outside every day because of his father who is an official. Such a man actually passed the provincial examination, and now he has also passed the general examination and received a Huiyuan. This group of poor people studied hard It would be strange for candidates who have been taking exams for more than ten years not to be angry.

When the matter got serious, the imperial court held a special examination for Shen Tonghe. As expected, the mud could not hold up the wall, and he was exposed on the spot.

When they arrived in the capital, major cases such as imperial examination fraud naturally reached the ears of Emperor Wanli, who asked the Jin Yiwei to examine the case, and the truth soon came to light.

Shen Tonghe was also very hard-working. In order to get Zhao Mingyang to do this for him, he actually became a daughter-in-law with Zhao Mingyang and married his daughter to Zhao Mingyang. Only then did he get Zhao Mingyang's consent.

It's just that he underestimated Zhao Mingyang's strength and actually won the first place in the competition.

Well, this is not Zhao Mingyang’s highlight moment. He won the membership title for Shen Tonghe’s article, and his own article also ranked sixth on the examination list.

If he wasn't extremely talented, he would never have achieved such results.

But then again, this may be Skynet Huihui.

Wei Guangde came from a later generation, so he had naturally heard of this. At that time, he also thought it was amazing, it was really amazing.

If they had been a little more stable and not so provocative, their father-in-law and son-in-law would have become officials together.

After this incident was reported, Shilin was in an uproar. Who would dare to think of such a thing?

However, the final conclusion of the case made people feel both resentful and sad. "The law and justice department discussed the crime, Tonghe dispatched the garrison, and Zhao Mingyang was punished with a stick and dismissed."

Wei Guangde just knew that there was such a thing, so he didn't dare to take it lightly.

Screening and inspection are both important and cannot be relaxed.

When Wei Guangde was getting busy because the exam period was approaching, in a dense forest about 30 miles north of Changdian Fort in Liaodong, a figure hurriedly came outside a few hastily built tents.

When the person arrived outside the tent, he broke into the tent without waiting for the person on duty to ask questions, and shouted inside: "Manzhu, I have thought of a way."

Wang Gao was drinking wine in the tent at this time. He had been here for two days, but after thinking hard, he couldn't think of a way to deal with the Ming army's camp.

The defense is really too tight, and if you rush to attack with troops, you are afraid that you will suffer heavy losses.

Just when he had a headache and could only drown his sorrows with wine, Lai Lihong barged in and shouted that he had come up with a solution. He didn't even have time to clean it up before he got up in a hurry. The wine table in front of him was almost overturned, but there was a wine bottle on the table. The wine glass still fell to the floor, and he didn't care that the wine wet the blanket.

"If you think of any solution, tell me quickly."

When Li Hong came up, Wang Gao asked impatiently.

"Create something out of nothing and catch the thief and the king."

Lai Lihong didn't show off, and just said the solution he thought of.

"Why create something out of nothing? I can understand the idea of ​​capturing the thief and capturing the king. You mean killing the opponent's general."

Wang Gao's men had killed many famous generals, so he didn't think that killing famous generals was a big deal.

Moreover, once the Ming army generals are killed, the Ming army camp will naturally be in chaos. He can take advantage of the situation and break through the Ming army camp at the minimum cost.

Although after this battle, it was no longer difficult for him to maintain relations with the Ming Dynasty, but the Ming Dynasty had built all the castles and towns under his nose, so he had to directly say that it was against him, so there was nothing to worry about.

Although I don't know the situation of the Ming army's camp, according to Kohler's investigation and his observations, there are at least several thousand people in the Ming army's camp.

Even if he gathers a large army to come here, the strength comparison between the two sides is only 50-50.

If he wants to defeat his opponent easily, he can only use tactics, otherwise the price will be too high for him to bear.

"We sent people to pretend to surrender."

Lai Lihong said bluntly: "Let's just say that Manzhu brought people to investigate the situation of the Ming army. They were afraid of the might of the Ming Dynasty and worried that they would lose their lives in vain, so they chose to surrender to the Ming Dynasty.

At that time, it was only said that Manzhu only had dozens of guards with him. The general must have thought there was an opportunity and would bring hundreds of people to encircle and suppress him.

Manzhu only needs to line up his troops and prepare his pockets, and when the general arrives, he will be captured in one fell swoop.

Without the general, the Ming army's camp will be in chaos, but our army can take advantage of the situation to attack and win a complete victory. "

Lai Lihong told him the strategy he had thought of after reading "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" over the past two days. This was a serial strategy, and he was quite proud of it at this time.

Among the entire Jurchen tribe, there are a few who are as resourceful and brave as him.

There should be no more. When he comes to Lihong, he is the Jurchen's number one Batulu and think tank.

"Okay, this is a good plan."

After hearing Lai Lihong's plan, Wang Gao was overjoyed.

I calculated in my mind that the time for the arrival of my troops should be within the next two days.

Wait for the troops to arrive, let them rest for a day, and then use tactics against the Ming army.

"Come, sit down, let's drink and celebrate, haha"

Wang Gao had already decided to use Lailihong's strategy. He turned around and saw the wine jug on the ground. He immediately shouted to the guards outside the tent: "Bring me more wine and roast the best lamb."

The guard outside agreed and quickly brought drinks, only saying that the mutton would be coming later and was being roasted.

"Manzhu, the people you send out must be shrewd. Otherwise, it will be difficult to achieve the external purpose, and it will be easy for people to see through. That would be bad."

Lai Lihong sat opposite Wang Gao and said.

When Wang Gao heard this, he frowned slightly and asked, "Do you have anyone to choose?"

"This person must be one of Man Zhu's personal guards. Only then will they know that Man Zhu's habits are not easily seen through."

Lai Lihong explained in a low voice.

This is to ask Wang Gao to find people among the people close to him.

Wang Gao nodded, "It's a very important matter, I have to think about it carefully, by the way."

At this moment, Wang Gao suddenly thought of a question and couldn't help but ask: "What if the famous general knows about it and doesn't come himself, but sends his men to fight?"

"No, Man Zhu is here, no one would miss this opportunity."

Lai Lihong seemed to have thought of a countermeasure a long time ago. When Wang Gao raised this possibility, he immediately responded.

"That's right, although we didn't break up with the Ming Army, the relationship is just like that.

The people of Ming Dynasty will not miss this opportunity to catch me. To those generals of Ming Dynasty, I am their great contribution. Who among them can give up this overwhelming wealth, haha."

Wang Gao's doubts disappeared at this time and he laughed loudly.

In the Ming army camp more than thirty miles away, Pei Chengzu, who was guerrilla fighting at Fushun Pass, did not notice anything strange at all.

Every day he would ask the people who were out to scout, and he gradually relaxed after knowing that no human traces were found within thirty miles.

At first, he was somewhat resistant to being ordered to lead a team to garrison troops in Changdian and Yongdian to protect the civilian workers and craftsmen working here.

Who doesn't know that this place has always been the hunting ground of the Jianzhou Jurchens. If the border wall is moved north here rashly, war will inevitably break out.

This was also the reason why he had always been cautious, lest he be attacked by Wang Gaobu.

However, he also knew that this was just a hunting ground for Wang Gao's tribe, and the guerrilla Wang Weiping's troops were stationed near the Shichakou of Kuandian. That was where Wang Gao was most nervous, because Wang Gao's tribe had gone south several times to plunder. .

It can be said that Shichakou blocked Wang Gao's passage south. Logically speaking, if Wang Gao's tribe wanted to take action against the Ming army, Wang Weiping's tribe at Shichakou would be the most likely place to encounter a sneak attack.

This is why Li Chengliang appointed Deputy General Yang Teng to garrison Dengliangtun with an army from the beginning to defend against possible offensives by the Mongolian army, while he quietly set out from Shenyang and arrived at Xianshan Fort.

However, he also heard the analysis of the General Soldier, that is, at this stage, Wang Gao's troops may not take immediate action, but will wait until the fort is nearly halfway built before launching an attack to destroy the completed fort and side walls. This will have a greater impact on the Ming army.

But even so, he still adopted a cautious attitude. He did not want to be the first general to die in this war. (End of chapter)