Standalone Northern and Southern Dynasties
Chapter 541: Family Politics
Chapter 541: Family Politics
Su Ze was meeting a group of scholars in the temporary camp.
These are all descendants of the Wang family of Taiyuan.
In fact, the Wang family of Taiyuan had bet on Su Ze a long time ago. Wang Sizheng was an outstanding son of the Wang family of Taiyuan. Since Wang Sizheng was valued by Su Ze, many sons of the Wang family of Taiyuan have entered Guanzhong. Now there are five of them studying in Chongwen Pavilion.
Of course, for a big family like the Wang family of Taiyuan, it is normal to place bets on multiple parties.
Originally, when Erzhu Rong was in Xiurong, he had a good relationship with the Wang family of Taiyuan. When Erzhu Rong first started his army, many descendants of the Wang family of Taiyuan joined him.
However, after the Heyin Incident, the Wang family of Taiyuan began to hate Erzhu Rong extremely.
The reason is very simple. The most outstanding son of the Taiyuan Wang family, Huangmen Lang Wang Zunye, was killed by Erzhu Rong in the Heyin Incident.
For a family like the Wang family of Taiyuan, money is not important.
With their connections and family accumulation, they can quickly make a comeback even if all their money is gone.
Land is also not important. As long as the family is prosperous, people will come to offer land to them.
For them, the most important thing is talent.
Wang Zunye is the talent that the Wang family of Taiyuan has worked hard to cultivate.
Wang Zunye started his career as a writer and made his mark during the reign of Emperor Xuanwu. He and Cui Guang explained the "Book of Filial Piety" to Yuan Xu. He was elegant and gentlemanly in his manners and was highly praised by the scholars in Luoyang.
For a large family, it is extremely difficult to cultivate a child like Wang Zunye.
Although Wang Zunye started out as an official, there were traces of family operations along the way. As an aristocratic family, isn't it a matter of you supporting me and I supporting you? How come when Wang Zunye first became an official, he was able to become a writer all of a sudden, and when the young emperor ascended the throne, he could follow the senior ministers to preach to the young emperor?
But he is smart, studious and kind to others, which are his own strengths.
In this generation of the Taiyuan Wang family, Wang Zunye was the key training target, and almost all of the family's resources were poured into him, just to produce another important official for the Taiyuan Wang family.
As a result, such a rising star was killed by Erzhu Rong like a chicken just because of his close relationship with Yuan Ziyou.
From then on, the Wang family of Taiyuan deeply hated Erzhu Rong, but when Erzhu Rong's military force was strong, they did not dare to resist openly and could only adopt an attitude of non-cooperation.
Now that Erzhu Rong was trapped in Bingzhou, the Wang family of Taiyuan immediately sent young members of the family to seek refuge with Su Ze.
Su Ze compared the levels of these scholars and found that they were indeed above ordinary scholars.
Moreover, these young scholars were already studying the "Book of Filial Piety" compiled by Su Ze.
According to the current regulations of Chongwen Pavilion, all students must pass the "Book of Filial Piety" examination before they can be granted official positions.
This Book of Filial Piety was compiled by officials from the Ministry of Rites under Su Ze based on the Book of Filial Piety annotated by the Qi family of Liangzhou.
If the imperial examination is to become a universal selection method for the whole world, the first step is to have a unified textbook.
And nothing can better transform the thinking of Confucian scholars than promulgating one's own official doctrine and making it a textbook studied by scholars all over the world.
In the early Tang Dynasty, Kong Yingda wrote "The Meaning of the Five Classics", in the Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi wrote "The New Meaning of the Three Classics" before his reform, and in the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang promulgated "The Four Books and Five Classics with Commentaries", all of which had the same purpose.
While the scholars from small families were still hesitating whether to study in Chongwen Pavilion, the Wang family of Taiyuan had already begun to study the teaching materials of Chongwen Pavilion.
Even when Su Ze asked about some of the previous Chongwen Pavilion exam questions, these Wang family members gave answers that were almost standard answers.
These aristocratic families were truly terrifyingly resilient. As a modern time traveler, Su Ze naturally hated the politics of the aristocratic families.
But this is the era. Even if Su Ze has a system, he can only suppress the clans but cannot completely eliminate them.
Although the imperial examination began in the Tang Dynasty, the aristocratic families were still prosperous in that period. These aristocratic families even monopolized the process of selecting officials by relying on the imperial examination.
Before every imperial examination in the Tang Dynasty, scholars from all over the country would gather in Chang'an and submit their poems to the powerful and influential, which was euphemistically called "circulating the scroll".
In fact, the examination system in the Tang Dynasty, which emphasized talent rather than classics and policy essays, was more likely to become a tool for manipulation by the powerful and influential families.
After all, there is no best in literature, and poetic aesthetics is inherently subjective. Many of the great poets who have left their names in history have failed in their attempts.
In the Tang Dynasty, ordinary scholars from poor families could only enter the official career by becoming a disciple of a wealthy family by marrying into the family.
The Wang family of Taiyuan took the initiative to surrender, and Wang Sizheng was also a meritorious official in Su Ze's group. Su Ze encouraged these Wang family members and let them go to Guanzhong to study in Chongwen Pavilion.
Back in the study, Su Ze picked up the memorial written by Qi Tai, a scholar of Chongwen Pavilion, to the Government Affairs Hall.
Qi Tai's memorial to the Government Affairs Hall only discussed one thing, and the "Book of Filial Piety" was not enough for examination.
As a Confucian classic, "The Book of Filial Piety" has only more than 2,000 words.
Even if the annotations and comments of later generations are included, the number of words will not exceed tens of thousands.
When "The Book of Filial Piety" was included as a subject in the graduation examination for students of Chongwen Pavilion, only by passing the examination could one obtain the qualification to become an official, so it was naturally rolled up.
The result of the test was that the scores of the candidates were getting closer and closer, and the speed of passing the test was getting faster and faster, while the Ministry of Rites and Chongwen Pavilion had even reached the point where they had no more questions to set.
Su Ze pinched his temple. Throughout history, both in China and abroad, people have been very competitive in order to get ashore.
The imperial examinations in Ming and Qing dynasties are an example. The scope of the imperial examinations in Ming and Qing dynasties was the Four Books and Five Classics as well as the annotations and commentaries by officially recognized great Confucian scholars. The total number of words was already quite large, but in the later period of the imperial examinations, all the test questions were already issued.
In the end, there was even a so-called "sentence collection" test method, which was to connect words that were not part of the same word in the context, deliberately making it difficult for the candidates.
For example, in the sentence “Isn’t it a pleasure to have friends coming from afar?”, we use “Come or not” as the title, and we also need to explain the true meaning of Confucianism from it.
This is no longer an examination for selecting talents, but a meaningless internal competition purely for selecting officials.
If Chongwen Pavilion continues like this, it will also fall into this kind of internal circulation.
Moreover, it is impossible to use the Book of Filial Piety as the only examination subject forever. It is impossible for the Xin Dynasty to have the policy of "We hope the holy dynasty will govern the world with filial piety", right?
However, official academic matters were not difficult to handle. With the dawn of a unified world, aristocratic families flocked to Su Ze. For example, this time the Wang family of Taiyuan presented their family heirloom "Book of Changes".
The main issue is the exam subjects.
Although they are all called imperial examinations, the imperial examinations in different dynasties are actually different.
The imperial examinations in the Tang Dynasty focused on poetry, in the Song Dynasty focused on policy essays, and in the Ming and Qing Dynasties focused on eight-legged essays. How were the examinations conducted?
This is also the issue that the Government Affairs Hall wrote to Su Ze to discuss.
(End of this chapter)
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