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Chapter 387: 207: Agonizing Wait _3

Lu Yuan’s control of the entire Dongting Prefecture and the nine other prefectures in Jiangnan resulted in a staggering number of vacancies, reaching a thousand.

It was indeed an insane situation.

Moreover, if he were to establish his own governing system in the future, he would need at least three to five hundred central officials for even a small nation of one prefecture size.

With these vacancies, the shortage of officials became even more severe.

By now, holding the imperial examination to select qualified officials was a step Lu Yuan had to take.

It had become a necessity.

If he wanted to maintain his rule in Dongting Prefecture and establish his own nation, he would need so many officials to support him.

Regarding this, Sun Siwen had repeatedly written letters in the past half-year, urging Lu Yuan to expedite the matter and not delay any further.

So now, after laying his cards on the table with the court, Lu Yuan no longer concealed his intentions and immediately issued the selection order, announcing that all scholars of Scholar rank and above from every prefecture and county could go to Shaoyang Prefecture City to participate in the official selection examination.

Those who pass the examination will be granted the title of juren under the name of General Jinan, and assigned an official position.

It could be said that this was a blatant attempt to win over the people.

However, despite Lu Yuan’s efforts to win their hearts, many local scholars in Dongting were apprehensive about him as the rebellious General Jinan.

After all, these lower-class scholars did not know that Lu Yuan had the powerful support of the Nanhai Sect and the Nine River Sword Sect as his allies.

All they could see was that the imperial court’s Western Expedition Army was stationed in Yuzhang Prefecture, Xunyang City, and was about to enter Dongting Prefecture.

Although Lu Yuan had many troops at his disposal, his power was limited to one prefecture.

With such limited strength, it seemed very unlikely that he could resist the central government’s large army and the entire Da Yue world.

In fact, many people secretly mocked and scorned him, believing that the General Jinan was seeking his own death by rebelling against the court at this time.

They believed that he was a typical short-sighted warlord who only saw profits and had no vision for the future.

At present, in the eyes of those scholars in Dongting Prefecture, Lu Yuan’s reputation was more or less like this.

Of course, in the long-established Shaoyang Prefecture, although many people were also worried and puzzled about his rebellion against the court, many local scholars had already formed ties with Lu Yuan, and he had bestowed his grace upon them for a long time.

As a result, in this area, Lu Yuan’s reputation among scholars was still acceptable.

However, even so, very few people responded to his official selection examination in Shaoyang Prefecture.

Among those scholars, the prestige of the Da Yue court remained strong.

After all, the court had supported the scholars for hundreds of years, and the prestige of the Jinling Orthodox was very attractive to scholars.

When Lu Yuan finally received the report on the number of Scholars participating in the examination, he learned that only a little over a hundred people had gone to Shaoyang Prefecture City to take the examination.

He couldn’t help but feel frustrated by this result.

However, through this, he was able to see just how much enduring influence the Da Yue court still had after more than two hundred years of existence.

Forcing the court to compromise now seemed to have its uses.

Perhaps only when he had been officially recognized by the court, openly establishing his authority over a prefecture and founding his own nation, would the local scholars and other powerful groups truly recognize the reality of the situation.

They would finally see that the times had changed and that the Da Yue court was no longer what it once was and could no longer control the local areas.

And only when that time came, would the scholars and powerful figures of Dongting Prefecture truly let go of their illusions about the court and lean towards Lu Yuan, completely winning their loyalty.

Only then would he have truly secured his foothold.

“For now, let’s just wait a bit longer.”

Lu Yuan instructed the Shaoyang Prefecture to proceed with the official selection examination regardless of the number of participants who signed up for the examination.

But the strictness of the examination could be slightly relaxed to ensure that there would still be a decent number of qualified candidates.

At this moment, those scholars who were still willing to join Lu Yuan were either truly loyal to him or seeking wealth and honor.

No matter which category they fell into, Lu Yuan had to offer them benefits to win them over, as a demonstration of his commitment to them.

Of course.

He wasn’t going to take just anyone, even though he was buying people’s hearts.

So although the difficulty of the examination was lowered, the basic standards still had to be upheld.

After all, selecting an incompetent person who couldn’t even do the job of an official would only cause more trouble for himself, wouldn’t it?

Thus, the official selection examination ended quietly on the 30th day of the fourth month in the seventh year of Hongdao.

Meanwhile, Lu Yuan was busy winning people’s hearts.

Yan Wangqiu and Su Xuange had not been idle either, returning to Jianan Prefecture and Southsea Prefecture according to their previous agreement to prepare for the uprising.

The three of them had agreed that if a satisfactory answer from the court had not been received within a month, Lu Yuan would immediately send word to the other two.

The two of them would then raise their armies in Southsea Prefecture and Jianan Prefecture. They would march north and south according to their previously planned strategy and wage war against the court.

Both of them had been preparing for several months, so it wouldn’t be difficult for them to raise their armies at this point.

If the court insisted on being stubborn, they would show them what they were capable of.

However, deep in their hearts, all three of them hoped that it would not come to that.

After all, they were people of Jiangnan and would never truly align themselves with the Zhou people from the North.

Moreover, without the court acting as a buffer, even if they were temporarily appeased by Zhou, allowing them to establish their own nations, once the Zhou had assimilated the land of Jiangnan, their next target would inevitably be their newly established Three Nations.

When that time came, Lu Yuan and the others would face a Zhou that was even more powerful than Yue.

Nobody wanted to see that happen.

They just hoped that the court wouldn’t force them to take that step.

In their respective territories, Dongting, Southsea, and Jianan, the three allies who were thousands of miles apart occasionally gazed at the heavens and the earth, the mountains, and the rivers, and couldn’t help but think of this.

And then, it was time for the agonizing wait.