As the chief examiner spoke out the test questions for this House Examination.
Many people were showing their excitement.
This year’s betting questions had been done well everywhere, and the topic of An Guo had already been figured out.
After all, the person who asked the question is the current emperor, and most of the time, the civil servants of the court are trying to figure out the holy meaning.
It was not unexpected that they could guess it.
If you can guess the question based on the state of the nation, everything makes sense.
The questions were announced.
The crowd settled down and began to prepare their speeches.
Xu Qingnian did not continue to think about whether he should use his own writing to take the test.
This could be tried when the imperial examinations were held.
After arranging the paper in front of his desk, Xu Qingnian closed his eyes and began to contemplate.
The test question was An Guo.
It was expected.
Right now, there were only two ways to write the [An Guo] test question.
Barbarians’ Northern Expedition.
The economy of the country.
The first one, Xu Qingnian had already rejected, and as for this second one, Xu Qingnian was still mulling over the wording.
The incense burned out quickly.
Basically, all the students had already started to write.
Zhao Yuan looked to his left and right at the students, and soon his gaze fell on Xu Qingnian.
One incense burning time had pa*sed.
Xu Qingnian had not yet moved his pen, which was a bit strange.
It was true that the examination lasted for three hours.
The last half hour was for transcription, where students wrote their essays for the first time on the paper they brought with them.
Once they had revised them, they were then transcribed onto the tributary rolls and finally presented.
“The lyrics are good, but I’ve heard that Xu Qingnian has not yet been enrolled for a month, so his essay is not a masterpiece.”
Zhao Yuan spoke up, not to despise Xu Qingnian, but to explain a possibility.
The two old men around him did not say anything, they were more optimistic about Xu Qingnian, but when the examiner said so, they could not refute anything.
Indeed, just because one is good at composing lyrics does not mean one is good at writing essays.
Another incense stick of time pa*sed.
Xu Qingnian hesitated to move his pen.
Even Xu Qingnian closed his eyes, and a lot of information surfaced in his mind.
Xu Qingnian knew what kind of article to write.
Xu Qingnian also knew how to write.
But what to start with and what to end with, these must be thought out.
Writing an essay is all about being done in one go.
Only in this way can we have the essence and spirit.
You can take your time in writing a poem, adjusting the rhymes and changing the vocabulary.
How to write?
After thinking for a long time, Xu Qingnian opened his eyes.
He relaxed his mind and gazed at the blue sky.
Suddenly.
A gust of wind blew in.
It swept up Xu Qingnian’s hair.
The paper blew and a rustling sound came from it.
In a flash, Xu Qingnian smiled.
Lift the brush.
Dyeing the ink.
Xu Qingnian has a light smile on his face, he knows what to write.
The first line of the title.
[The Security Policy of the Great Wei]
Xu Qingnian was so bold that he named his essay the Great Wei Security Policy.
When the first stroke fell, Xu Qingnian wrote extremely fast.
Each word fell onto the white paper, and perhaps because he had figured it out, or perhaps because he had become enlightened, Xu Qingnian’s script was neat and elegant.
Every word was infused with his essence.
The Great Wei Dynasty has gone through seven northern expeditions, the treasury is empty and the people are suffering.
Xu Qingnian began his essay with the Northern Expedition, directly pointing out that the treasury of the Great Wei was empty, leading to what he wanted to say.
The Great Wei Dynasty, with seven northern expeditions, has an empty treasury, and is fighting in this state.
As the saying goes, the people suffer when they rise, and the people suffer when they fall, and it is the people who suffer when they fight, and it is the people who suffer when they do not fight.
Although the shame of Jingcheng is still fresh in our minds, it is undeniable that the Five Dynasties of Emperor Wen made the people live and work in peace and harmony.
It was also under the rule of the Five Dynasties that Emperor Wu was able to make seven northern expeditions.
So it is not impossible to want to fight a war, but you have to earn money first.
This is the core meaning of Xu Qingnian’s first paragraph of his essay, written in a way that naturally uses a large number of ancient words that could not be so straightforward.
When the first paragraph was written, Xu Qingnian did not hesitate and directly dropped the second paragraph.
If Xu Qingnian wrote the first paragraph, it was still rather euphemistic, then the second paragraph was completely liberal.
Xu Qingnian used the seven hundred years of history of the Great Wei as a base, which had produced countless handsome people, successive emperors, civil and military achievements, and a sage among the literati, and after the shame of Jingcheng, there was another Wu Emperor.
After the shame of Jingcheng, there was another Emperor Wu. We have beaten and scolded, basically the 700-year dynasty, what has not been done?
Therefore, the Northern Expedition is not a matter of urgency for Wei at the moment, but rather the livelihood of the people is what Wei needs to think about.
The people need to rest and recuperate, and so does Great Wei.
So the people need to earn money to support their families, and the Great Wei Dynasty needs to earn money to support the country.
[If the people are poor, there will be no food, and if the state is poor, the people will be in chaos]
After the second paragraph fell, Xu Qingnian waved his pen and wrote the third paragraph.
This paragraph was even sharper.
The reason for the change is that 90% of the change is due to the people.
Xu Qingnian’s third paragraph begins with more than just sharp words, it can even be said to be bold.
He uses the change of dynasties over the ages as the tone to describe the current Great Wei, but the starting point is extremely straightforward, with hardly any rhetorical means to state the fundamental reason for the replacement of dynasties.
Yes, throughout the ages, almost 90% of dynasties have been overthrown because the emperor was incompetent, the state system was in disarray, the people could not get enough to eat, and they cried out in misery, which eventually led to a popular uprising, and then someone acted in accordance with heaven, overthrowing the old dynasty and establishing a new one for all time.
The first three paragraphs are Xu Qingnian’s opening remarks, stating his views, citing cla*sics and establishing his position.
Then what follows is the solution.
You bring up what the problem is, then you have to solve it, otherwise who wouldn’t bring up a problem?
Who wouldn’t be afraid to scold the emperor?
You have to propose a solution, good or bad, and if it is really a good one, the emperor will be scolded.
If the solution proposed is not good, at least you have put your heart into it, the emperor endured this scolding.
If you propose a solution that does not solve the problem, then the emperor will have to solve the person who proposed the problem.
And the solution, Xu Qingnian had already prepared.
His solution was simple.
If you want to make the country rich, you have to make the people rich first, and if you want to make the people rich, there is only one thing that can do it.
Banks.
That’s right, a banking system, and a state-dominated one at that.
If Xu Qingnian had crossed over to a world that was any of the dynasties of the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, Xu Qingnian would never have put forward the idea of a bank for no other reason than that three problems were absolutely insoluble.
Firstly, the problem of regulation.
Secondly, the problem of cottage industry.
Thirdly, inflation.
But in this world, Xu Qingnian studied it for a day yesterday and found that the banking system is simply a godsend in this world.
If the Confucians are allowed to supervise the system, those who have entered the Confucian Way will all have integrity, and if they scrape the people’s money, they will not be allowed to do so without the help of others.
Therefore, the problem of regulation can be controlled extremely well.
In this world, there is the Immortal Way, so it is easy to create counterfeit silver tickets.
In other words, there is absolutely no shortage of money for those who have the ability to counterfeit.
The final problem is inflation, which is a much better solution. What is the biggest problem with inflation?
Indiscriminate printing.
Regulated by Confucianism.
Even if the emperor wants to print money, he can’t. If you have to print, it’s not impossible, all the Confucian scholars and ministers will die in your Golden Palace the next day, see if you print?
If you want to make a mess? I’ll shut up about it, but it’s definitely not everyone who is most unlucky anyway.
Xu Qingnian’s solution was the banks.
The money banks in Great Wei have money banks, but these money banks are very old-fashioned, and they charge you a fee for storing silver, and they charge a lot, and the money banks in each province don’t circulate with each other, so the ones in South Yu can only be used in South Yu.
If you went to another province, you would have to find a ticket dealer to exchange for local silver tickets.
Once you cross the county, it’s useless to find a ticket dealer, which is extremely troublesome.
Thinking of this, Xu Qingnian put down his pen like a god, and he threw in the idea of a bank.
He wrote thousands of words in a sprawling manner.
A full half hour later.
After Xu Qingnian finished writing about the role of banks, he began to write about the benefits of banks.
What is the most straightforward benefit of a bank?
To put it simply, it is the saying that what is taken from the people is used for the people.
There is an old saying that if you want to be rich, you must first build a road, and when the road is repaired, trade will flourish, but who will pay for the road?
Will the local government pay for it?
Those who have the money can pay, but what about those who don’t?
Will everyone pay?
Is that realistic? It’s definitely not realistic. Let’s not say that we can all work together as one, but even if we can, there’s another problem.
My family doesn’t run a business, so why should I build a road?
My family is poor and I can’t afford it, but if I build a road, I must take advantage of it.
In the ancient times, the deceitfulness of the people at the bottom often boiled down to four words: “the rat’s eye”.
There were definitely a lot of fights over a penny.
Some people must have wanted to take advantage, and some must have been angry.
But what is the point of such sulking for the local area, for the country?
It doesn’t make sense.
But what if the dynasty is allowed to build the road?
The state doesn’t care who takes advantage and who doesn’t, you’re a citizen of Wei anyway, you can be as salty as you like, not everyone is like you.
And the Great Wei Dynasty lends the people’s silver to the local government to build roads at a low interest rate, and gives you enough time to repay it slowly from the government’s taxes when your local economy has developed.
This is one of the explanations for taking from the people and using it for the people.
A blank sheet of paper was filled by Xu Qingnian.
In the end, the more Xu Qingnian wrote, the more excited he became, and the more he wrote, the more open his mind became.
It was another hour later.
Finally, Xu Qingnian reached the end of his writing.
He took a deep breath.
And then slowly put down his pen.
The student thought, “The people’s food is the sky, the country is the people’s sky, the people are rich, the country is strong, but the country is rich, the people are stronger, the people are poor, the country is poor, the luck is not.
[Student – Xu Qingnian – South Yufu – Answer Sheet for the Prefectural Examination]
This is the end of the writing.
This is the end of the An Guo Cai, twenty-seven sheets of white paper with more than ten thousand words written on them.
Xu Qingnian exhaled a long breath.
When he put down his pen.
This moment.
Suddenly.
A change had occurred.
