Do you know the long song of laughter?

Chapter 157 Yang Tao

Xu Shigao is not afraid of re-grading the papers. After all, there are no problems with the papers themselves.

What he is worried about is that if the people sent by Bianjing continue to conduct a strict investigation and find out that there is fraud in the county examination, it will be a disaster for him.

However, he had to provide money for management, which made him feel a little distressed. This time the county examination was so busy that he had to pay back the money if he didn't get it.

Xu Shigao had already hated Chang Zhihua to death.

Suddenly, Xu Shigao's eyes lit up, the Chang family was rich.

Now that this trouble was caused by the Chang family, he would naturally want to make amends from the Chang family.

As for whether the Chang family would give it to him, he wasn't worried at all.

He's just a businessman, so it's not difficult for him to clean up.

Thinking of this, Xu Shigao felt much better.

……

There is a large house in the north of Yangzhou City, with the word "Yang House" hanging on the door.

A carriage stopped at the door, and a young man about twenty years old got out of the carriage and walked in.

The young man came all the way to the main hall, bowed to the old man sitting on the main seat and said, "Grandpa."

"Brother Tao is back, sit down and talk."

The old man put down the tea bowl in his hand, waved the servants in the room to leave, and asked: "How is the matter?"

"Back to my grandfather, Lord Zhizhou came forward again and said that he would report this matter to Bianjing and asked the students to go back and wait for the news." Yang Tao said.

The old man stroked his beard and said with a smile: "Now that I can't hide it anymore, naturally he doesn't dare to hide it anymore."

"grandfather."

Yang Tao hesitated for a moment and said, "Sun'er feels that even if Lord Zhizhou reports, the people sent from Bianjing will still be bribed. I'm afraid there is little chance of re-examination."

The old man glanced at him and said with a smile: "Do you have any other doubts in your mind? You have been holding them in for so long. Please ask them."

"Then Xu Shigao shouldn't choose a moron to be the case manager. Maybe it's not necessarily true that the person has real talent and learning. My grandson can wait for next year's provincial examination and deliberately fail, and he will definitely pass the exam next year. There is no need to take such a big risk. If If it is found out that our family is behind this, the trouble will be huge, and my grandson will feel that the gain is not worth the loss," Yang Tao said.

The old man nodded slightly and said: "You have thought carefully, but when Xu Shigao learned that our Yang family had an authentic painting of Wang Youjun, he once approached me and wanted to buy it, but I refused. So as long as he is in Yangzhou for one day, you will There is no way I can pass the exam, unless I sell Wang Youjun's authentic work to him. But it is passed down by our ancestors, how can I sell it to others."

"We actually still have Wang Youjun's authentic relics in our house? Why has my grandson never heard his grandfather mention it?" Yang Tao was shocked when he heard this.

The name Wang Youjun is unfamiliar to many people, but when it comes to his other name, they are not.

That is Wang Xizhi, the sage of calligraphy.

Wang Xizhi also served as the general of the Right Army when he was the internal historian of Kuaiji. These two positions represented political status and military responsibilities respectively, so later generations called him "Wang Youjun".

His calligraphy is also called "Youjun calligraphy" by later generations.

Because Wang Xizhi's calligraphy is very popular among future generations, but due to wars and burials, very few have been handed down.

Among them, the famous "Preface to the Lanting Collection" was reportedly brought into the tomb by Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty.

Yang Tao never expected that he would have an authentic painting of Wang Youjun at home.

Yang Boyun sighed and said: "Now that there is only one male left in our family, I should tell you something. The ancestral home of our Yang family is Hongnong, Guanzhong."

"Hongnong?"

Yang Tao was stunned and exclaimed: "Could it be the Yang family of Hongnong, a family with thousands of years of history?"

As a scholar, I know a little bit about the long-standing aristocratic families in history.

The widely circulated storybook "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" in recent years has made the world know that during the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a Yuan family with four generations and three princes.

But during the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was actually another family that could compete with the Yuan family.

That is the Hongnong Yang family.

Because of their involvement in the fight for world hegemony, the Yuan family eventually fell into complete decline.

But the Yang family was different. It flourished from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty. Among them, Yang Jian, who founded the Sui Dynasty, was also born in the Hongnong Yang family.

However, during the Tang Dynasty, the aristocratic family was suppressed, coupled with the Huangchao Uprising that massacred the aristocratic family, and the prevalence of imperial examinations, the Hongnong Yang family was also submerged in the long river of history.

Yang Tao never imagined that his family was actually a descendant of the Hongnong Yang family.

"This matter has been passed down orally from generation to generation by family heads. When it comes to me, I don't know the details. You must remember that you cannot mention this matter to anyone under any circumstances." Yang Boyun warned with a serious expression.

"Grandpa, don't worry, my grandson knows the importance." Yang Tao said.

As a descendant of a family that has been passed down for thousands of years, and one of the ancestors even served as emperor, everyone would doubt whether the ancestors of the Yang family left any treasures.

Once leaked, I don’t know how many people will be targeted.

"Grandpa, since Xu Shigao knows that our family has the authentic relics of Wang Youjun, what should we do if he leaks this matter?" Yang Tao asked worriedly.

"Don't worry, he is just guessing, not sure. In order to dispel his doubts, I showed him a copy of the Tang Dynasty before. He was only thinking about this copy." Yang Boyun said with a smile.

Yang Tao breathed a sigh of relief when he heard this. Although Tang Dynasty copies are also very precious, there are still many that have been handed down, so he is not afraid.

Yang Boyun sighed and said: "I thought about it carefully, it was through your second uncle's handwriting that he suspected that our family has the authentic work of Wang Youjun. Your second uncle is extremely talented, but he is as arrogant and arrogant as that Li Taibai. If If not, you wouldn’t be under such pressure now.”

"Grandpa, my second uncle has been dead for several years, so don't blame him." Yang Tao comforted him.

Yang Tao's second uncle was named Yang Wuduan. He failed the imperial examinations many times. Frustrated, he drank a few more drinks in a brothel. After getting drunk, he said such treacherous words as "Instead of being obsessed with the imperial examination, it is better to put your love in the brothel."

You must know that in the concept of the ancients, one has always learned martial arts and sold them to the emperor's family.

At that time, the officials were in a bad mood due to the failure of the New Deal. Somehow this sentence reached the ears of the officials, and they were so angry that Yang Wutuan could not take part in the imperial examination until he was fifty years old.

Because of this incident, Yang Wuzuan became depressed after returning to his hometown, and died within a few years.

"It's just a pain for you." Yang Boyun said bitterly.

He felt that his son was hated by the officials. Even if Yang Tao could become a Jinshi, the officials would not like Yang Wutuan, which would affect Yang Tao's future.

With Yang Tao's talent and learning, he could have passed the county examination long ago, but Yang Boyun kept suppressing him.

What I want is for him to win the first place from the county examination to the general examination.

As for the No. 1 pick, he had never thought about it. The No. 1 pick was hand-picked by the officials after the imperial examination. Given the officials' displeasure with Yang Wu Tuan, if they knew that Yang Tao was Yang Wu Tuan's nephew, they would most likely not choose him.

But if he can win the first place in the county examination, township examination, and general examination, even if the official family is not happy, Yang Tao still has a future.

This time, after Yang Tao's county examination, he wrote down all the articles silently. After reading them, Yang Boyun felt that he would definitely be able to win the case.

In the end, it was taken away by a boy he had never heard of.

Although through investigation, it was found that this young man was a student of Liu Xuewen, who previously served as an academic administrator in Yangzhou.

But he checked and found that Li An had only been studying for more than five years.

He does not think that Li An's knowledge is better than that of his grandson.

It is believed that Xu Shigao deliberately prevented Yang Tao from taking the lead in the case.

However, Xu Shigao is an academic administrator in Yangzhou. If he is not transferred, he may still hold the position for a few more years.

So the idea of ​​driving Xu Shigao away came up.

It happened that many students in the county examination felt that there was something wrong, so he asked people to secretly guide them, and that was the scene where the students surrounded the Tongxuan Yamen.

Even when Chang Zhihua made a big bet on himself, he was the one who asked people to publicize it.

Otherwise, no matter how stupid Chang Zhihua is, he still knows how to secretly collect money. How could everyone know about it so quickly?