Valley Emperor

More than ten miles outside the city of Xunzhou, there is Huangkeng Village.

This village with only dozens of households is like most villages in this era. The people living in the village are all people with the surname Huang, and they even have a common ancestor.

At this time, in an ordinary low house at the head of the village, a young man who was wearing only a single coat in the cold spring and wrapped a quilt to avoid the cold was shaking his head with a book that had been almost ripped out.

At this time, a shout came from outside the house: "Brother Yongxiang, Brother Yongxiang!"

The young man in the house listened, opened the tattered life and stood up, then put on a commoner robe with many patches and pushed out the door, and saw a young man in a commoner robe standing in the yard.

Immediately said: "It turns out that Brother Zisong has come from a long way, please come in quickly!"

Although the commoner boy who called Zisong was dressed plainly, his commoner clothes were brand new, and the texture was quite good, which formed a clear contrast with the patched commoner robe on the boy called Yongxiang.

After the two entered the house, Yongxiang began to make tea. Although the tea was just ordinary tea and the spout of the teapot was missing a mouth, he was meticulous when making tea, and his demeanor was extremely cautious, as if he had the best quality in his hand. The Maojian is the same as the purple clay pot.

When Yongxiang was making tea, the boy in the cloth Yi Zisong on the opposite side did not speak, but sat upright, waiting until Yongxiang poured the tea on the teacup and spread his hands: "One cup of rough tea, please brother Zisong not to dislike it. !"

Zisong nodded slightly, then took a sip from the teacup, then put down the teacup and said, "Bitter but not astringent, clear but not bland, good tea, Brother Yongxiang's tea skills are getting more and more exquisite!"

Yongxiang said: "It's too famous, the tea ceremony is just a small way, and the most important thing for me to wait for scholars is the classics and articles, the imperial examination avenue!"

After Zisong heard this, he straightened his body again, and then said, "This time, my brother came to visit Brother Yongxiang for this imperial examination!"

"Imperial examination? Today's official army has been defeated, and the huge Guangxi generals have all fallen into the hands of the pseudo-Tang. How can I wait for the exam? Could it be that I have to go to Guangdong to take the exam and fail!" Yongxiang sighed after saying this. in one breath.

Zisong said: "Yes, it is the imperial examination, but this time we are going to Zhaoqing to take the examination!"

" Zhaoqing

Zisong said: "Don't Brother Yongxiang know? The Emperor of the Tang Dynasty has announced to the world that he will hold the Ascension Enke in April. Xu has already applied for the exam, and he will be leaving for Zhaoqing soon. Before that, he invited Yongxiang. Brother Xiang and my younger brother went to Zhaoqing to take the exam together!"

Hearing this, Huang Zhiyuan did not answer the first time, but looked at the close friend in front of him, and said, "I also heard that the pseudo-Tang Dynasty seems to be holding the imperial examination a few days ago, but I didn't expect to take the exam. , this pseudo-Tang is a pseudo-dynasty after all, I am waiting as a scholar..."

Before he could finish his words, Xu Hanshi on the side waved his hand slightly and interrupted him directly: "The emperor of the Tang Dynasty has long been proclaimed as the emperor, and now he is the capital of Zhaoqing, and has more than 100,000 troops. He is based in three provinces. , the rising trend is unstoppable, I don't know how many heroes in the three provinces have served for the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, how can I fall behind and miss the time to make achievements!"

Speaking of this, he paused for a while and then said: "The day before yesterday, I received a letter from my second grandfather, in which he told me to take the exam and get a good place in the exam, and said that there is only one chance like this, and it will be this year. In the autumn test, it will not be so easy!"

"If I remember correctly, your second master is an official in Guizhou, right? Could it be that he..." Huang Zhiyuan asked suspiciously.

Xu Hanshi said: "That's right, now my second master is an official of the Tang Dynasty, and the official will pass the judgment on the sixth grade of Liping House!"

Hearing Xu Hanshi say this, Huang Zhiyuan finally understood why his close friend suddenly said that he was going to participate in the imperial examinations of the pseudo-Tang Dynasty. Why?

His second uncle had already thrown himself into a thief, and he still took his official body to throw himself into a thief. This kind of thing is absolutely intolerable in the court, and his second uncle would be pulling everyone in the Xu family into the water. Tang is finished, and the huge Xu family will probably be raided and wiped out!

The Xu family, who had no way out, naturally had to go to the dark one by one!

In fact, just as Huang Zhiyuan thought, the scholars who planned to participate in the imperial examination this time were basically scholars who had a close relationship with the Tang Dynasty. If there is no way out, there is only one way to go to the dark. I hope that the Tang Dynasty can last longer, or even directly unify the land of China.

But this is the Xu family's choice, Xu Hanshi's choice.

However, do you want to participate in the imperial examinations of the pseudo-Tang Dynasty?

After Xu Hanshi left, Huang Zhiyuan fell into deep thought!

He, Huang Zhiyuan, is a typical farmer's son. He has three brothers and sisters. The eldest sister is married. He ranks second. There is a younger brother below.

When he was young, his parents just wanted him to go to the school next door to learn a few words, so that he could be a decent person like a bookkeeper in the future, but he never thought that their old Huang family would be able to participate in the imperial examination. of readers.

It occurred to him that Huang Zhiyuan had a great talent for reading, and was hailed by the school teacher in the next village as the most talented young boy in many nearby villages.

Encouraged by this, his parents, who didn't recognize two big characters, almost gave their lives for him to study, and the people of the same village with the same surname as Huang were also very helpful to him.

The last time he took the exam, he even passed the county exam and the prefectural exam. Although he narrowly lost in the academy exam, many people thought it was because he was unlucky and the articles he wrote were not appetizing to everyone, but his talent was won by many people around him. Unanimously appreciated by the students.

Like every scholar who aspires to the imperial examination, the meaning of his existence is to take the imperial examination, obtain a title and become a high-ranking official.

But last year, after the pseudo-Tang Dynasty went south to Guangxi, it occupied the entire Guangxi, which made him depressed, because it meant that the imperial court would not hold imperial examinations in Guangxi in a short time.

Now that he heard that the pseudo-Tang Dynasty also held the imperial examination, to be honest, when he first heard it, he thought it was absurd.

But after hearing the words of Xu Hanshi, a close friend, he had other thoughts, and he didn't have the heart to continue reading. After explaining it to his family, he went to Xunzhou Fucheng early the next morning. The prefectural city is only ten miles away, and it took an hour to go.

This was the first time he came to Fucheng after he was captured by the Puppet Tang thieves in Xunzhou. When he first arrived in Fucheng, he had not entered the city yet. He just felt that Xunzhou Fucheng was different from usual.

First of all, although there are many people waiting to enter the city in the direction of the gate of the city, there is not much noise. Everyone is quietly queuing to enter the city, and there is no rich boy brother who is extremely domineering and directly crossed the crowd and entered the city.

Occasionally, Ma Cheng from a few wealthy families came to the city gate. Although he was jumping in the queue to enter the city, we could also see that the servants of those wealthy families were very polite to the fake Tang yamen in black uniforms at the gate of the city.

He is not stupid, and naturally he will not put himself in a special situation at this time, so he is at the back of the line, and the one in front of him is obviously the same scholar as himself, but these two scholars seem to be the same as him. The same, is a pocket-shy person.

Because they are saying that those pseudo-Tang yamen are too black-hearted, and if they want to enter the city early, it will cost a tael of silver to cut the queue, otherwise they can only honestly queue up to enter the city for free.

These two pieces of silver are nothing to a wealthy family, but if it is an ordinary family, it is extremely expensive, so although you can occasionally see people jumping into the city directly, but at first glance, it is a big family that is either rich or expensive. People, as for ordinary people, even many well-dressed people are honestly queuing up.

Naturally, the Tang Dynasty, like many other dynasties, had no entry fee for ordinary people, but it would impose relevant tariffs on caravans, and the queues of these caravans were also different from ordinary pedestrians. If you do not carry a large amount of obvious goods, generally no tax will be charged.

Huang Zhiyuan is just an ordinary scholar. He will not be blocked by any means when he enters the city. After he entered the city, he did not turn around like a headless fly, but went to another friend's house first. In the name of visiting and exchanging knowledge, and also picked up a few recent articles written by him.

Well, there is another reason that cannot be said that it is good to have a meal at noon!

This friend of his is also an ordinary person, UU reading www. uukanshu. After the two of them sat down and talked, Huang Zhiyuan learned from a friend that this time the imperial examination was held in the pseudo-Tang Dynasty, but there was an uproar in the Xunzhou Prefecture. Participating in the imperial examinations of the pseudo-Tang Dynasty, and even those who do things more extreme will cut off relations with those scholars who plan to participate in the imperial examinations.

But he got an extremely important information from this news, that is, although the overall proportion of scholars participating in the pseudo-Tang imperial examinations is not high, there must be, and the number should not be small. I am afraid that at least hundreds of people will go to participate in this pseudo-Tang Dengji Enke.

After knowing this, he left his friend's house in the afternoon, and then went to the pseudo-Tang Yamen to watch the announcement of this imperial examination. This announcement has been posted for a few days, and there are not many people watching, but there are still several like him The clerks were watching, and after reading the notice, some people went to the yamen inside and went to register for the exam.

How many people take the test?

Huang Zhiyuan didn't understand it at first, but when he saw the details of the notice, his heart was shaken, and he couldn't help but walk into the pseudo-Tang official yamen in front!

He's taking the exam!