The Court Examination Begins!
Liu Hao had heard about the rules of the court examinations. The reason why these examiners were treating him so coldly was not because they had a grudge against him, but because they were deliberately showing off their authority.
The eight examiners did not take the lead. Logically speaking, they were all examiners of the Emperor, so the leader should be the Emperor. However, according to the rules, seniority was also required. Whoever had the highest seniority would naturally preside over the preliminary examination.
Out of the eight scroll readers, two of them were of similar rank. One was the Assistant Minister of the Board of Rites, and the other was a scholar of the Imperial Academy. The Assistant Minister of the Board of Rites was of a high rank. Although the Imperial Academy was noble, a scholar was only a fifth-grade official.
However…In the Great Qing Dynasty, seniority was not counted in this way. The scholars of the Imperial Academy controlled the Imperial Academy and were responsible for drafting imperial edicts and issuing decrees. It was equivalent to the emperor's secretary. Most of the officials inside were extremely noble and were the reserves of the Minister of Military and Political Affairs. They had half a foot in the Minister of Military and Political Affairs.
Everyone present had a different identity. They were all ministers of the Qianlong dynasty. After Qianlong aged, this group of people was about the same age. After He Shen entered the Military and Political Affairs Office in his prime, he had already begun to cultivate his own followers. Therefore, He Shen was now the leader of the Military and Political Affairs Office.
One of the elders was called Yang Xi.
His gaze swept across Liu Hao's body. Liu Hao was still very young, only eighteen years old. If it was ten years ago, he would definitely praise Liu Hao. However, now…
Liu Hao defected to He Shen.
He Shen entered the court as a flatterer. Although he had not become the most corrupt official in the Qing Dynasty, this trend was getting faster and faster.
Yang Xi retracted his gaze and said indifferently,"Congratulations to all the students for taking the imperial examinations. Today is the court examinations, so this old man can't help but say a few more words.”
In fact, the court examination was the most relaxed compared to the other examinations. There were few rules and no soldiers searching. There was no tension at all. It was more like a gathering of scholars or a lecture in the Minglun Hall of the directorate.
Yang Xi began to talk about some rules, but later on, even he felt bored. Then, he smiled and said,"Let's not talk too much. Let's start the examination immediately.”
The tribute students sitting behind the official documents went to the pen holder to get their pens. They wanted to grind the ink, but now that the ink had already been ground, they raised their pens and spread out the paper, looking like they were ready to start writing at any time.
In fact, this was just for show. Even if the questions were set, the average person would not write so quickly. Everyone was just showing a deliberate attitude to give the examiners a good impression.
Not long after, a eunuch brought over an imperial edict and read it aloud,"" The Hall's examination questions are: I have ruled for forty-five years and have never thought about the rule of the saints. However, refugees are everywhere…"
The topic of the policy discussion was usually between 500 to 1,000 words. However, no matter how many words there were, it was still empty talk. The most important thing was which sentence was the way to appease the refugees. This was the proper answer. In other words, the central topic of this policy discussion was for the examinees to write a policy discussion on appeasing the refugees.
When the tribute students heard the question, some of them raised their eyebrows and revealed a happy expression, while others had a bitter expression on their faces, not knowing how to start writing.
They had probably heard of refugees, but without any real pain, who would have the time to think about this?
What was a refugee?
Liu Hao narrowed his eyes slightly. In fact, he had already had a well-thought-out plan.
He Shen had already gotten the exam questions and even taught him everything he knew about Qianlong's thoughts so that Liu Hao could grasp Qianlong's thoughts.
Liu Hao mused for a moment before starting to write.
In fact, in the end, it was to grasp Qianlong's thoughts.
He was a self-proclaimed elder. This refugee couldn't be said to be particularly serious. In the heyday of the emperor, where would there be refugees? They were just scabies.
The later the Qianlong Emperor was, the more he liked to close himself off. He liked to report only good news and not bad news.
Then, he had to study how to write this policy paper.
In the end, the person he wanted to please was not these examiners, but Qianlong. The most important thing was how to answer the questions according to Qianlong's thoughts.
Although He Shen's question was about refugees, Liu Hao had heard the contents of the imperial edict.
The imperial edict mentioned Emperor Kangxi at least three times.
All along, the person that Qianlong admired the most was the Qing Emperor Kangxi.
Then he would have to start writing from Kangxi…
Instantly, Liu Hao had his own way of solving the problem.
In fact, if he put aside his prejudice against braids, Liu Hao actually admired Yongzheng the most.
With the memories of his previous life, coupled with He Shen's nurturing, Liu Hao quickly wrote an article. This kind of article did not require a lot of flowers, but it had to hit every point.
First of all, in the fifty-first year of Kangxi, Emperor Kangxi played a big card: "Never add." The general idea was that the Qing Dynasty's tax collection standards were based on the tax quota of the 51st year of Kangxi. No matter how the population increased, no tax was allowed to increase.
With this beginning, Liu Hao wrote down what kind of benevolent government it was and how the emperor carried it out.
Even if there were refugees, they would only suffer from scabies.
As long as he used the path of enlightenment, he could naturally solve this problem.
In this way, the people would be loyal and the world would be peaceful.
The Qing Dynasty would never waver.
However, Liu Hao did not believe his own words.
As he wrote, Liu Hao kept complaining in his heart. If the Qing Dynasty did not perish, the heavens would not allow it.
In fact, never increasing taxes was indeed very effective. This also led to the increasing population of the Qing Dynasty, the management costs, and the scale of the state machinery. However, if Qianlong wanted to make his internal affairs department rich, he would rack his brains to increase the tax quota.
It was obviously against the "ancestral teachings" to blatantly increase the positive tax, but there were ways to increase the new tax. In this context, a variety of bizarre taxes were introduced.
For example, there was a term called "floating income", which referred to the indispensable expenses incurred during the collection, storage, transportation, and safekeeping of the official imperial grain. The Qing Dynasty stipulated that this expenditure would be converted into imperial grain. The common people paid a stone of imperial grain, which could only be converted into eight buckets, which suddenly increased the burden by 20%. This ratio was still considered light. In the late Qing Dynasty, the floating income in many places even exceeded the positive amount.
In addition to levying taxes, the Qing Dynasty also began to levy various kinds of taxes such as Lijin and mining taxes.
On the whole, the Qing Dynasty's " never increase taxes " sounded quite shocking, but it was actually a gimmick that was all talk and no action. It earned the attention of the Qing Dynasty emperor. Not only did the burden on the people not decrease, but it was still increasing day by day. It was only natural that a peasant uprising would occur.
Starting from the late Qianlong period, the Qing Dynasty had entered a period of high peasant uprisings. The White Lotus Cult uprising, the Tianli Cult uprising, the Taiping Army uprising, and the Nian Army uprising were continuous. The number of times and scale of the uprisings almost set a historical record.
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