Ancient Imperial Examination Daily

Chapter 516

As the rural examination approached, many students rushed to the examination room, some came a month or two in advance; those who traveled far away even arrived half a year in advance, and after the national examination, they went on to the rural examination.

At this time in previous years, Fucheng was the busiest place. These students had a great time calling friends, talking, reciting poems and composing lyrics.

But this year is a little different. The students from Fu Xue and Nanlu Academy, who were active in the front line before, did not join in the fun, but buried themselves in their books and remained silent.

"Hey, what's going on here? Why are these people dumb this year?" asked an examinee from a certain county.

This candidate has already passed the provincial examination three times, and he is very familiar with the bustle before each local examination. The low-key of the Fucheng students this year really makes him unable to understand.

Although Qi Yuandao invited well-known scholars from all over the world to participate in his lectures, the scale was not large. Except for the students from the prefectural schools who were onlookers, most of them were people who had studied Confucianism above the Juren level, and most of them were outsiders.Even though there are a few local people, they have always been friends with Qi Yuandao. It is not a glorious thing for Qi Yuandao to be refuted by a fourteen or fifteen-year-old boy during his lectures. I didn't want to have any grudges with him, so I kept silent about the lectures and didn't spread them to the outside world.

Because of this, the scholars who took the exam didn't know much about what happened in April.

But there is no shortage of well-informed people, who lowered their voices and told what happened in March.

"You mean to say that Du Jinning of Nanlu Academy refuted Mr. Qi's theory?" The examinee was in disbelief.

The other party nodded: "Exactly."

Such dialogues kept appearing in various inns or gatherings of candidates.

In the Qi mansion, Qi Siyu was concentrating on reading the book, and he could no longer find the arrogance he had during the court exam two years ago.

Being locked up at home by his grandfather for two years, and watching Du Jinning defeat his grandfather whom he admired in April, Qi Siyu has only one thought now, which is to win Jieyuan in the provincial examination and trample Du Jinning under his feet in order to repay his grandfather and his shame.

"Master." The housekeeper of Qi's mansion walked in, "The list of examiners has come down." As he said that, he put a piece of paper in front of Qi Siyu.

Examination officials for the rural examination, including inner curtain officials and outer curtain officials.

The so-called inner curtain officials refer to the chief examiner and fellow examiners in the examination room; the outer curtain officials refer to the promotion officers, examiners and other officials outside the examination room.The chief examiner is responsible for formulating the test questions, reviewing the candidates' answer sheets, and deciding the candidates' ranking and admission or not.The same examiner assists the chief examiner in writing questions and marking papers.

The court stipulated that the outer curtain officials are not allowed to interfere with the affairs inside the curtain.Therefore, for candidates, who is the inner curtain official is very important.

The chief and deputy examiners of the rural examinations are selected by the imperial court to send Hanlin and cabinet bachelors to the provinces to serve as the chief examiners. There are two examiners and four examiners.

"Pan Yiting?" Qi Siyu picked up the list and was the first to see this name. He felt a little familiar, and couldn't help frowning in thought.

The butler of Qi's mansion is as old as Qi Yuandao, and he has been the butler of Qi's family for more than thirty years.Because Qi Yuandao recruited many disciples and many disciples were officials in the court, Steward Qi was very familiar with the affairs of the court.

He reminded: "Pan Yiting is the teacher of the former prefect Zhou Dongping."

"Oh, it turned out to be him." Qi Siyu suddenly realized, and was overjoyed immediately, "So, this time the exam will have an eight-legged essay?"

In the past two years, he devoted himself to learning, especially on the stereotyped essays, and the stereotyped essays he wrote were frequently praised by Qi Yuandao and some teachers.But Du Jinning did not have any stereotyped articles to be praised.If compared to others, Qi Siyu, who has suffered many blows, may not have the confidence to win against Du Jinning, but he is full of confidence in the stereotyped essay.

"Where is this Wang Shibin? Who is he? What is his academic orientation?" He asked, pointing to the second name.

"This Wang Shibin is a doctor in the official department, and he is also an advocate of stereotyped essays."

"Haha, good, good." Qi Siyu couldn't help shouting loudly.I am not interested in asking the next four fellow examiners.

The academic inclinations of the two chief and deputy examiners are both stereotyped essays, and the question setting has always been the responsibility of the chief and deputy examiners, so it can be seen that the stereotyped essays are determined this time.

It seems that he is expected to get Jieyuan this time.

"Okay, let's go out. I'm going to write a few stereotyped essays for the gentlemen in the next few days, so that they can give advice and try to get a good ranking in this provincial examination." Qi Siyu drove Steward Qi out of the door.

"Yes, the old slave won't disturb the young master's study anymore." Not only did the housekeeper of the Qi Mansion not feel disgusted at all, but he was very pleased.

Their young master has grown up, becoming more and more calm and calm, and knows that he is working hard to make progress.

In the Qi mansion, Du Jinning and Qi Muyuan were also looking at the list of chief examiners and deputy chief examiners.

Qi Bokun explained from the side: "Pan Yiting, the chief examiner, is a supporter of the second prince's faction, a scholar of the Dongge University; Wang Shibin, the deputy chief examiner, is a supporter of the first prince's faction, a member of the official department's anthology."

Having said that, he glanced at Du Jinning.

Du Jinning has become famous over the years. How many people wanted to accept him as a disciple, but Du Jinning politely refused, saying that he only worships Guan Le and one teacher in his life.Qi Bokun knew that Du Jinning advocated neutrality and was unwilling to join any factional disputes.So speaking of these examiners, he has regrets for Du Jinning.

The butt determines the head, no matter how colorful Du Jinning's article is, the examiner will only consider people from his own faction, and will not make wedding clothes for others, and take people who are not from his own camp as the solution.Therefore, if Du Jinning remained neutral, it would be almost hopeless to fight for Jie Yuan.

Qi Muyuan is Qi Bokun's grandson, and Qi Bokun naturally hopes that his grandson can get Xie Yuan.But Du Jinning's excellent political performance and the strong friendship with Qi Muyuan made Qi Bokun treat him as his own grandson.There are people out there, and there are people out there, who knows what strong competitors will appear in the township examination?Having Du Jinning join the competition for Jie Yuan is like adding double insurance.It's better for Du Jinning to get rid of Yuan than to let others get it, right?No matter which of the two of them this solution falls on, Qi Bokun will be very happy.

But Du Jinning is so neutral, the advantage is lost, and the double insurance is gone. How can this not make Qi Bokun regretful?
When Du Jinning heard this, there was no expression on his face, as if he didn't care about these things.

Qi Bokun had no choice but to continue explaining: "Among the four exams, two are from the Four Princes' faction; one is from the Fifth Prince's faction, and Xiao Yi is from the Royalist faction."

There are five political camps among the six inner curtain officials. It can be seen that the political struggle is fierce, which made Du Jinning shake his head.

Qi Bokun asked her: "Xiao Ning'er, what do you think about this?"

"Just do your best in the exam. If you can pass the exam, you will succeed. I don't have any obsession with Jie Yuan." Du Jinning naturally knew that his chances of getting Jie Yuan in the provincial examination were very small, so he didn't care about it.

She turned her head to look at Qi Muyuan, and said with a smile, "I will leave the burden of capturing Jie Yuan to you. Work hard."

(End of this chapter)