Chapter 204

When it came to agriculture and sericulture, the first thing Mu Er Pang thought of was a line he had memorized from a poem by Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, which went, “Promote the wind and ask the elderly, advocate for farming and sericulture.”

With the flourishing of agriculture and sericulture, the people’s lives would undoubtedly become prosperous.

And there’s a saying in the Analects: “Once you have made the people prosperous, teach them.” The Chunqiu Fanlu also states: “To govern the people, first make them prosperous, and then educate them.”

Having clarified the sequence, Mu Er Pang began to write: “Agriculture is the foundation of the country. All methods of governing the country must first enrich the people…”

After explaining the importance of agriculture and sericulture, it was time to propose a solution.

Mu Er Pang put down his pen, scratched his head, and began to think carefully.

The most direct way to promote agriculture and sericulture, of course, was to reduce taxes.

But taxes were the direct income of the court.

Mu Er Pang, coming from a small place, really didn’t understand the current situation of the national treasury.

What if the treasury was currently empty, and the emperor was worried about it? If he came up and suggested cutting the court’s taxes, it definitely wouldn’t be to the emperor’s liking!

Mu Er Pang’s habit of scratching his head while thinking hadn’t changed yet.

But after all, he was in front of the emperor, so he couldn’t mess up his hair.

He changed to rubbing his forehead at the hairline.

Just as he was contemplating, that somewhat elusive gaze fell on him again.

Mu Er Pang still didn’t pay attention to it, just focused on his own thoughts.

At this moment, the only person who could leisurely look around in this great hall was Emperor Xihe sitting at the top.

He was the chief examiner for this last round of imperial examinations.

Although he held the position of power, he could actually do his own thing at the moment, or even zone out, and leave directly after sitting for a while; there were people below to supervise the examination for him.

But he did take this second round of imperial examinations seriously since he ascended the throne.

At this moment, he had already started to assess these candidates with his eyes.

Especially since he still remembered the top four in the provincial exam, who were from the same province.

Thus, he couldn’t help but take a few more glances at them.

After observing them, Emperor Xihe was quite satisfied.

It wasn’t because, as an emperor, he was concerned about appearances and hoped his subjects looked good, but rather because he was satisfied with their age—they all seemed to be energetic young people, the oldest looking no more than twenty-something.

This kind of talent selection can ensure long-term service to the court and avoid the conservatism often seen in senior court officials.

With these thoughts in mind, Emperor Xihe looked at the youngest candidate among them and inexplicably felt a sense of familiarity.

However, as he was preoccupied with state affairs, he couldn’t quite place where he had seen him before.

After a while, he continued to review the memorials.

When he came across the report submitted by Mu Yunchuan about the disaster situation, Emperor Xihe suddenly remembered who the young candidate resembled.

Remembering this, he recalled the list of candidates he had seen before and remembered that there was indeed a candidate with the surname Mu.

Wasn’t he Mu Yunchuan’s younger brother?

With this thought, Emperor Xihe looked up again at Mu Er Pang and happened to see him put down his pen.

He admiringly thought to himself that this young candidate had a refined demeanor.

Then he noticed Mu Er Pang frowning and rubbing his forehead.

How should I put it? In all the interactions he had with Mu Yunchuan, he had never seen such vivid and lively expressions on his face.

It was no wonder that he hadn’t immediately connected the two brothers earlier.

Honestly speaking, while their facial features were somewhat similar, Mu Yunchuan always appeared serious, giving off a stern vibe.

On the other hand, although the young candidate in front of him was pretending to be serious, he gave off a gentle vibe.

The two brothers had completely different temperaments.

Emperor Xihe was lost in his thoughts when he suddenly heard a slight cough.

This cough came from Minister Wang, who was also helping to oversee the imperial examinations in the hall.

It was a reminder to him not to keep staring at the same person.

After all, if someone felt uncomfortable under such scrutiny, wouldn’t it be a loss for the court?

Emperor Xihe coughed lightly as well, pretending to retract his gaze and continued with his own affairs.

Meanwhile, Mu Er Pang, after some thought, didn’t dare to make bold suggestions regarding tax reductions.

Instead, he briefly suggested reducing the burden on the people if it was financially feasible for the court.

After finishing this part, he continued by incorporating Fan Li’s economic thoughts, writing about “advocating for farming and sericulture, and storing grain.”

Once this section was completed, it was time to address education.

The importance of educating the people could be inferred from many passages in the Analects.

His main focus was on implementing Confucius’ idea of “education without discrimination” and how to establish academies to educate people from all walks of life.

Running a good academy might seem like a small matter, just educating dozens or even hundreds of students.

However, as the Tao Te Ching says, “Governing a great state is like cooking small fish.” This indicates that some things are naturally seen in small details.

This part came naturally to him.

After all, he was the young master of Cuiwei Academy, and he had helped with many academy affairs under his mother’s guidance.

Because he was so engrossed in writing, he didn’t even notice the simple meals provided by the palace.

After lunch, Emperor Xihe left the Baohe Hall, but he kept writing down all his thoughts on the paper in one go.

In the end, when he counted the words, he found that he had exceeded the limit—about a thousand words for the section on agriculture and sericulture, and nearly three thousand words for the section on education.

This required more editing and organizing. Mu Er Pang spent another hour to finally trim it down to exactly two thousand words, the standard length, and transcribed his essay onto the exam paper.

After finishing transcribing and double-checking, it was already afternoon.

Mu Er Pang glanced around and noticed that many people in his row and the second row had already left.

Of course, Mei Ruochu, Shen Aoshuang, and Wei Xi were still there, but they had also stopped writing a while ago, obviously waiting for him.

Mu Er Pang didn’t linger either and raised his hand to indicate that he was submitting his paper.

Mei Ruochu and the others followed suit. After they submitted their papers, they were allowed to stand up from their seats.

As they stood up, Mu Er Pang realized that it wasn’t just their rows that were empty; there were quite a few empty seats in other parts of the hall as well.

Indeed, he had gotten too carried away with his writing, producing an essay twice the expected length, which required a lot of time for editing.

Wei Shu and Cui Fei had finished writing long ago and had already left the palace, waiting outside with the palace attendants.

Seeing the four of them coming out, Wei Shu and Cui Fei approached and asked, “Did you have difficulty writing? Why did it take so long?”

It was like two students who struggled with the exam, thinking it wasn’t difficult after seeing the questions and finishing quickly.

But then they found out that the top student, who scored better, took several times longer to write their answers.

Wouldn’t that make them anxious? Afraid they misunderstood the questions and didn’t grasp the depth of the meaning.

Mu Er Pang immediately reassured them, explaining, “No, it’s just that I got too carried away with my writing. I ended up writing nearly four thousand words, which I had to cut in half. It took quite a bit of effort. They were all waiting for me.”

It was fortunate that Shen Aoshuang and Wei Xi were waiting for him.

Otherwise, after he finished editing, he would have looked around and found himself alone, which would have surely made him anxious.

Wei Shu and Cui Fei let out a long sigh of relief.

They sandwiched Mu Er Pang between them and joked, “We’ve seen people struggle to finish writing the exam, but we’ve never seen someone struggle to stop writing. You really scared us just now.”

With that said, they all returned to the academy before evening.

Shen Cui had already arranged dinner.

Since they didn’t feel particularly tired, they ate dinner first, then went to the latrine, and finally washed up before sitting down in the classroom to silently write down the contents of their exam papers.

In just half an hour, everyone had written down every word.

Lao Buyu carefully checked each paper.

Mei Ruochu’s paper was still the most impeccable, approaching perfection, far surpassing his status as their teacher.

Shen Aoshuang’s proposals for agricultural reform were both conservative and innovative, offering fresh ideas without being too radical.

Mu Er Pang’s performance in agriculture was average among the four of them.

After all, despite being from a farming family, he had spent the past ten years in a haze, so it was difficult for him to speak from personal experience like the other farm boys.

He could only rely on his lifelong learning and quoting classics.

However, his performance in education was outstanding.

In fact, in this aspect, it was even better than Mei Ruochu’s, showing the depth of his thinking.

As for Wei Xi, he didn’t stand out particularly.

Like Wei Shu and Cui Fei, he played it safe.

However, due to their different levels of basic skills, even when playing it safe, Wei Xi still stood out the most, followed by Wei Shu, with Cui Fei coming in last.

Lao Buyu and Mei Ruochu didn’t say much more after that.

At this stage, their thoughts didn’t matter anymore. The final ranking would depend on the emperor’s preferences.