Huang Zongxi, Qu Shisi and others discussed it over and over again, thinking that they should join hands with Zhu Zhiyu to persuade Lin Yuji to reform the practice of recruiting scholars to change the current situation of the rigid imperial examination.

Unexpectedly, in order to prevent the night from getting long and dreaming, Lin Yuji moved very quickly, and within a few days, he formulated a plan and designated the internal and external curtain officers to complete them all.

Fortunately, Lin Yuji considered that so many great scholars were in Jiaozhou and did not dare to be good at it. He invited Huang Zongxi and Qu Shixi and his group to discuss and modify the plan together.

Huang Zongxi, Qu Shixi and his group were heartbroken when they saw Lin Yuji's plan.

Lin Yuji's plan has been modified compared with the previous imperial examination methods. For example, in the past provincial examinations, it was divided into three categories: classic meaning, practical writing of literary style, and current affairs and policy discussion. The so-called classic meaning is the eight-legged essay. As long as the eight-legged essay is well written and the application of literature and strategy questions are not left blank, you will have the opportunity to be admitted.

Lin Yuji at least considers that Lin Chunhong pays more attention to the actual abilities of officials, and has increased the importance of applying stylistic writing and policy theory, and stipulates that applying stylistic writing and policy theory must be qualified before he can be qualified to be admitted. As for the ranking, it is determined by the eight-legged essay.

How can this change fundamentally change the trend of rigidity in the imperial examination system?

Huang Zongxi, Qu Shixi and others were dissatisfied with one hundred people and firmly decided to make some fundamental changes in the examination content and organizational form.

Lin Yuji was not willing to be troublesome and refused firmly.

Huang Zongxi and Qu Shixi were unable to tell Lin Yuji very tactfully: If the imperial examination system continues like this, according to Lin Chunhong's nature, he must do another set. In the end, the imperial examination will be destroyed in the dust of history, and Confucianism will gradually decline.

Lin Yuji was not a fool, and immediately realized this possibility and was worried.

However, after thinking about it, Lin Yuji finally rejected the suggestions of Huang Zongxi and others and did not make any changes.

Lin Yuji's idea was very simple: Lin Chunhong made another set of things, the imperial court and the Shilin could not hit his butt anyway; however, if he made fundamental reforms to the imperial examinations in Jiaozhou, he might not only be blamed by the emperor, but also be scolded by the opposing Shizi.

Lin Yuji is very clear about who is more important!

Huang Zongxi and others were unable to find Zhu Zhiyu, hoping that Zhu Zhiyu would put pressure on Lin Yuji on behalf of Jingzhou.

Just when Huang Zongxi, Qu Shixi and others were extremely anxious in Jiaozhou, Lin Chunhong suddenly issued an order: Those with fame and honor can be awarded official positions, scholars can be awarded directly to positions of ninth rank, and Juren can be awarded eighth rank, and Jinshi can be awarded seventh rank; those with fame and honor can be awarded preferential treatment such as food and food exemption.

Once this order came out, everyone in the world was shocked.

According to the old system of the Ming Dynasty, official positions were extremely limited. As the number of Jinshi, Juren and scholars became larger and larger, the limited positions were basically occupied by Jinshi and a small number of Juren. It was very difficult for scholars and most Juren to wait for a vacancy.

On the other hand, the official positions in Jingzhou were extremely rich. Take a county for example. In the past, there were only one county magistrate, one rank 7th magistrate, one rank 8th rank, one rank chief clerk, and one rank ninth rank. The rest, at most, there were dictionaries, and several inspectors, all from the ninth rank. After Lin Chunhong reorganized the county-level institutions, there were only two rank 7th rank magistrates and the supervisory order. As for the seventh rank, including the Security Bureau, there were at least five people, and the other rank 8th rank, the eighth rank, the ninth rank, and the ninth rank, there were nearly a hundred people.

The number of officials has increased dozens of times at once!

The vast majority of juren and scholars ran around and told each other, happily went to the county government to register, and then granted different official positions based on their personal talents, and began to receive salary from Jingzhou's finances.

Of course, the opposition was also very strong. During the restructuring, Lin Chunhong used strong initiatives to collect food together by officials and gentry. Some scholars with rich land opposed it desperately, but under strong suppression, they did not cause any storm. Now, Lin Chunhong once again made it clear that the fame and fortune paid food together, which undoubtedly cut off their last thoughts.

Although they dared not act publicly, they could still scold Lin Chunhong indifferently in the newspaper.

Lin Chunhong was too lazy to pay attention to such a buzzing sound.

The support of the official position of a fame and honor was far stronger than that of opposing it. In a short while, Lin Chunhong's reputation increased greatly, and there were actually scholars and scholars openly flattered in the newspapers.

This move is undoubtedly a turning point in Jingzhou. Starting from the issuance of the official position order, Jingzhou began to accelerate the integration of the scholar class and pull the scholars into the Jingzhou camp.

When Jingzhou is weak and small, the introduction of scholars in large quantities will probably have an immeasurable impact on Jingzhou. However, Jingzhou is now strong enough, and the introduction of these scholars in large quantities will have little impact on Jingzhou.

What's more, Lin Chunhong faces a very embarrassing reality: the literacy rate of the Ming Dynasty was too low.

At the beginning, Lin Chunhong conducted free compulsory education in several prefectures and counties such as Jingzhou and Yiling. After nearly ten years of hard work, the literacy rate barely increased from less than 20% to more than 30%. However, when the territory controlled by Lin Chunhong became larger and larger, Lin Chunhong suddenly realized that he did not have that much money to provide free compulsory education.

Therefore, except for several prefectures such as Jingzhou and Yiling, the rest of the counties are within their means and do not promote free compulsory education.

The low literacy rate makes it difficult for Lin Chunhong to find so many suitable people to be officials. Scholars and juren are intellectuals. No matter how conservative the mind is, they are always more suitable than illiterate people who cannot read big words.

Moreover, according to Lin Chunhong's observation, those who can pass the exam for scholars and juren are basically outstanding people for a while, and there are not many nerds among them. As for madmen like Fan Jin, there are even none of them.

This is a gold mine, it's a pity not to mine.

When the news reached Jiaozhou, Huang Zongxi and others were stunned: When Jiaozhou Enke won a scholar without any clue, why did Lin Chunhong suddenly recognize the fame of scholars? What is the purpose?

Only Lin Yuji was secretly happy and said to Huang Zongxi and his gang: "Lin Chunhong has no plan to reform the imperial examination at all!"

However, when the news reached the court's ears, Zhu Youjian was furious and almost pulled the eunuch around him out and spanked him without hesitation. Especially when the people of fame and honor were registered and became Lin Chunhong's official, Zhu Youjian was so angry that he almost vomited blood.

Yang Sichang was far calmer than Zhu Youjian, and just sighed: "What should be coming will always come. It's too late to delay until today..."

Yang Sichang and Zhu Youjian were very clear-headed. They knew that the reason why Lin Chunhong had no choice but to replace the court with his extremely strong financial and military strength was nothing more than the great title.

The great righteousness is in the mouth of scholars. Now most scholars are happy to be officials. Isn’t it just a matter of Lin Chunhong’s desire to have great righteousness?

However, Lin Chunhong's struggles are far from over. On the eighth day of the eighth month, Yang Yiren, the Minister of Personnel, submitted a memorial "Notes on the Reform of Local Official System", which officially kicked off the reform of the official system.

Yang Yiren's letters were filled with tens of thousands of words, and it was obvious that he had been prepared for a long time, and it was not a temporary idea.

The letter said that the Ming Dynasty was divided into two capitals and fifteen provinces, and there were also local institutions such as the Maritime Governor's Office, the Anbei Governor's Office, and the Western Region Governor's Office.

In each province, institutions such as the Executive Office of the Government, the Censorate, the Dali Office, and the Guanglu Court were respectively responsible for administrative, supervision, judicial, and consultant duties. Correspondingly, second-rank officials were appointed as governors, censors, and Dali Commissioners. Only the Guanglu Court had no official rank and no officials were appointed, and the Guanglu Dean was elected by Guanglu Lang.

Among the provincial institutions, it is not only very different from the past Ming Dynasty, but also very different from the current official system in Jingzhou. For example, the Supervision Office was split into two parts: the Censorate and the Dali Commission, which took a big step towards professionalization.

Under the provincial level, there are prefectures and under the prefectures, there are also counties. Each prefecture and county has four major institutions that exercise administrative, supervision, judicial, consultant and other powers. The head of the prefecture is designated as the fourth rank, and the head of the county is designated as the seventh rank.

The county is the smallest power organ, and six to twelve inspection departments are established under the county government as needed. Each inspection department governs more than a dozen villages.

In Yang Yiren's letter, he also listed the organizational settings within various administrative, supervisory and judicial organs in detail, and made some restrictions on the staff.

These are generally not much different from the current official system in Jingzhou.

In addition to the architecture, the most concerned thing in the world is the official selection system.

Regarding the source of officials, Yang Yiren's letter suggests that both aspects should be emphasized.

On the one hand, it comes from the imperial examination. Those who have obtained the fame of scholars will be awarded the position of ninth rank, and the juren will be awarded the position of eighth rank, and the jinshi will be awarded the position of seventh rank.

On the other hand, the recruitment will be open to the entire society. The local government will formulate the number of recruits each year based on the position vacancy and report to the government office. Under the supervision of the Administrative Department, the government office will organize the admissions based on the position vacancy.

Regarding the methods and organization methods of recruitment, Yang Yiren was busy talking about tens of thousands of words. Among them, the most interesting thing is that Yang Yiren used history, geography, economy, arithmetic, law, application writing, and policy theories as the content of the exam, but only lacked the crucial meaning.

Regarding the promotion and demotion of official positions, Yang Yiren summarized it as a test method, which is basically the same as Zhang Juzheng's test method. The difference is that Yang Yiren stipulates that any official must have more than three years of experience as a local head and department head before being promoted to a local head and department head.

In other words, in the future, the road to being an easy promotion by becoming a secretary will be completely blocked. Anyone who wants to become a governor must work step by step from the magistrate or the magistrate.

In addition, Yang Yiren also stipulates that when an official is promoted, the supervisory department must review it and that once a problem is found, it will be dismissed.

...

When Yang Sichang saw this plan, he spent three days to carefully ponder it. Finally, he sighed:

"The boundary between officials and officials has been completely broken, and there is no good or bad yet. As for the promotion of officials, at least there are a few hard indicators, which is much better than the current one. The most subversive thing is to recruit the entire society... I am afraid that the imperial examination will be increasingly marginalized..."
Chapter completed!