Good son-in-law of the Ming Dynasty

Besides, this was Su Mu's first time entering the official examination room after traveling to the Ming Dynasty, and he felt curious in his heart. The tension in the examination room can already be compared to the civil servant examinations of later generations.

Although the college examination is only a pre-examination to obtain the qualifications of the official civil service examination, once you pass the examination, you will be able to obtain the title of scholar and be exempted from all taxes.People with good grades pass the assessment and enter the prefectural and county schools and get a monthly allowance of rice, so they can be regarded as members of the public.

Therefore, the two exams in the same county and the prefecture are different. Candidates have to go through a body search as soon as they enter the arena.

After entering the venue, you have to find your test room according to your test number, and you will be locked inside with a big iron lock, and you will not be able to leave until the test is over.

The last time Su Mu came to the Gong Yuan to take the government examination, because the examination was not strict, he and others were arranged to do the questions in the main hall, and he was not eligible to go to the examination room at the back.

When I got to the ground this time, I was taken aback.

I saw row after row of low blue-tiled houses in front of me, standing opposite each other in one piece.Sitting inside, the people next to you can't see it, but you can see the expression of the candidate opposite.

From a distance, it looks like a townhouse in later generations, but the size is much smaller, similar to the small shrine of the land father-in-law in the countryside.

The test shed is about 1.6 meters high and [-] meters wide. The inside is narrow and small. There is only a small kang, and people lying on it cannot straighten their feet.People in the Ming Dynasty were generally not tall, and they were better, so Su Mu felt uncomfortable.

There were a lot of people who came to take the exam, but fortunately he was the first batch of scholars to enter the exam room, so he didn't get annoyed waiting outside.

At the same time as entering the examination room, each candidate had to receive a stack of papers, which were still printed with red dark grids as in the previous two rounds.

In addition, there are a few draft paper stamped with the seal of the government school.

After all candidates receive the papers, they will put them into a small cloth bag that they carry with them and hang them around their necks.This cloth bag is also called the test bag.

Because Su Mu didn't know and wasn't prepared, he could only hold the paper in his hand.

After entering the examination room and sitting for a long time, when the sky fully opened, the candidates finally entered the room.

"Bang!" With a sound, the Gongyuan fired a cannon and closed the gate, and the Baoding Mansion Court Trial officially started.

Su Mu was taken aback by the sound of the cannon, and when he looked at the candidate who had just entered the test room, he was so startled that he staggered and almost fell to the ground.

……

At this moment, outside the examination room, upon hearing the sound of the cannon, many family members and servants who sent their young masters or masters to take the examination sat on the ground, waiting quietly.Another yamen servant copied his hands and walked around to signal everyone to keep quiet.

This scene is a bit like the parents coming to accompany the college entrance examination in later generations.

In the distance, someone's body trembled slightly, and murmured: "It's finally started."

But it's not Hu Ying, who is it? Compared with a month ago, this tall little beauty is much thinner, and her cheekbones are slightly protruding, which makes her facial features more distinct, and her eyes seem to be three points bigger .

The two sons of Jin Yiwei said flatteringly: "Miss, the candidates have all entered the examination room, it's time to go back. If Mr. Hu finds out, we will have to eat and walk around."

Hu Ying didn't speak, just shook her head slightly, clasped her hands together, and moved her lips slightly, as if she was thinking about something, with a devout expression on her face.

That's right, Su Mu was not mistaken before, Hu Ying came and followed him all the time.

Miss Hu knew that today was Su Mu's big day, and it was related to his life's future.

So, she got up early in the morning and brought two members of Jin Yiwei over, just wanting to see with her own eyes whether Su Mu entered the examination room and how he did in the examination.

She will not leave until Su Mu leaves the examination room.

Hu Shun knew that he was sorry for his daughter, and also knew that his daughter had a strong temper. Once he annoyed her, God knows what outrageous behavior Hu Ying would do.Therefore, for the past month, Hu Shun has been obedient and obedient, and she dare not say a word.

Therefore, when Hu Ying came to the Gongyuan, Hu Shun simply pretended not to know, and only sent two capable men to follow behind.

After an unknown amount of time, Ms. Hu finally finished reading that scripture, looked up at the sky, and said, "It's time to start answering the questions."

……

The question paper for the first main test finally came out.

Su Mu took the task and looked at it: he can do it.

One of these two questions comes from "University" and the other from "Mencius".

The first question is "Therefore, a gentleman is omnipotent", which means, therefore, a gentleman must do his best in every aspect, and must be perfect.

This can also be regarded as a famous sentence in "University". As long as anyone has read the book for a few years, anyone can understand the other meanings and know how to answer the questions.

The second question is a complete sentence, which is very long. "Use the lower to respect the higher, it is called expensive."It is called respecting the virtuous by respecting the superior and the inferior.Noble and noble, honoring the virtuous, and its righteousness is one."

After reading this topic in one breath, he was a little out of breath.

The meaning of this question is also very simple. It means that a low-status person respects a high-status person, which is called respecting the noble person;Respecting nobles is the same as respecting sages.

It's about etiquette, and the topic is simple.

Because the first of these two questions is a famous sentence from "University", Su Mu happened to have done it during Mr. Shao's sea of ​​questions these days.

Smiling, he thought to himself: "Mr. Shao said he wouldn't make a fuss, but he didn't think that he still won one, but it was my luck."

In fact, the Ming Dynasty's eight-legged art was strictly limited to the scope of the "Four Books". The scope of the four books is very narrow, and it is only necessary to use each sentence in it as a topic for many years and write one by one.When you go to the examination room, you will always encounter a question that you have done before.This is also a very helpless thing in the imperial examination system. Because of this, by the Qing Dynasty, stereotyped essays had come to an end, and it could be said that all the questions that should be asked had been exhausted.

There is no way, but to find the title from Confucian classics other than "Four Books".

But it didn’t work like this, so another examiner cut off half a sentence from each of the two irrelevant sentences, and combined them together for candidates to write a composition on this, which is called: cutting tower questions.

Immediately, I stretched my muscles and bones, polished a pool of ink, dipped it in with a brush, and I didn't need to make a draft, so I just wrote it down.

"That's why, a gentleman uses everything to the extreme." "That's why" in a sentence is a continuation of the above, saying no is not important.A gentleman is the name of an adult's virtue.Extreme is the ultimate good.

"It seems that in this sentence, we should focus on the good characters.

Then there is the question of inheritance, good aftermath and virtue, this sentence cannot be read alone, it has to be linked to the question, the above documents are updated every day, it is a matter of Mingde, and at the end it is said that everything is used to the extreme, it is a matter of the ultimate good .

As long as the problem solving and acknowledgment of the problem are written, the next few parts are easy.

In fact, when Su Mu was doing it, there were only some problems in breaking the title and accepting the title. The next few Mr. Shao expressed their satisfaction and revised a few of the sentences.

Su Mu is notoriously cautious and slow in writing the questions. After finishing this question, it took only two hours for a mere [-] words. By the time it was finished, it was around ten o'clock in the morning Beijing time.

Looking at his own paper, the handwriting is extremely neat, and he must not be copied wrong when transcribing.

As for the content of the article, there should be no problem.

This question was revised by Mr. Shao at the beginning. Although it is not excellent among the more than 1000 candidates, there should be no problem in ranking it.If there was only this one question in this exam, I would have been ranked in the top [-], and it would be no problem to be a scholar.

The key is the second question, which has never been done before.

However, after the past month that made all the students turn pale, Su Mu's understanding of stereotyped essays was different, and he was not worried.He doesn't want to be the first in each game like Tongzi tried in the first two games, and he is satisfied with being on the list.

You only need to write according to the meaning of the question, and there will be no mistakes in the format.

I ate a pancake and drank some herbal tea.

When the hot hands from writing cool down, I will start to deal with the second question.

This time Su Mu didn't dare to be careless, and honestly started to draft and draw up an outline.

When the outline is finished, it will be noon.After another glance, I felt that there was no problem with the meaning, so I started to solve the problem.

The so-called breaking the title means that there is a sentence that clearly explains the meaning of the title. Su Mu has already thought clearly before, but it is: respect for the upper and lower, the etiquette of the upper and lower is different, but there are similarities.

According to the format of the eight-part essay, the question should not be too long, strictly limited to [-] characters, and it is a test of the scholar's ability to generalize at a high level.

At the beginning, Su Mu didn't take this question seriously, and just wrote a paragraph, about ten words, but after finishing writing, he looked carefully, but felt a little strange.Although it is also written in classical Chinese, but half of the text is not white, like white wine mixed with water, it looks very strange.

If such a sentence is read by the examiner, it would be strange if he didn't pinch his nose.

"It's not easy to write a concise and beautiful sentence on purpose. Instead, you will feel like a chisel, and you will fall behind. Forget it, let's make this meaning clear in plain language."

So, he picked up a pen and crossed out this sentence without deliberately seeking elegance.

This time, the writing was fluent as expected, but the number of words exceeded, reaching an astonishing thirty or so words.

It doesn't work, you can only cross it out and start over.

I just wrote it over and over again, I don’t know how many times, and when I looked at it carefully, I had already filled two drafts.

"It's still not good enough in classical Chinese!" Su Mu's temples were aching. If he was in a school, he could ask Mr. Shao for advice.Then repeatedly consider and delete until a perfect sentence is deliberated.

But in the examination room here, there is no way to ask people for advice. Could it be that they just make up a sentence in such a random way?

After holding back for a long time, I looked back and saw that after writing so many sentences, it seemed that only the first sentence was suitable for writing. I have been tinkering with it for two hours, but the effort I spent was wasted.

Su Mu felt a little frustrated. It seemed that the imperial examination was not as simple as he imagined, and it was not so easy to get involved in the scholarly society.

I was annoyed, but I had to copy the broken topic I wrote at the beginning to the draft.

Then there is the question.

Su Mu picked up a pen and wrote the character "Gai". According to the format of the eight-legged essay, the title part must start with the character "Gai" or "Fu".

The so-called acknowledgment of the question, as the name suggests, is to express the meaning of the question, and the format also has strict requirements.Must be in sentence format.

For example, a scholar of the Hanlin Academy today, a master of stereotyped essays, and the first assistant Wang Jia in the Zhengde period passed down the famous article "The People Are Sufficient, Which Is Insufficient"? The part of the title is very subtle, "The riches of the king are hidden in the people. If the people are rich, how can the king be alone in poverty? If you say deeply that the king and the people are one, it is to mourn the public."

The main idea is to store wealth in the people. After the people are rich, how can the monarch be poor.Only the people are the foundation of a country.It's a beautiful couplet.

Soon, Su Mu wrote the sentence of Chengti, but after looking at it, he still felt that something was wrong.

There is no problem with the meaning, but the sentence is not smooth, as if something is stuck in the throat, unable to swallow or spit it out.

Looking at the sky outside again, the white-hot sun has turned golden, and it is already four o'clock in the afternoon.

Su Mu was startled, and the sweat began to flow: When is this, and I am still stuck in the part of the question, and if I continue to dawdle like this, when will I be able to finish writing the last question?

These two questions today seem simple, but my knowledge of ancient prose is still shallow, so it's okay if I deal with it carelessly.But getting on the list is not so easy.Especially this question, if he continues to do it in his current state, I'm afraid he will lose a lot of points.