Chapter 1578: The Roman Imperial Examinations

"When can we make our move?" Zhu Cihuan pressed.

He was already sixty-seven years old! He was getting a little impatient... and for once he actually held real power in his hands.

Shimazu Nogi had died three years earlier, and Hoshina Naomi, who had replaced Nogi as principal consort, was comparatively obedient.

Moreover, the three chiliarch princes Zhu Cilang had sent to the Kingdom of Qing — in reality, each had brought only a few thousand households to their New Continent fiefs — served as a check on the Qingzhou samurai, allowing Prince Qing, Zhu Cihuan, to profit from the middle and seize real power.

"We still have to wait a while longer," said Zhu Hehao. "We have to wait for Carlos II to die and for Rome and the Ottomans to go to war. Only once those two start fighting will we have a sure chance of victory."

"Isn't Carlos II the King of Spain?" Zhu Cihuan was a little puzzled; he was not very clear on European affairs. "What does his dying have to do with whether Rome and the Ottomans go to war?"

"It has everything to do with it!" Zhu Hehao said with a laugh. "The moment Carlos II dies, his Kingdom of Spain, Kingdom of New Spain, Kingdom of Naples, Duchy of Milan, and all the rest of his holdings will be inherited by Emperor Louis. When that happens, Spain, New Spain, Naples, and the rest will all become Roman provinces!

If there is no war, can Emperor Louis the Great simply turn all those territories into provinces just like that? There are still plenty of princes, dukes, and regents on those lands! Do you think those people will accept it?"

King Louis XIV of France had long since become Louis I, Emperor of Rome!

But the true unification of the Roman Empire was no easy matter — after all, for over a thousand years Western Europe had been shattered into fragments. This fragmentation showed not only in the proliferation of small states, but also, within each small state, in all manner of feudal separatist forces.

The difficulty of integrating these feudal forces had already far exceeded what Louis XIV had imagined back in the day!

So today, more than twenty years after Rome's revival, and not counting its distant overseas provinces, the Roman Empire still had only five provinces: France, the Western Netherlands, the Rhineland, Rome, and Austria.

And within these five provinces, the traditional feudal separatist forces remained extremely powerful! Only Louis's old stronghold, the Province of France, and the Province of the Western Netherlands, conquered in the War of Devolution, were in somewhat better shape.

In France, Louis had found every way possible to pen the local nobility up in Rome and Paris. In the Western Netherlands, the local nobility had suffered catastrophic losses in the Eighty Years' War, the Thirty Years' War, the Franco-Spanish War, and the War of Devolution, and many had gone to New Spain to throw in their lot with Don Juan José; those who remained, like the French nobility, had been corralled in Rome and Paris.

But in the Rhineland, Rome (central Italy), and Austria (western Austria), the power of the sword nobility remained strong! Moreover, within these three provinces there were also quite powerful forces of the Catholic Church. The Province of the Rhineland was made up of three Catholic "prince-bishoprics"; Austria had always been an important pillar of the Catholic Church; and Rome was, of course, the very lair of Catholicism!

In these three provinces there were not only many sword nobles, but also many clergy and priests who commanded troops and governed the people.

So all these years, Emperor Louis the Great had racked his brains over strengthening centralization. The matter was not as simple as the tycoon prince imagined. War could temporarily raise Louis's authority, but at the same time it would strengthen a whole class of sword nobles. Only by turning these sword nobles into robe nobles (bureaucrats) could Louis rest easy!

Fortunately, the great empire of the distant East had already provided His Majesty Louis with a ready-made solution for transforming the sword nobility — the imperial examination system!

What a fine institution it was!

Let the sword nobles and their legitimate or illegitimate sons, and those unscrupulous merchants who had grown rich by every manner of means and their sons, all come and sit the Roman Empire's imperial examinations and the entrance examinations of its army and naval academies.

Any Roman who passed the imperial examinations could directly become a bureaucrat of the empire.

But a Roman who passed the army or naval academy examination had to study at the military academy for three years, and then pass a graduation examination before he could become an officer.

In other words, becoming an officer was harder and took longer, and admission to the officer academies also had an age limit.

However, in the "promotion chart" Louis had designed, an officer's prospects (and financial prospects) were better: not only a higher salary, but also the possibility, after a certain number of years of service, of transferring to a higher-ranking civil post.

And as early as 1678, the Roman Empire, barely revived, had held its first nationwide imperial examination!

According to Louis's edict, in February of every even-numbered year of the Western calendar, the Roman Empire would hold a nationwide imperial examination (including the military academy entrance examinations).

Male nobles of all the Roman Empire's provinces, overseas provinces (New Rome and New France), and vassal states were exempt from the preliminary examination and could go directly to Rome or Paris (the Roman Empire also practiced a dual-capital system) to sit the imperial examination or the army and naval academy entrance examinations.

Male commoners of the Roman Empire (not including commoners of vassal states), however, had first to sit a preliminary examination in the capital of their province. Only after passing did they qualify to sit the imperial examination or the army and naval academy entrance examinations held in Rome and Paris.

Nobles or commoners of the Roman Empire's allies were also eligible to sit the Roman Empire's imperial examinations. But they had to make their own way to the empire's two capitals, north and south (Rome and Paris), to sit the preliminary examination, and only after passing could they sit the imperial examination in an even-numbered year.

In addition, nobles and commoners of the four internationally neutral states (Austria, Portugal, Batavia, and England) could, like the nobles and commoners of Rome's allied states, sit the Roman Empire's imperial examinations.

This year was 1700, another even-numbered year, and moreover the last year of the seventeenth century. No matter how you looked at it, it was an important year!

So while war was brewing and drastic changes were taking place in the New World, over in the Roman Empire, Emperor Louis the Great was not, as Zhu Hehao had imagined, devoting all his efforts to preparing for war; instead he was concentrating most of his attention on the 1700 imperial examinations.

On the sixth of April, in the Bull's Eye Salon of the Palace of Versailles, the three Grand Secretaries of the Roman Empire responsible for organizing the imperial examinations — Leibniz from the Province of the Rhineland, Newton from the Republic of England across the Channel, and Jacob Bernoulli from Switzerland — were reporting to Emperor Louis the Great on the preparations for the examinations.

"Your Majesty," said Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the empire's Chief Grand Secretary and also the top scorer in the empire's 1678 imperial examination, respectfully addressing the purple-robed Emperor, "the questions for the 1700 imperial examination have been set. As in all previous examinations, they are divided into seven subjects — theology, law, political science, literature, mathematics, science, and Roman history — all to be answered in Latin."

This Roman imperial examination was still very hard to pass!

One had not only to be thoroughly versed in theology, law, political science, literature, mathematics, science, and Roman history, but also to be thoroughly versed in Latin. And the questions were all difficult — just look at who the examiners were! How could papers set by Leibniz, Newton, and Bernoulli possibly be easy?

Emperor Louis the Great nodded and asked, "So, how many robe nobles do you plan to admit this year?"

"Your Majesty, this year's imperial examination has an admission quota of five hundred," Newton, from England, replied in fluent French.

Newton was the "Roman top scorer" of 1680 and one of the Grand Secretaries Emperor Louis the Great trusted most.

"Five hundred... hmm, very good." Louis smiled. "Then when will the examinations begin?"

Bernoulli, the "Roman top scorer" of 1682, took up the question: "Your Majesty, according to the practice of previous sessions, the imperial examination will be held on the second day after Ascension Day. It lasts seven consecutive days, followed by centralized grading, which will be completed before the end of May. The five hundred admitted candidates will then sit a comprehensive examination here in the Palace of Versailles, with Your Majesty personally grading the papers."

Emperor Louis the Great smiled with satisfaction and said to the three Grand Secretaries before him, "I hope this examination will select sufficiently outstanding officials for the Roman Empire!"

(End of Chapter)