Chapter 414 Pen holder case (II)

The official examination is much stricter than the rules for the subject examination. The examination is not misleading, and the question types are not announced in advance. Every official candidate must be carefully searched and identified before entering the examination room to prevent entrainment or impersonation. Moreover, they will be rejected if they are late for a moment.

At the right time of Mao, the door of Xuanzheng Hall was open. More than 5,000 officials lined up in ten rows and headed towards the hall. No one dared to speak. Everyone walked forward silently. Li Xuan, the fourth person in the third row, looked gloomy and followed the team into the hall without saying a word.

The layout of the hall is no big difference from the previous few days of the subject matter test. It is also divided into small grids by simple wooden boards. The test number has changed. The four districts A, B, C and D are concentrated in the main hall. Li Xuan's test number is No. 443, District B. Soon, he found District B written on a huge sign, and walked directly from the third row, and soon found his seat.

There are also seats and tables in the seats, with pens, ink, paper and inkstones placed on them. This was only placed last night. A special person will come to distribute the test papers later. Li Xuan sat down in his seat and waited for the start of the exam without saying a word.

"In the Ministry of Rites, Wei Qing, the deputy chief examiner of the official examination today, that is, the full inspector today, I will announce the rules of the examination room." Wei Qing read out the rules of the examination room one by one, and several small cars carrying full test papers walked past each candidate, and each gave a copy of the test papers.

The car slowly approached Li Xuan, and Li Xuan's heart began to become nervous. With a slight sound, the car stopped in front of him. A person who was engaged in handing him a paper and carefully instructed: "Don't worry, don't forget to write your name."

Li Xuan took the paper and suddenly heard a soft low voice coming from the next door. He hurriedly opened the paper and was stunned. The test paper was as many as eight pages, and it was filled with questions, which was dazzling. There was no poem or fu, nor strategy. Almost all of them were posted on scriptures, such as "The Book of Rites", "Zuo Zhuan", "The Book of Songs", "The Book of Zhou", "Yi Li", "The Book of Changes", "The Book of Changes", etc., and each line was empty for a short paragraph for the candidates to fill in. In this way, even if someone was asked to prepare the poem and strategy, it would be useless. This is the real ability to take the exam.

Generally speaking, posting scriptures is a basic examination for the imperial examination. Any scholar who has been working hard for ten years can basically memorize it very well. Even after many years, as long as he reviews it briefly, he can remember it. Zhang Huan announced in June that the national official examination would be held, giving each candidate three months to prepare. The review time should be enough, unless he could not memorize it at all while studying, or was old and really forgot it.

Because he was old and had forgotten, there was nothing he could do. After all, there were too many officials in the Tang Dynasty, and at least half of them had to be cut. Li Xuan stared at the papers blankly, and could not say a word for a long time. He relied on his family to enter the government. When he was a teenager, he flew around Chang'an City and had never read a book seriously for a day. The Dali Temple Sizhi, who is now in charge, is not high or low. It is enough to arrange six people according to normal rank, but now there are eleven people, and there are only three or four people who really work. Li Xuan is a mixed official, and he basically cannot complete the topic today.

At this time, Li Xuan quickly glanced at both sides. The aisle was empty and very quiet. The invigilator rarely walked around. He slowly adjusted his pen and searched carefully on the pen holder. Finally, he found the end of the pen, gently rotated the cover on the end of the pen, and opened it. It should be a hollow pen holder inside, but Li Xuan shook and actually shook a roll of paper out of it. He hid the roll of paper under the roll, and quickly restored the cover to its original state.

He looked at the aisle again, but suddenly saw a candidate's head not far away, and the two of them smiled knowingly. Without the invigilator, Li Xuan immediately spread the paper quickly, with small words written on it, and the numbers in front corresponded to each question one by one, which turned out to be the standard answer to this test paper.

Li Xuan suppressed the excitement in his heart and started copying quickly. While copying, he paid attention to the aisle vigilantly. The exam took only one hour and it was completed. Li Xuan checked again, mainly to check if there were any wrong lines. Just as he was halfway through the inspection, suddenly, a sound of footsteps came from a distance, as if he was coming to his test position, which shocked Li Xuan torn apart. He knotted the paper roll into a ball and swallowed his stomach as quickly as possible.

The footsteps stopped next to him, and Wei Qing's voice came, "What's the matter?"

The candidate next door said, "My pen is broken, can I change one?"

"Wait for a moment." Wei Qing's footsteps walked away again.

Li Xuan's heart was slightly relieved, but his answer had been swallowed, and there were four pages behind it that had not been checked. He had no idea whether it was right or not. Li Xuan's scalp tingled. What should I do? At this time, he wanted to beat the person next door to death with an old punch. He sat there stupidly, not knowing what to do?

"What, have you finished?" Wei Qing suddenly appeared in front of him and asked with a smile: "If you finish, you can hand over the paper."

"Yes! Yes! I'm done." Li Xuan hurriedly picked up the paper and handed it to Wei Qing with both hands. Wei Qing was a little surprised to see that he had finished it. He took the paper and flipped it over. The doubts in his eyes became even more intense. He knew that Li Xuan was ignorant, but the test papers on the previous few pages were almost correct, and the answers were very standard.

But no matter how confused it was, Wei Qing still drew a circle on his paper, indicating that it was completed normally. He calmly said to Li Xuan: "You can go back, and be careful to keep quiet when going out."

Li Xuan didn't dare to say anything, so he turned around and hurried away. Wei Qing looked at his back, shook his head in great surprise, and murmured to himself: "This is strange!"

The official examination is simpler than the scientific examination. It can only take one exam. At noon, as the bell rings at the end of the examination, the Xuanzheng Hall was closed. The officials of the Ministry of Rites began to check the test papers by number. For the whole afternoon, the Xuanzheng Hall was extremely busy. Some of the officials started to attend court, while some bought some local products in Chang'an to prepare to return to the place. Whether the exam was good or bad, the exam was over. Five days later, the Ministry of Personnel will announce the disposal plan.

Until the evening, all the cleaning work was gradually over, and the next step was to mark the papers. The official examination was not done by officials from the Ministry of Rites, but more than 100 students were found from the Imperial College for cross-judgment. Except for a few important people, the rest of the officials of the Ministry of Rites could go home. Wei Qing was the deputy examiner. Of course, he had to stick to the final exam, but the supervision was not as strict as before. His family could give them some daily necessities under the supervision of the guards.

At this moment, Wei Qing and seven or eight doctors and Yuanwailang stayed in the side hall of Xuanzheng Hall. From time to time, students who scored papers sent some unqualified or weird papers. The so-called unqualified means that only less than 50% of them are correct. These people will be directly blacklisted and submitted to the Ministry of Personnel. The weird papers have obvious loopholes. For example, many places are misunderstood, or the situations of several papers are similar. This situation may be that the candidates have reversed the two books and scriptures, or that they are cheating, and they need to be identified one by one.

"Shishou, this is another list of unqualified people." A man-in-law sent a thick list, which is already the third book today. Wei Qing sighed slightly, took the list and flipped it out, with more than 500 people. At this time, he found a trace of alteration on the fourth page, and a line was painted out by ink brushes. He pointed to Tu Gai and asked, "What's going on?"

"Reporting to the Minister, my subordinates have asked, this is their clue, and my subordinates have also checked the papers, and they are indeed making mistakes."

"If you make a mistake, forget it?" Wei Qing scolded: "Go! Ask them to re-repute and copy it. There should be no trace of alteration on the list."

"Yes!" Yuanwailang did not dare to say much, and ran back to the hall with the list of rosters. Wei Qing picked up another list of rosters. This was a list of some abnormal test papers. Not many, less than a hundred. The reason for the abnormality was written one by one on the list. Most of them found the cause of the abnormality. The doctor who was pre-examination had a black pen and the wrong ones were removed. Two of the test papers were wrong. The two candidates were seated next to each other. The doctor who was pre-examination used a red pen to hook it out, which shows that he was suspected of cheating and needs to be checked carefully. There were only these two red pens in the entire abnormality list, and the rest were removed by the ink pen.

Wei Qing just scanned it briefly and wanted to put it down. Suddenly, he seemed to feel something and picked up the list again. On the last few lines, he saw a person's name, Li Xuan, did he have any abnormalities? Wei Qing couldn't help but pay attention. Li Xuan's mistake was to fill in the answer incorrectly, and the last page jumped all the lines, and the previous one was all right. Wei Qing remembered the situation when he handed over the paper. It was indeed a bit strange. He immediately got up and went to the hall.

The paper marking area of ​​the main hall has been completely closed with wooden boards, leaving only a few handover holes. There are a long row of tables outside, with more than a dozen people sitting. Here is the registration school inspection office. All the unpassed papers and abnormal papers are handed over here for the final school inspection office login. After logging in, you have to sign and another person to audit to prevent missed registration. It is very strict. Wei Qing stepped forward and said to a student: "Change the papers of candidate No. 443 in the abnormal papers to me."

The student did not dare to neglect, and immediately found Li Xuan's test paper from the abnormal paper. Wei Qing turned to the last page and indeed jumped all the lines. It seemed that he had written the first line twice, but all the lines were wrong. Wei Qing laughed coldly. If it was one or two mistakes, it might be understood, maybe he remembered the syllabus wrongly, but the last page was all wrong, and even filled in the simplest Analects in the Book of Songs, which was unreasonable.

"I want to take this paper carefully and take it away first." Wei Qing explained and took the paper back to the room.

When he returned to the room, a person in charge came up to greet him, "Mr., your family has brought you something, right outside."

"I understand." Wei Qing put down the paper and walked to the outer hall. In the open space of the outer hall, a servant was standing there waiting for him. There were several soldiers next to him. There were rules for delivering things at this house. Books and paper items are not allowed, and large daily necessities such as bedding are not allowed. They are only allowed to send some special items, such as medicine, food, or bringing some safe messages from their families, etc., and there must be soldiers guarding each other. This is a kind of humane compatibility. After all, the exam has been completed, and they are not responsible for the final marking.

The servant was carrying a box in his hand. When he saw him coming out, he immediately stepped forward and said, "Madam asked me to bring some ointment and some of the master's favorite side dishes. The lady said that everything is fine at home and the master is in peace. Please rest assured."

As he said that, he handed over the box. There was nothing special about it. The box was carefully checked and there were no loopholes. However, Wei Qing was slightly stunned. He never used any medicine, so why did he give him ointment? He was surprised, but there was no expression on his face. He took the box and told him: "Tell my wife, I will be able to return home in three days, so that she can take care of her father well."

Wei Qing took the box back to the room and carefully closed the door. He immediately opened the box, which was only three plates of side dishes and a gourd-shaped porcelain bottle. The porcelain bottle contained an unknown ointment with a fragrant smell and there was no abnormality in the dish. Apart from that, there was no other item in the box. At this time, Wei Qing's eyes fell on the gourd porcelain bottle. It was obvious that when the family brought a medicine that he didn't know, there must be articles inside.

He picked up the porcelain bottle and looked carefully. The porcelain bottle was very complete and had no mechanism. He thought about it, then took a chopstick from the box and slowly inserted it into the ointment and stirred it. Suddenly, he felt as if he had touched something, small and round, as big as a lotus seed. Wei Qing's heart moved. He walked to the door a few steps and looked out. No one came over. He immediately slapped the bottle on the wall, and with a crisp "bang", the bottle broke and fell to the ground.

Wei Qing squatted down and carefully used chopsticks to remove the ointment. Finally, he picked up the ointment and squeezed it out of the ointment. He was even more surprised and picked up the wax pill and gently crushed it. There was a small ball of paper inside. At this time, Wei Qing's heart was beating violently. He slowly unfolded the ball of paper, with a line of words written in it, which was his father's handwriting: he collected one thousand taels of Li Xuanjin.

Wei Qing suddenly fell in his seat, and the tension just now turned into a kind of fear. His father collected 1,000 taels of gold and allowed himself to cheat in the exam room. Wei Qing's eyes slowly turned to the test paper. Li Xuan was indeed cheating, and he was very stupid. He even cheated. Wei Qing stared at the paper blankly, and his mind was confused. Suddenly, he shivered and woke up suddenly. What did Li Xuan cheating have to do with him? He must be someone else. One thousand taels of gold. Could it be that he bought it.

Is he silent? No! I must not take it up. He picked up the paper and walked out quickly, but when he walked to the door, his pace slowed down again. This matter was probably not that simple. Li Xuan used 1,000 taels of gold to buy his silence. The matter must involve major issues. He knew the answer in advance. Under such strictness, he could actually know the answer in advance. The previous person involved was at least at the level of the prime minister, or Zhang Huan's harem, or even Zhang Huan himself.

Wei Qing hesitated, and he had to consider the consequences of the matter being exposed. Moreover, Li Xuan's test paper had been approved by ink pen, so he just had to pretend that he didn't know anything and passed by, but no matter what, the money could not be collected.

The examinations for the system and the examinations for the official examinations quietly ended in the autumn wind. The officials who took the examinations for the official examinations returned to normal court, while the scholars who took the examinations for the subjects were still waiting in Chang'an. The days passed day by day, and it was finally time to issue the title.

The examination papers of more than 200,000 scholars were reviewed for nearly half a month. After the review, all those who participated in the examination papers seemed to have a serious illness. That morning, the results of the examination were finally released. Han Huan, the Minister of Personnel, hurried to the inner palace of Daming with a final admission list.

This morning, Zhang Huan specially asked for half a day off. His youngest son, who was just a few months old, fell ill, which made him heartbroken. Zhang Huan's youngest son was born to Cui Ning, and was born prematurely. After birth, he was very thin, like a kitten. If this child is in ordinary families, he will die prematurely, but he was lucky to be born in the imperial family. Zhang Huan used the best imperial doctor and the best medicine. His life was saved, but he kept coughing. In the middle of the night, he suddenly had a fever again and had difficulty breathing. From the middle of the night, three imperial doctors rescued him until the early morning. He dragged him back from the brink of death, but not long after, the child's body began to get fever again.

Outside the ward, Cui Ning was anxiously waiting for the news from the imperial doctor. She had cried countless times overnight, and almost all the tears were dry. At this time, she leaned on Zhang Huan's body very weakly, her eyes were swollen and red, and she kept wiping the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief. Beside her, Pei Ying, who was haggard, also rubbed the handkerchief anxiously and comforted Cui Ning in a low voice. There was also Pingping and her adopted daughter Bai Ling in the room. Another person was Cui Xuezhu, who had just entered the palace for two months and was named Zhaoyuan. She sat at the end tactfully without saying a word.

"Huanlang, if the child has many shortcomings, I will not want to live anymore." Cui Ning suddenly burst into tears. The child suffered so much in just two months, and her heart was about to break.

"Don't worry, the imperial doctor has rescued him once. They have experience, so there should be no problem." Zhang Huan hugged his beloved wife's shoulder and whispered to comfort her. In fact, he was also worried. A child who was only two months old could withstand such great tossing. He stroked his beloved wife's thin shoulders, thinking that she would not have been relieved for a day after she married him, Zhang Huan felt even more guilty.

Suddenly he felt his clothes being pulled a little, and when he turned around, he saw Pei Ying holding a small piece of paper in his hand, saying: Today is the day to issue the list, you must go to court, so I will leave it here to me.

Zhang Huan hadn't slept all night, his face was dark and exhausted. When Pei Ying reminded him, he sighed inwardly, "Don't he know that today is very important?" But something happened to the child today, Cui Ning was so sad. As a husband and father, he should be with her anyway. He shook his head, pointed to Cui Ning quietly, and signaled that he would wait for a while. Pei Ying had no choice but to get up and go out to write notes again.

At this time, Cui Xuezhu, who had been sitting at the end, suddenly walked over and half-kneeled in front of Cui Ning and whispered to her: "Sister Ning, today is the day of the registration of the department. The emperor must go and choose it."

Cui Ning was shocked and raised her head and apologized to Zhang Huan: "I'm sorry Huanlang, I don't know, please click and go quickly!"

Zhang Huan waved his hand quickly, "It's okay, it won't affect me if I go late. If things are urgent, Shangshu Han will come to me."

Pingping next to him could see clearly that Cui Xuezhu was trying to please Shibalang again. Pingping was a straight-tempered person. Although she didn't care about Cui Xuezhu's marriage to Zhang Huan, she didn't like Cui Xuezhu's charm everywhere. She racked her brains to please Shibalang all day long. Zhang Huan handled court affairs in Linde Hall, but she brought some ice-cold sour plum soup to serve. Pei Ying accused her afterwards. She admitted her mistake and secretly knelt down in front of Zhang Huan at night. Now she took advantage of the opportunity when Pei Ying went out to persuade Cui Ning, this fairy!

The plain face suddenly sank, and she said in a long voice: "Shibalang is the king of a country. Of course he knows which is more important. If he doesn't know, then there will be the queen's advice. It's not your turn to remind me."

Cui Xuezhu's face suddenly turned red. She looked at Zhang Huan pitifully, and tears were shining in her eyes. Zhang Huan also knew that her life in the palace was actually not easy. Many things were not handled smoothly and were too obvious, which caused public anger. But after all, she was still young, so she couldn't bear to say to her, nodding to her, indicating that she would not blame her. Cui Xuezhu lowered her head and retreated back to her seat.

At this time, Pei Ying walked in again. She saw Cui Ning pushing Zhang Huan away. She didn't know what happened. She was a little surprised and looked at Pingping, but Pingping didn't say a word, as if she didn't see anything.

"What's wrong?" Zhang Huan asked Pei Ying when she saw a note in her hand.

Pei Ying quickly handed him the note, "Shangshu Han has come, please ask the emperor to deal with this matter."

Zhang Huan took it and it was indeed the top 250 test results. There were the results of each candidate behind him. He glanced briefly. Bai Juyi was ranked third, and Liu Zongyuan was ranked tenth, while Guo Mu did not find him for a while. But just giving him this list was not enough. He needed to hold a meeting with the prime ministers to discuss the character of the candidates to decide the final admission. He knew that Han Huan would definitely be urgent when he came to him. He took a deep breath and said to Cui Ning: "Ning'er, I can't accompany you as much as you do, but you must remember that I love our children as much as you."

Cui Ning nodded with tears in his eyes, Zhang Huan patted Pei Ying's hand again, turned around and strode away.

In the Political Affairs Hall, seven prime ministers and censor Yan Jiudu were already waiting for Zhang Huan. Although they had only cooperated for less than half a year, they knew that Zhang Huan would definitely come. The conference room was very quiet and no one spoke.

"Your Majesty is here!"

With a loud shout, Zhang Huan quickly walked into the Political Affairs Hall. The seven prime ministers stood up and bowed together, "I will meet your Majesty!"

"Dear friends, please don't worry." Zhang Huan waved his hand and said apologetically: "The emperor's son is seriously ill, and I have delayed national affairs for family affairs."

Today's ruling official is Yuan Zai, the Minister of War. He quickly stood up and said, "If it weren't for the urgent matter, I wouldn't dare to disturb Your Majesty. I hope the prince will recover soon."

Zhang Huan sighed slightly, then stopped mentioning this matter, and said to Han Huan: "Han Aiqing, you are the chief examiner of the department, let's start with you!"

"I obey the order!" Han Huan stood up and said loudly: "There are 223,000 people participating in this subject test, and 200 people will be admitted. In addition, 20 people will be admitted from the five tribes of Khitan, Xi, Shatuo, Dangxiang and Qiang, each of which will not account for this quota. Today, I have obtained the examination score ranking of the top 250 people. After the review of the Ministry of Personnel, these 250 people have outstanding literary talents, their scores are completely true, and their ranking is fair. I officially submitted it to the emperor."

After saying that, Han Huan handed the official ranking of results to Zhang Huan, with Han Huan's signature on it. Zhang Huan nodded. There were 250 people in total, and only 200 people were recorded according to the grade level. The fifty people behind him were the candidates. He looked at it briefly and asked Yan Jiudu, the chief censor, and said, "What about the Censor's opinion?"

Yan Jiudu stood up and bowed and said, "Shangshu Han has given me a copy of the list of illegal scholars. I have compared the list of illegal scholars recently found that nine of them did not meet the admission requirements. The Yizhou scholar Wang Ziwei ranked 77, who was absent from the brothel on the eve of the exam; Zhao Tao ranked 104, who had been prostituted on August 22; Jin Taigen of Runzhou scholar Jin Taigen ranked 122, and entered the Pingkangfang Jucai Casino on August 29......"

Yan Jiudu briefly introduced the violations of nine people one by one, and finally handed the investigation report to Zhang Huan, "This is the detailed situation and the evidence is conclusive. Please check it out."

Zhang Huan looked through it and said without hesitation: "The court has repeatedly issued orders to clarify the morality of candidates. Even this simple constraint cannot be abide by, and the court cannot accept such people. All nine people will be eliminated from below."

Han Huan immediately picked up the pen, hooked the nine people one by one, and finally gave them to Zhang Huan, "The admission list has been decided, please sign with Your Majesty."

Zhang Huan looked at it and asked everyone again: "Do you guys have any objections?"

Everyone read the roster one by one and all agreed. Zhang Huan then picked up the pen and appointed three of them as the top scorer, the second place, Tanhua, and finally wrote his name on the admission roster and returned it to Han Huan.

He suddenly remembered something, put down his pen and asked Lu Qi, "When will the final review of the official examination be completed?"

Lu Qi quickly stood up and said, "Report to Your Majesty, it's almost over. You can submit it to Your Majesty's Royal View as soon as this afternoon."

Zhang Huan nodded and asked again: "Is there a fraud that happened?"

"Yes!" Lu Qi took out a memorial and handed it to Zhang Huan. "These are eighteen plagiarisms found in the examination room and those who were arrested on the spot were not dared to hide it."

Zhang Huan took it and looked at it. Most of them were small local officials. He handed it over to Yan Jiudu and ordered: "The Censorate will inspect it one by one, and finally write a formal report to me."

"I obey the order!"

Seeing that the meeting was over, Zhang Huan stood up and said, "Whether the official examination or the scientific examination is a means of selecting talents in the Tang Dynasty, especially the official examination, which is related to the administration of the Tang Dynasty. I cannot tolerate any cheating. If I fail the exam and have special circumstances, such as those over 50 years old, I will take the retake in another way as appropriate. However, if I cheat, not only will I dismiss the post immediately, but I will also be held accountable and will never tolerate it!"

His tone was very stern, and the seven prime ministers stood up and bowed, "I will remember the sages."
Chapter completed!