Ending 198 (an extra chapter)_3

Each group of marking officers would select the top fifty from five hundred examination papers, handing them over to the two chief examiners. These were basically the candidates who could become tribute scholars.

Of course, these two chief examiners would carefully review the papers, setting aside those with discrepancies. The discarded papers would be ranked according to their scores, and depending on how many tribute scholars were short, the chief examiners would pick from the top of the discarded pile.

There were also ten special positions.

These were the people pushed into the process by His Majesty and the ministers.

The names of these people were directly reported, whether or not they were among the final two hundred exam papers did not matter.

If they happened to be among them, then this year's count of tribute scholars would be two hundred. If not, it would simply mean adding a few more.