Chapter 932: Ming Dynasty No. in Months
Now, the provincial and national examinations in the Ming Dynasty have been improved several times and are becoming more and more perfect and stable.

The provincial examinations are all held in mid-March, when spring is in full bloom.

There are no restrictions on graduate schools and places of origin in the provincial examinations. This is mainly because some places have many universities, so the source of provincial examination candidates is not a problem.

For example, Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai are the three places with the highest concentration of higher education institutions in the Ming Dynasty.

However, there are few places with universities. For example, in such large areas as Sichuan and Shaanxi, there is only one university. In Gansu, there is only one agricultural college founded by Xu Zhenming in Lanzhou, which is a very special higher vocational education, and there is no other university.

However, these places also need to recruit enough civil servants through provincial examinations.

Therefore, the place of origin must be relaxed and university graduates from the eastern region are encouraged to go to the northwest to take provincial examinations.

However, there are corresponding limitations.

For example, the prosecutorial and judicial departments and the administrative department have separate items in the provincial and national examinations, and they must pass the legal examination first.

Graduates of law schools from all colleges and universities take a unified examination for specialized subjects, also known as the law examination, when they graduate. The pass rate is relatively high, about 90%, and basically anyone who studies hard enough can pass.

Law students can only take part in provincial and national examinations after passing the bar examination. If they pass the provincial and national examinations, they can serve as prosecutors. The pass rate is about 60% to 70%.

After serving as a prosecutor for three years, the judge must pass the magistrate examination and be awarded the magistrate’s degree based on his/her experience as a prosecutor.

Law students who have passed the bar exam but failed the provincial and national exams can serve as lawyers and engage in legal work.

Some departments have lowered the educational requirement to a high school diploma. Most university graduates do not look down on such positions and will not compete for them unless they have no other choice.

There is an age limit.

The national examination is generally limited to those under 25 years old.

Graduates from colleges and universities are generally around 22 years old, and they only give you three chances to take the national examination. If you exceed the age limit, the door will be closed and you will have to seek other opportunities.

The age limit for provincial examinations is usually 27, which means you only have five chances to take them. For special cases, the age limit can be relaxed to 30 with the approval of the Guanglu Temple.

This is also the maximum age limit for provincial and national political examinations. If you still can’t pass the exam, just do your job well and don’t think about serving the court anymore.

That’s right, there are no restrictions on employment in the political examination, but you must resign after passing the exam and cannot have the same job at two ends of the road.

In addition, those sentenced by the Court of Justice are prohibited from taking the political examination for life.

Direct relatives whose parents have been sentenced are not allowed to take the national examination; those whose parents have been sentenced to heavy penalties, or those who have been convicted of corruption and other criminal offenses as officials, are not allowed to take the provincial examination.

The provincial exam is in March and the national exam is in August.

After you take the provincial exam, you can take the national exam.

However, most people need to take an additional test half a month before the national exam, and the pass rate is about 60%. Those who pass the test are eligible to take the official national exam.

Those who pass the provincial examination do not need to take the additional test and can directly take the national examination.

You can also take the provincial examination in Shandong this year, in Henan next year, and in Jiangsu the year after.

After failing the provincial examinations three times, you developed a sense of crisis, thinking that there were too many people taking the examinations in the three places and the competition was too intense. So you started trying to take the provincial examinations in other provinces in the western region, where the number of participants was small and the pass rate was very high.

Wang Zongzai and Chen Dake were well aware of these situations.

They knew that Shandong had always been the place with the most intense provincial examinations in the Ming Dynasty.

Shandong Province has a good educational foundation, with a large number of university and high school graduates, including college students who have been admitted to other places.

The atmosphere and spirit of Shandong Province make them want to come back and build their hometown.

But their hometown can only provide them with so many jobs to participate in construction.

Today is different from the past. One has to pass the provincial and national examinations to enter the officialdom. It is not like before that one can become an official by passing the juren or jinshi examinations.

Generally, one starts as a grassroots civil servant and slowly climbs up step by step over three years.

They have a lot of practical work to do and bear great responsibilities, and their work is harder than that of the clerks in the past.

Many people can clearly see the hardships involved.

In addition, the Ming Dynasty’s economic construction is now thriving, and all walks of life are in urgent need of talents. As long as they are talented, industrial and commercial enterprises will give them high salaries.

Some people think very clearly that if they pass the official career examination, they may only retire as an eighth-rank official for the rest of their lives. But if they work hard in industrial and commercial enterprises, becoming wealthy will not be a big deal.

The imperial court uses various means and methods to divert as many college students as possible, these high-end talents of the new era, and at present, the situation is relatively balanced.

But there is some imbalance in Shandong.

Wang Zongzai and Chen Dake wondered in their hearts whether the emperor was asking about this matter.

The two answered vaguely, “In reply to the emperor, the number of applicants for the Shandong Provincial Examination this year is 150% higher than in previous years. The previous examination venue, Shandong Imperial College, was completely insufficient. The Shandong Provincial Administration Department urgently requisitioned a teaching building from Jinan Middle School, which was enough to cope with it.”

Zhu Yijun smiled and said, “The internal report written by Xinming News Agency said that candidates for the provincial examinations in Henan, Hebei, Jiangsu and Anhui provinces complained that a large number of candidates from Shandong had poured into the four provinces, squeezing out their places and making them angry.”

Wang Zongzai and Chen Dake looked at each other. So that’s what happened!

“Your Majesty, we are powerless to stop this.”

“That’s right, this shouldn’t be banned.

I have told Mr. Shi Lu that the laws of the Ming Dynasty must gradually implement a principle: anything that is not prohibited by private power law can be done, and nothing that is not authorized by public power law can be done.

Individual citizens and companies in the market can exercise their private rights as long as the law does not prohibit them.

Government offices and other departments are not allowed to exercise public power without authorization from the law.

This is the greatest significance of the Ming Dynasty laws.

The laws of the Ming Dynasty do not forbid students from going to other provinces to take the provincial examinations, so it is allowed. The laws of the Ming Dynasty do not authorize the government to stop it, so you should not stop it. “Wang Zongzai and Chen Dake understood and said respectfully: “I obey your order.”

Zhu Yijun continued: “The focus of my inspection in Shandong is agriculture and rural areas.

I want to go to the nearby rural areas to see the current agricultural situation in Shandong. You should focus on agriculture, animal husbandry, fishery and forestry, and vigorously develop derivative industries based on agriculture. I want to see whether your agricultural foundation is solid.

Also, the Ministry of Personnel started to implement the “One Village, Five Officials” project in the sixth year of Wanli, and Shandong was one of the first pilot provinces. I want to go down and take a closer look.”

The “One Village, Five Figures” project means that a village must appoint a counselor, elect a village head, assign a security director and a militia captain, and hire an accountant.

Five people form a group to lead the whole village on the road to poverty alleviation and prosperity.

That’s why it’s also called the Village Group Plan.

This was a major event, one that the Cabinet and the Advisory Bureau had repeatedly emphasized. Wang Zongzai and Chen Dake did not dare to be careless, and Wang Zongzai quickly came forward to answer.

“Your Majesty, the Shandong One Village Five Project has received great attention from both the provincial governor and the provincial government. They have held many county meetings and made careful arrangements. Later, I and the provincial governor Chen went to the county many times to check the implementation.

Although I dare not say it is perfect, I can say that it has been implemented in an orderly manner and has achieved certain results. “

“Okay, if you dare to say it, I will dare to see it. This is a big deal, and we can’t be careless. We are the emperor and his subjects, and we are gentlemen. I will talk about your achievements first, and those are all reported by you yourselves.

I want to go down and see it clearly and carefully, and then I can tell you whether you have done a good job or not!”

Wang Zongzai and Chen Dake confidently responded: “Your Majesty is kindly requested to inspect various places in Shandong.”

The distance from Dezhou Station to Jinan Station is approximately 124 kilometers, and the special train only needs two hours to complete the journey.

It had been one hour and forty minutes since we left Dezhou Station. The train was shaking and bumping as it slowly passed Yancheng Station.

This is a small town between Jinan City and Yucheng City. It is not far from Jinan Station.

Jinan Station is built more than one kilometer away from Huibo Gate, the north gate of Jinan.

First the Jinpu Line was opened, followed by the Jiwei Line and Jiqing Line.

In fact, the Jiwei and Jiqing lines share a double track in Jinan, Zhangqiu, Qingzhou and Weixian, and only separate in Weixian. The Jiqing line goes south to Gaomi, Jiaozhou and finally to Qingdao.

The Jiwei Line runs through Yexian, Huangxian, Penglai, and Fushan in the north of the Shandong Peninsula to Weihai Port.

In fact, the Jiwei Line, the Jinji Line, the Dakai Line from Dagu to Luanzhou and Kaiping which is under construction and is about to be completed, together with the Jingshen Line from Qinhuangdao to Shenyang (sharing the Jingluan Line), and the Shenyang-Busan Line which is under construction and passes through Benxi, Fengcheng, the mouth of the Yalu River, Anzhou, Pyongyang, Hwangju, Kaesong, Seoul, Cheongju, Gyeongsan and finally Busan, form a strategic railway around the coast of Gyeonggi Province.

In the current Ming Dynasty, the southeastern sea route of the capital has three levels of defense checkpoints.

The first route is between Busan and the mouth of the Yangtze River, with Wongyeo Island (Jeju Island) in the middle; the second route is the Shandong Peninsula and the Ongjin Peninsula of the Korean Peninsula; the third route is the Liaodong Peninsula and Dengzhou in the north of the Shandong Peninsula.

Together with the long string of islands in the three provinces of Donghai, Chanzhou and Yuzhou, there are four gates.

The capital is located between the Shandong Peninsula and the Korean Peninsula. If any foreign enemy wants to invade, no matter where it wants to land, the Gyeonggi Coast Strategic Railway from the Korean Peninsula to the Shandong Peninsula can quickly dispatch troops to ensure the safety of the capital.

Woohoo!

Two long locomotive whistles were sounded, echoing throughout the entire carriage.

The train gradually slowed down and slowly passed over the Jinan Railway Bridge.

When this bridge was completed, it surpassed the previous Luanhe Bridge and became the largest bridge in the Ming Dynasty at that time.

“We’ve reached the Jinan Railway Bridge so soon?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

The Jinan Railway Bridge is 1,300 meters long and 11 meters wide. It is a double-track steel beam bridge with twelve piers and 13 spans.

The main span of the 10th hole is 165 meters, which is the largest span of the railway bridge. The spans of the 8th, 9th and 11th holes are 128.6 meters, and the spans of the north holes 1 to 7 and the south hole are 92 meters.

The most critical parts of the construction are the four foundation piers in the water. The design adopts a pneumatic caisson bottom plus reinforced concrete piles. The foundation depth reaches thirteen meters below the riverbed and is inserted nearly two meters into the rock layer.

The two sides of the bridge pier are designed in an arrow shape and covered with mushroom stone to minimize the impact of floods on the bridge piers.

The abutments on both sides and the seven piers in the shoal are built with pentagonal reinforced concrete shallow foundations with a diameter of 50 cm, which are driven in with a steam rotary pile driver. A total of 1,275 piles are driven, and each pile has an average load-bearing capacity of 150 tons.

The ninth, tenth and eleventh spans of the bridge, which are suspended above the mainstream, use triple cantilever beams, which were improved by the Ministry of Industry’s Bridge Design Institute based on the design and construction experience of many railway steel beam bridges such as the Luanhe River and Weihe River Bridges. It is very novel and unique.

The bridge took 32 months to build and cost 2.71 million silver dollars.

It caused huge controversy when it was first designed.

At this time, the Daqing River to the north of Jinan is only two or three hundred meters wide. Why build such a large bridge?

The Ministry of Works and the Ministry of War responded that according to the plan to divert the main channel of the Yellow River to the north, more than half of the water in the lower reaches of the Yellow River would pass through the Daqing River, plus the surplus left during the peak flood period, so such a large bridge had to be built.

Rather than building a smaller one and then having to rebuild it, it is better to build a bigger one now.

However, the Jinan Railway Bridge only sat on the throne of the first bridge in the Ming Dynasty for eleven months before it was snatched away by the Zhengzhou Yellow River Bridge on the Beijing-Hankou Line.

The Zhengzhou Yellow River Bridge is 3,076 meters long, with a total of 102 piers and 101 spans. It cost 3.21 million yuan and took 41 months to build.

With a clanging sound, the train passed smoothly across the railway bridge.

Under the urging of Wang Zongzai’s eyes, Chen Dake hesitated for a long time and finally spoke.

“Your Majesty, the people of Shandong are all cheering and rejoicing when they hear that you are coming to inspect. Especially the people of Qufu in Yanzhou, they want to invite you to come in person.”

“Qufu, Confucius Mansion?”

Zhu Yijun raised his eyebrows slightly, and the entire carriage fell silent.

(End of this chapter)