Chapter 330: The Palace Examination

In this release of results, over 3,700 juren from various regions took the civil examination, and 300 were selected as metropolitan graduates in the civil category.

In fact, those who reached this stage were already qualified to enter officialdom; it was only that the 300 metropolitan graduates selected in the palace examination had no clear ranking yet, and needed to participate in the palace examination personally presided over by the Chongzhen Emperor, who would determine their order of precedence himself.

Aside from the civil category, since the military category had no previous provincial or county examinations, there were no mandatory regulations, which resulted in as many as 5,000 participants in this metropolitan examination—many with genuine talent, but even more who were merely there to make up the numbers.

Amid the vast sea of candidates, the quota for military metropolitan graduates was fixed at 300, and those who reached this stage were, according to regulations, already entitled to the opportunity to enter the Shuntian Royal Military Academy for further study.

After their studies, the court would assign them appropriate military posts based on their results in the palace examination, metropolitan examination, and various assessments at the military academy, combined with their native origins, officially making them military officers who would bleed on the battlefield.

Outside the West Great Ming Gate, where the civil and military result lists were posted, there were naturally those who rejoiced and those who grieved.

Once the lists were posted, some were delighted and others worried; a narrow sheet of paper carried too much bitterness from ten years of cold-window study. Some examinees wished they could squeeze their heads through the cracks to get in, others who found their names absent from the list sighed up at the sky, and still others, upon passing, ran about madly with joy to spread the news...

But looking at the current situation, those who rejoiced made up only a very small portion.

After all, the civil and military lists combined had only admitted 600 people, while over ten thousand had come to take the examinations, and counting the uncles, elder brothers, friends, and companions who accompanied them, the number was far more than tens of thousands.

Those admitted were naturally overjoyed and could not help but quickly contact relatives and friends to organize banquets for unrestrained celebration—what people commonly called "juren feasts."

With such a massive scale, when those who were dissatisfied made up a large portion, trouble could easily arise.

"I'm still young, so I still have a chance, but Brother Zhao is learned and erudite—why is his name not on the list?"

"Indeed, we have diligently studied the works of the sages, yet this time the quota has surely been taken again by sons of aristocratic families. Otherwise, with our learning, how could this be?"

"In my view, could it be that the chief examiners took bribes?!"

"Great minds think alike—it must be so. Heaven is unjust!"

Outside, the uproar over the examinations grew louder and louder, but fortunately the imperial guards held the city gates, so no major disorder could break out. The Chongzhen Emperor was unaware of this matter, being busily occupied with preparations for the palace examination.

In the Chongzhen Emperor's mind, this palace examination was like the college entrance examination of later generations, though in some respects, examination results in this era had an even greater impact on a person's future than the college entrance examination.

What was interesting, however, was that the so-called civil and military Zhuangyuan were entirely determined by himself; even if he were to name someone arbitrarily, there was a title that answered to heaven—called "appointed by the Son of Heaven."

In other words, the future prospects of the civil and military metropolitan graduates who would soon come to be assessed by him were largely decided by his word alone. He had the power to make a man shine brilliantly, and also the power to leave him off the list entirely.

This intoxicating feeling was the supreme authority of the Emperor.

The palace examination differed from ordinary academy, provincial, and metropolitan examinations—it lasted only one day and was the highest level of examination in the imperial system. Needless to say, the chief examiner was the Chongzhen Emperor himself; no matter how high anyone else's position, they were merely co-examiners.

Soon, the 600 civil and military metropolitan graduates were led by eunuchs of the Directorate of Ceremonial into the imperial city, and under the escort of imperial guards, brought to two side halls, where they would undergo what was called the "re-examination"—one of the indispensable procedures of the imperial examinations.

Normally, the re-examination should have been conducted before the palace examination, but these were extraordinary times, so everything had to be simplified. The Chongzhen Emperor decreed that for this examination cycle, the re-examination and palace examination would be held in the morning and afternoon of the same day, with the four chief examiners of the metropolitan examination still responsible for grading.

Ni Yuanlu, Fang Fengnian, Feng Quan, and Zhang Ruitu had long since arrived and were waiting in the side hall.

At present, Ni Yuanlu stood with his hands clasped behind his back on the platform, continuously scanning the examinees below, while the other three had dispersed, pacing back and forth from various directions, occasionally stopping before someone's seat to examine it closely for a while.

A scale of three hundred people was not really that many compared to the several thousand before, and moreover, this was an examination within the imperial halls—rows and columns neatly arranged, order strictly maintained, and no one dared to speak loudly, making the entire session extraordinarily quiet.

Before long, Zhang Ruitu walked up to one examinee, and was about to pass by when he suddenly noticed something. He stepped back a few paces and stood behind this examinee, staring intently for several moments, and immediately his brows knitted tightly.

He pondered for a long while, then glanced at the name written at the end of the examination paper—Xia Wanchun.

Zhang Ruitu somewhat disagreed with the views expressed on Xia Wanchun's paper. He shook his head slightly, sighed, and stepped forward a few paces to stand before Qu Changwen's seat, where he looked a few more times—this time, however, he nodded with a smile.

Feng Quan naturally noticed the change in Zhang Ruitu's expression, and not long after he had walked away, Feng Quan also strolled over at a leisurely pace.

Glancing at Xia Wanchun's paper, Feng Quan's eyes immediately widened. He then stepped forward a few paces to look at Qu Changwen's paper, but found nothing particularly different from the other examinees' papers, and could not quite fathom what the old fellow Zhang Ruitu was thinking. He continued wandering aimlessly about the hall as if no one else were present.

By midday, the re-examination was complete. After the papers were collected and stored by the officials in charge of receiving, managing, and sealing papers, the four chief examiners personally appointed by the Chongzhen Emperor and over ten co-examiners immediately began grading.

The Chongzhen Emperor was at this time troubled by another matter—the problems that had arisen after this examination. Many examinees who felt wronged had, in groups of several hundred, jointly struck the appeal drum, accusing the four chief examiners including Ni Yuanlu and Zhang Ruitu of accepting bribes and abusing public office for private gain.

This incident had grown very large and attracted widespread attention from all quarters both inside and outside the court. After all, this was the imperial examination—no carelessness could be tolerated. In previous times, the Chongzhen Emperor would certainly have issued an edict to suspend the palace examination and re-investigate the metropolitan examination records.

But the Chongzhen Emperor knew these four men, Ni Yuanlu and the others, very well, and the dozen or so co-examiners were even more genuinely members of the imperial faction—there was simply no possibility of any fraud.

Moreover, the examinations were strictly controlled both inside and out by the depots and guards; if anything untoward had occurred, word would have reached him by now. This was most likely another case of those who had failed the examinations stirring up trouble.

With this in mind, the Chongzhen Emperor rejected the examinees' request for a second grading of their papers, declaring their accusations against Ni Yuanlu and the other three to be utterly groundless, and warning that if it happened again, they would all be arrested and thrown into the capital's great prison for strict interrogation.

In addition, the Chongzhen Emperor dispatched additional depot and guard personnel to maintain order at the various gates.

The fearsome reputation of the depots and guards had long since spread throughout Jiangnan and beyond; their mere presence seemed more effective than an imperial edict. It was said that when these scholars saw the depot and guard troops marching in formation, they immediately became much more docile and well-behaved.

After all, the depots and guards could arrest anyone they pleased—you had no choice but to accept it.

In the year Jiashen, scholars in the capital had already made a disturbance over the court's crackdown on the Donglin faction, and in the end, all several hundred of those involved had been arrested. Gong Dingzi, a leading figure of the Donglin, had his entire clan exterminated to the tenth degree, and the number of his disciples and old associates implicated numbered far more than several hundred—by now, the grass growing on their graves was already quite tall.

If one were to stir up trouble at this time, would that not be rushing headlong toward death?

Once the scholars had quieted down, the grading work for the re-examination in the hall drew to a close. The civil category was carefully screened by the Ministry of Rites and the various chief and co-examiners, who selected the papers for the top ten of the first rank, the top five of the second rank, and the top eight of the third rank, and presented them before the Chongzhen Emperor.

In addition, the Ministry of War, together with Dong Qi, Wang Xiantong, and the various chief and co-examiners of the military category, had selected the military candidates for the top five of the first rank, the top eight of the second rank, and the top ten of the third rank, who were now waiting outside the hall for the imperial summons to appear before His Majesty.

Of course, these were the rankings they had proposed; the final results would still depend on the Chongzhen Emperor's wishes.