Idle courtiers

Chapter 284 Examination Room
Just as it was bustling with excitement, a candidate suddenly shouted: "The red lantern is hanging out, enter the arena, enter the arena!"

Zhou Nan looked up, but saw a lantern on the flagpole at the gate of the Gongyuan slowly rising upwards along the ropes on the pulley block.It would be best if there is a song "a big river with wide waves, and the wind blows the fragrance of rice and flowers on both banks" at this time.

Such a situation made Mr. Zhou feel familiar, as if he had returned to the flag-raising ceremony in middle school.

Before coming to take the exam, he had already inquired about the procedure of this exam clearly. The administrative region of Shuntian Prefecture is not big, which is equivalent to the size of a municipality directly under the Central Government in later generations.The examination rooms for government examinations, courtyard examinations, and Qiuwei in the imperial examination are all located here, so candidates don't have to travel back and forth like other provinces.

The red lanterns are also very particular. During the autumn period, because there are too many people coming, it would be chaotic if everyone swarmed inside.Therefore, when entering the arena, the Gongyuan will write the place names on the lanterns, and let the students enter the arena in turn.

Of course, it was the provincial examination.

Today's additional test is only more than a thousand people, so it doesn't need to be so troublesome.

With this shout, the candidates in Miyun shouted: "Friend Zhou, stop talking, let's go in!"

They surrounded Zhou Nan and walked forward.

Putting aside the matter of the bet, the most important thing is to deal with the exam in front of you.A scholar in the Ming Dynasty started from the road of imperial examinations, and had to go through three exams, the county examination, the government examination, and the college examination, in order to obtain the title of scholar.

After becoming a glorious scholar, if you enter the county school, you have to take the examination of school administration every year.If the grades are not up to standard, they will be punished by the inspecting academic and political officials, and even dismissed.

Anyway, in a word, any scholar present has been on the battlefield for a long time.

But this was the first time for Zhou Nan, and there was an inexplicable tension in his heart.

With the red lanterns hanging in the sky, the main entrance of the Gongyuan slowly opened, and Duan Chengen was seen coming out with a group of book office servants.The uproarious voices suddenly fell silent, and all the candidates silently arranged their clothes.

Duan Tixue glanced around, and whispered something to a secretary next to him.

The class raised his voice and asked, "What was going on outside just now, who was making the noise, step forward and talk."

It turned out that the conflict between Zhou Nan and Xu Yangda just now was too loud, and Duan Chengen was already alarmed.

The candidates automatically took a step back when they heard the words, revealing Zhou Nan and Xu Xiucai in the crowd.

Zhou Nan had no choice but Xu Yangda stepped forward, made a bow, and reported the reason.

Duan Chengen looked at Zhou Nan with a serious face: "Zhou Nan, as an official of the imperial court, you don't know the importance of the national talent selection ceremony. But you are charging a scholar with a horse, what should you do?"

Both sensual and stern.

Zhou Nan hurriedly said cautiously: "It's the late student's fault. It's really because the lower officials are busy with official duties, and the yamen is located outside the city. They are afraid of missing the time, so they hurry up and ask the elder to punish them."

"Did it hurt someone?"

Zhou Nan: "Never before, Xiaosheng has already apologized to the student and is willing to compensate the decoction."

Duan Chengen continued to scold loudly: "Since the apology has already been made, why are you still making such a fuss for a long time?"

Hearing this, Zhou Nan thought of the bet he had made with Xu Yangda just now, and his heart moved: "Returning to the master, the student offended Xu Yangda just now, and was relentlessly held back by him. The student is bound to win this subject. Determined to win the first place in this subject, I was in a hurry to enter the field, so Er and Xu Xiucai had a conflict."

In front of so many people present, this Zhou Nan boasted that he could take the first place.

Arrogant and ridiculous, everyone present looked at Zhou Nan as if they were fools.To be a man of the mean, to be a man is to be a man first and not a man later.Especially in this imperial examination field, you have to keep a low profile.If your article is really well written, it will naturally be selected.

Before you take the exam, you boast that you want to get the first place. If you can't even get on the list in the future, wouldn't it be a joke.

Also, being too high-profile never ends well.Zhang Juzheng was so popular when he took part in the provincial examination that year, he was simply the number one talent in Hubei.Also because he was too high-profile, the examiner felt that he was too sharp and had to be suppressed.

Therefore, Zhang Xueshi was actually a loser in the past, and he waited for two years before he won the election.After this lesson, Zhang Baigui's temperament changed drastically and he became much calmer.

Whether the examinee is Chinese or not, the power of life and death is in the hands of the examiner. Zhou's move is already disrespectful to Duan Tixue. Can there be any good fruit?
Sure enough, Duan Chengen was furious and shouted: "What a raging man, come and search carefully."

Two yamen servants rushed up and ordered Zhou Nan to take off his coat and check it over and over again, and ordered him to untie his hair and grope for a long time to see if there was any entrainment. The action was very rude.

In the ancient imperial examinations, there was a part of body search, to prevent candidates from cheating. That is because the liberal arts examination mainly tests your rote memorization skills.Therefore, in the two dynasties, bad scholars used all kinds of tricks to cheat.There are those who use carrier pigeons to carry cheat sheets, and some who copy the books on themselves.

The most astonishing thing was that someone actually copied the four books into a booklet the size of a mahjong tile and brought it into the examination room.That's tens of thousands of words, and the words are so small that you can't read them clearly, let alone copy them.

Of course, this is only in the rural examination and the next few examinations.In fact, the boy's test before the township test and this additional test were not formal, and there was no such thing as a body search.

The reason is simple, these exams are only for one day.Everyone enters the arena at [-] o'clock, and they have to hand in their papers and leave the arena in the afternoon.There are examiners on it, and there are more than a dozen pairs of eyes staring at the yamen secretary office, even if you have caught it, you have no chance to take it out and copy it.

Unlike Qiu Wei, who took the exam for three days, boarded and lived in the Gongyuan, and had time to cheat.

It was no small insult to see Zhou Nan stripped of his clothes by the yamen servants, and described him as embarrassed.

After a long time, the yamen servant replied: "I report to the Master of Xuezheng, there is no entrainment."

"Forgive me for once, you innocent and rebellious person." Duan Chengen waved his sleeves with disgust on his face: "Go in, and after you come down, I will accept Wen Miyun County School and ask them to strictly control you."

"Xie Tixue." Zhou Nan pretended to be terrified, and staggered towards the middle of the Gongyuan with his clothes in his arms. The tablets and pens and inks in the test paper were scattered all over the floor.

Later, Xu Yang laughed even more happily, seeing Tixue's expression, it was obvious that he was extremely disgusted with this surnamed Zhou.The additional test is not ambiguous, and this guy is suspended in this test.

"You are Xu Yangda."

Xu Yang hurriedly replied: "It is the late birth."

Duan Chengxue: "Go in, it's good for the exam."

Xu Yangda knew that his name had been remembered by the academic officer, and he had to be famous early, because reputation is an intangible asset.

More than 1000 candidates crowded into the test booth, Zhou Nan had already dressed and waited with bated breath.

After a while, the topic paper was handed out.Sure enough, as Wang Shizhen said at the beginning, there are two questions about the Four Books, which are compulsory questions; one of the five questions about the Five Classics is optional.

Everyone was burying their heads in the questions, and the test room was extremely quiet, and everyone's breathing was clearly audible, whether long or short, slow or urgent.

Occasionally, one or two coughs broke the silence, and an invisible pressure shrouded the entire examination room, which made people's hearts beat wildly.

Saying that it is not serious and then telling lies, Zhou Nan took two breaths in succession to see the problem clearly.

The two four-book questions are "Father and Son Are Relatives" and "Being the Joy of Talking to Me as a Monarch and His Ministers", which are the key points of this exam.The ancients paid more attention to the Four Books than to the Five Classics.These two questions are done well, and the other Five Classics question is mainly used as a reference.

Seeing the title, Zhou Nan suddenly smiled in his heart.Father and son have relatives comes from "Mencius". The original text is "Father and son have relatives, monarchs and ministers have righteousness, husbands and wives are different, seniors and children are orderly, friends have trust." It is about the general ethics of feudal society. The principle of filial piety.

This question probably came up from the old Duan. He felt happy when his father and son were reunited, and he felt it.However, whether Brother Yi is his son or grandson, and how they will get along in the future, this relationship is too messy to get along with.By the way, Mrs. Shi has become a standard social sister after six years of experience.She gave birth to a son again, and if she commits a crime, the Duan family will be disturbed, and the old Duan will have a headache!
What I talked about for the joy of being a monarch and his ministers was also about the principles of morality.

This hypocrite is not righteous himself, so he has the nerve to ask such a question?
After thinking for a while, Zhou Nan grasped the main points of these two questions, solved the problem, and how to write it next is also simple.It's just that my writing standard in classical Chinese is a bit poor, so I have to be careful about this, and don't let others find mistakes.

He was not in a hurry, picked up the draft paper and tried his best to write the article slowly with the simplest words.Anyway, in a word, the simpler the better, it's better to be clever than to be clumsy, and you don't need any gorgeous rhetoric.

When Lu Xun talked about composition, he said that there are two methods of writing: one is addition and the other is subtraction.

Zhou Nan used subtraction today.

Contrary to his usual flying and escape, he was exceptionally honest in this exam.

From the moment he entered the examination room, Xu Yangda's eyes fell on Zhou Nan.

Seeing Zhou Nan frowning, he usually stops and thinks for a long time after writing a line, then sighs, picks up a pen and erases the sentence he just wrote.

In a blink of an eye, his draft paper became a mess.

"This guy doesn't have much talent at first, just now he said that he wants to get the first name, what a big breath!" Xu Yangda sneered in his heart: "That's right, if the surname Zhou really wrote a good article, he would have been selected as a Jinshi and become an official. So why bother to be willing to degenerate and come from a miscellaneous background.”

Things like studying for the imperial examination have always been bullying the old but not the young.

When a person is young, his heart is pure, his thinking is active, and he learns knowledge quickly.When you reach a certain age, you are entangled in mundane affairs, and you don't have much thought about studying.Coupled with the repeated failures in the examination room, the heart has fallen, and the more the examination is, the worse it is.

"This guy is going to finish, haha, with this level, is he worthy of fighting with me?" Xu Yangda said with joy in his heart, "Today, Mr. Ben wants you to quit the examination room completely, so you will never think about it."

However, he changed his mind.The surname Zhou failed the imperial examination. If he lost, he would go back to be his official.If my son loses, won't his future be ruined, how can he explain to his family?

This son is a jade, but he wants to fight Zhou Nan, a tile, which seems unfair.

Lost, lost.

Thinking of this, Xu Yangda became nervous, his palms were covered with sweat, and he couldn't hold the pen smoothly.

(End of this chapter)