Ever since the incident with the Qin family, Gong Xiaohua had been busy practicing with the brothers in the prison recently.
It was all because the "Wrestling Tournament" held by the imperial court would begin in a month.
Every department involved in military affairs had to participate in the selections, including the prison where Gong Xiaohua was.
This tournament was a nationwide martial arts competition, led by the Ministry of War and co-organized by the Dynasty Court of Justice and the Ministry of Justice.
The Daye Dynasty had always been strong in civil matters but weak in military. Among the several countries, it was the weakest militarily.
Without wars, everyone lived in peace under the benevolent rule. However, once a war started, the Daye Country would be in danger.
To prepare for possible future wars, the Daye began to focus on military training, so it held the “Wrestling Tournament” every three years.
In addition, the imperial court recruited talents without limitation and extensively selected and trained excellent military talents across the country.
As long as they were officials of the imperial court, from the sixth-rank generals to the unofficial prison guards, everyone could sign up to participate.
The Wrestling Tournament was one of the most important tournaments in the Daye Dynasty.
So far, it had been held three times, and each time it was a grand event in the Daye Country.
The tournament rewards were divided into three levels. The top 1-3 were Class A; the top 4-10 were Class B; the top 11-30 were Class C, totaling the top 30.
Those who obtained a ranking would be directly transferred to the Ministry of War, and the Ministry of War would grant them different official positions according to their rankings.
Under the temptation of such huge rewards, basically everyone who was eligible would sign up to participate.
The Daye Dynasty had 24 prefectures and 208 counties, resulting in over ten thousand participants every time.
It goes without saying that it would be very difficult to get a ranking in the competition.
Of course, the tournament system was divided into the selection round, the preliminary round, and the final round.
The selection rounds and preliminary rounds were held in counties and prefectures to select the top ten of each prefecture to compete in the final round held in the capital city.
Each round lasted half a month. The combat skills and literacy proficiency of the participants were the two major assessment criteria, with an emphasis on combat skills.
The final round would be held one month after the preliminary round, which fully considered the traveling time of participants from remote regions.
Although this was an individual tournament, the performance of local officials would be considered in their job performance evaluations.
So every time during the competition, officials from all places tried their best to ensure that their subordinates received rigorous training.
The hope was that there would be a few elites unearthed from a pool of ordinary folks.
There was still one month before the start of the selection round.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry of Justice, Master Shangshu, had issued a death order that all who met the eligibility criteria must sign up for the selection round, not even sparing the female prison guards.
In addition, it stipulated that if someone from a regional department could obtain outstanding results in the preliminary round, then the head of that department would have the opportunity to be transferred to another position.
Therefore, recently the heads of several departments of the Ministry of Justice acted as if they lost their minds, supervising their subordinates to take turns training day and night.
The Ministry of Justice had a large training ground, requiring the staff to come an hour earlier or leave an hour later every day for unified training and sparring.
Moreover, the Ministry of Justice also offered literacy classes every day. This was basically a welfare class for the illiterate.
Those who were already literate did not need to attend classes. Instead, they were each given a military book copied from the Ministry of War to study on their own.
To select talents, the Daye Country really tried to fish a needle from the sea.
For Gong Xiaohua, however, this was a god-given opportunity that perfectly aligned with her goal to learn to read.
She now lived in the Ministry of Justice. After each training session, she rushed to the literacy classes without any delay, so she also missed every sparring session on the training ground.
Wang, the official temporarily acting as the teacher of the literacy class, felt very distressed recently.
Usually, many people would attend classes for the first few days after the literacy class opened, but later, due to the intense daily training, no one had extra energy to attend literacy classes anymore, so the classes would close early every year.
But this year, things turned out differently. Near the end, there was only one student coming every day, and it was always the same person - what's more, it was a female prison guard.
On one hand, Wang thought there was no point in teaching when there was only one student left, and it was a woman whose performance would barely count in the competition. But on the other hand, seeing her look at him eagerly with bright, shining eyes full of sincerity to learn, he could not bear to dismiss her.
Fortunately, this student was extremely intelligent. In less than half a month, she almost learned all the words from the Enlightenment Primer textbook.
After Gong Xiaohua finished studying the entire book, the literacy class officially ended.
On the closing day, Gong Xiaohua politely bought some fine wine with her own money to show her gratitude to Wang.
Tonight, as usual after training, Gong Xiaohua stayed at the training ground. She wanted to see what everyone's level of martial arts skills was like.
She also felt somewhat tempted by the rewards of the competition. If possible, it would be best if she could get a ranking.
After all, she did not want her future generations to inherit her career of being an insignificant prison guard like her.
Although she had no plans to marry here, her family still had a younger brother to carry on the family line.
In Gong Special Agent’s view, a soft and gentle little girl should be pampered and treasured as she grows up, while naughty boys were an exception, of course.
On the platform in front, people kept sparring. From Gong Xiaohua’s perspective, everyone was mainly relying on brute force and hard clashes without any skills and tactics.
Sister Fang, who stood aside, saw that Xiaohua stayed at the training ground watching people spar today, so she asked:
"Xiaohua, what is it? Do you want to go up and spar with someone?"
"No, I am just standing here watching everyone practice. By the way, Sister Fang, have people always sparred like this in previous years as well?"
"Yes, what’s wrong with it?"
"Oh, nothing. I was just asking since this is my first time participating in this kind of competition. I wanted to learn more about it.”
“Oh Xiaohua, we are here just to fill the lineup. Basically, it has nothing to do with us, so don't take it too seriously."
"Sister Fang, I just wanted to ask, hypothetically speaking, what if, just hypothetically, I manage to get a ranking in the end? What kind of official post could I get in the Ministry of War?"
Seeing Gong Xiaohua's question, Sister Fang thought to herself that this girl must have gone crazy and dared to think too wildly.
"Xiaohua, Sister doesn’t know the details very clearly. After all, since the Wrestling Tournament started, no woman has ever won the selection round before."
In this way, they stayed in the Ministry of Justice practicing under the supervision of judicial officials for almost a month. Everyone exercised themselves into muscular fitness.
Even the female prison guards were no exception. Gong Xiaohua directly lost several dozen catties. According to her own estimate, she was now about 170 cm tall and weighed around 80 kg.
Although she was still fat, her face was no longer as hideous and terrifying as before. Judging from the contours of her face she actually looked quite pretty.
The prison guards would no longer ridicule Gong Xiaohua. Although she was still fat, she was a fat beauty who looked healthy and fertile.
Some even felt extremely remorseful for not have keeping their dirty mouths shut earlier.
In the five days before the selection round began, the Ministry of Justice also began to give everyone two days off in shifts to rest well.
It was not until the two days before the competition that it was Gong Xiaohua’s turn to be off. It was also the first vacation she had since she started working.
When she returned to Uijibang Lane, the neighbors were so astonished that they almost could not recognize her. They only felt she looked familiar.
Until the girl entered Gong's house and shouted "Mother" to Madam Gong.
Madam Gong originally thought that it was her daughter who had fallen seriously ill.
The lane was in an uproar. No one expected that after losing a few dozen catties, Gong’s daughter would change her look so drastically. Now she looked quite pretty and seemed very healthy and fertile.
People kept saying they wanted to introduce handsome young men to her, delighting Madam Gong so much that she couldn't keep her mouth closed for the whole day.
If Gong Xiaohua had not stopped her, Madam Gong would have invited all these matchmakers into her home to discuss which family had a nice young gentleman.
