Do you know that it starts with Meng Tong?

Sheng Changbai nodded and said: "My dear brother, I am still open-minded. The imperial examination is a major event in life, but my dear brother can take it so lightly. Why worry about not being able to write a good article before the exam?"

In fact, Sheng Changbai was not at ease either. He came from a scholarly family, and his parents, relatives and friends had high hopes for him. If he even passed the county examination

It's all over, and if it spreads, it will be an insult to the family.

The county examination was coming soon, and he was no less nervous than Chen Jun, but he would not express his emotions on his face like Chen Jun.

Therefore, when he saw Wei Chen being so calm and calm when facing the county examination, he admired him from the bottom of his heart.

Wei Chen looked at the dark examination room not far away, his eyes far away, and he smiled casually and said: "Brother, you are so complimentary. I just don't want to mess up my position."

The candidates waited for more than half an hour before the gatekeeper opened the gate of the county school.

The four officials looked fierce and shouted as they inspected the test baskets carried by the candidates. Chen Jun was even ordered to take off his outer robe for the officials to inspect.

Chen Jun obeyed the order and took off his coat, letting the official's dog paws touch him randomly, trembling with anger.

"It's an insult to the gentleman! It's an insult to the gentleman!"

Zaoli pretended not to hear Chen Jun's muttering, with a dull and indifferent expression on his face, as if someone owed him money, and continued to move his hands.

When it was their turn to inspect Wei Chen and Sheng Changbai, the officials only symbolically checked the bamboo basket and then let them go.

The officials had long remembered the appearance of Wei Chen, a few students who were favored by the county magistrates, so they would not ask for trouble.

Wei Chen successfully entered the county school. He looked around and saw that the temporary examination shed in the yard was made of bricks and stones and had a thick thatch roof. He was relieved.

At least shelter from the wind and rain is no problem.

Wei Chen secretly felt lucky that he was born in the richest country in the south of the Yangtze River. It would have been so miserable for those remote counties.

I heard that there were not even the basic desks and chairs, and the candidates had to carry benches across the mountains and ridges to take the exams in the county. Sometimes they would find a door panel or a stack of two bricks to use as an exam table. The bitterness of this was really hard to describe.

After all the candidates passed the inspection, Feng Zhixian, the chief examiner of the county examination, made a grand appearance.

I saw Feng Zhixian wearing the Erliang Dynasty crown, Qingyuan red robe, a silver leather belt around the waist, a glazed jade pendant hanging on the belt, a hood covering the knees, and black-faced and white-soled official boots, standing quite majestically. On the stone steps.

The whole place was silent for a while, everyone was eagerly waiting to welcome the mayor of Youyang County to deliver an important speech before the exam.

The content of the speech was basically nonsense. It was nothing more than preaching the way of saints, praising the emperor, announcing the rules of the examination room, etc.

Wei Chen felt drowsy after listening to it, and only remembered the most useful exam time and exam venue in his mind.

After the county magistrate finished speaking, the clerks in the fifth room began to roll the name. Whoever was called came forward to identify themselves, and then handed out a test paper. The location of the test room and the seat were written on the seal of the paper.

As the person favored by the county magistrate, Wei Chen naturally did not have to wait too long. After about seven or eight candidates entered, it was his turn.

The clerk in charge of distributing the papers smiled kindly at Wei Chen and gave him a test paper: "Go in and take the exam."

What Wei Chen was assigned was "Xuan Er Gui You". Gui You ranked tenth in the sexagesimal system based on the heavenly stems and earthly branches. Er Gui You was sixty plus ten, which was exam room No. 70.

Wei Chen took the exam basket to find his exam room, and found that it was close to the side hall of the county school. There was a corner door through which the breeze would occasionally blow.

"This is a nice place. If you encounter difficulties in solving the problem, there will be a breeze blowing to help your mood."

Wei Chen nodded with satisfaction, then walked into the examination room, looked around, and found that there was nothing but a removable desk and a small stool.

Wei Chen took out the items in the examination basket one by one, placed pens, inks, paper and inkstones on several desks, and then began to close his eyes and meditate.

There is still some time before the exam starts. Use this time to take a nap to help calm your mind.

This is the exam tip Lin Yan taught Wei Chen, but only candidates who entered the exam room early can use it.

Those candidates who came late did not even sit down to warm up, and the test questions were handed out. Naturally, they inevitably had to rush around and fainted because of a bad attitude. It was not unprecedented.

After waiting for about half a stick of incense, all the candidates finally entered the venue. The gate of the county school was closed, the sound of batting was loud in the hall, and the examination room was silent.

The first step that determines the fate of countless scholars, the county examination, has officially begun.

Chapter 38 Is the county examination difficult?

"Are you Wei Chen?"

Wei Chen, who had closed his eyes for a long time, opened his eyes when he heard the sound, and saw a young official with a mustache standing in front of him and staring at him.

"The student is Wei Chen."

"Well, these are the test questions. After you finish writing them, put them on the small table on the right side of the dormitory. Wait for me to pick them up."

The clerk put down the test questions he was holding in his hands and continued to issue questions.

Wei Chen slowly unfolded the test questions and saw that the first Shi Wen question was:

"How can we be inferior to birds even though we are human? The poem goes, King Mu Muwen."

At this time, the test questions had been distributed to most of the candidates, and there was a gasp in the originally silent examination room.

"The first question is the interception and matching question!"

Many candidates looked as pale as if they were mourning for the examination, and the hands holding the papers shook as if they were sifting chaff.

The so-called intersecting and tying questions is to extract half of two unrelated sentences from the scriptures to form a brand new topic. This kind of topic is called junta and taizhi, also called a small question.

Even people who have never done eight-legged essays can see that small questions are often difficult to understand because they separate the text from the scriptures, making it extremely difficult to solve the topic. If you accidentally write an article, it will be thousands of miles off topic.

The imperial court had long issued a decree: "Major questions must be asked in the main examination, and small questions may be asked in the preliminary examination."

In other words, examinations at or above the provincial examination must have large questions with complete form and meaning, while examinations at or below the provincial examination can have small questions that are fragmented.

There is nothing that can be done about it. The Four Books and Five Classics used as a question bank only contain a few Braille words. Examinations at all levels across the country have to draw questions from them. After so many years, which sentence has not been used?

Therefore, the examiners of primary examinations such as county examinations and government examinations can only innovate in different ways and come up with a bunch of perverted cross-section questions to torture the candidates to death.

The question asked by Feng Zhixian now is a combined question, and it is an abnormal mashup of "book" and "classic". The first half of the sentence comes from "The Great Learning" and the second half of the sentence comes from "The Book of Songs".

With such a perverted question, it’s no wonder that candidates were filled with grief as soon as they saw it, and some even had the idea of ​​giving up the exam and going home immediately.

But there are a few exceptions. For example, Wang Yaochen, who was sitting in the No. [-] examination room of Tianzi, just pondered for a moment and then smiled and started to write quickly on the manuscript paper. It was obvious that he had successfully solved the question.

Sheng Changbai, who was sitting in the examination room No. 16, started to write with a solemn expression after some hard thinking.

In addition to the two of them, there were several older candidates who also finished solving the problems one after another and began to formulate articles.

However, in terms of ease and ease, no one can compare to Wei Chen, who is sitting at No. 70 Xuanzi. Even Wang Yaochen is a hair behind him.

He has long memorized the classics and is familiar with various routines of cutting and tying questions. When doing mock questions before the exam, he would cut up, cut down, carry over, skip down, skip chapters, and ruthlessly tie sentences in the scriptures... ...and come up with many small questions on their own.

The question about Feng Zhixian may appear to others to be fantastic, but to Wei Chen, it seems ordinary. The simulation questions Wei Chen gave himself were much more perverted than this!

As soon as Wei Chen saw the title, he immediately located the origins of the previous and next sentences in his mind, and then after just a brief thought, he picked up the pen.

"It would be shameful for a lady to be inferior to a bird; shameful

It's shameless to be a teacher to King Wen. "

In an instant, two sentences that were originally unrelated were spliced ​​together by Wei Chen to make them reasonable and seamless!

This kind of cut-and-match question seems unreasonable, but in fact it tests the candidate's ability to adapt to the situation, which is why most candidates are afraid of it.

After many scholars have studied the Four Books, Five Classics and related works, they put all their energy into eight-legged essays. They do not read the three links and four histories, and do not know the emperors of Qin and Han dynasties.

The reason why Wei Chen can deal with it easily is because his mind is not rigid and he is not rigid.

On the one hand, he read the vast collection of various schools of thought and classics and histories in the library, absorbing nutrients from the wisdom and experience of everyone in the past, and thrived.

On the other hand, he also has the memories and experiences of his previous life, has rich associative abilities, and has a flexible and clear mind. He is countless times better than those useless nerds.

This is the biggest difference between Wei Chen and other scholars in Dazhou!

After successfully solving the problem, the next thing becomes very simple.

Starting from the topic, the topic was compared, and finally it was bundled into a large article. In less than half an hour, a eloquent and colorful article fell on the manuscript paper.

After finishing writing, Wei Chen read it silently from the beginning again, making sure that the whole text was harmonious, catchy, and contained no taboos, and then he transcribed it on the answer sheet one by one.

Handwriting is the face of a scholar. Many scholars write very well, but they are rejected by the examiner just because of their sloppy handwriting.

Wei Chen noticed the flaws in his calligraphy when he first entered the free school. He has been practicing diligently and now his handwriting in Guange style can be described as dignified, beautiful and meticulous.

After the entire article was transcribed, Wei Chen breathed a sigh of relief and stretched.

At this time, three drum beats were played in the hall, which was a reminder for the intermission. The candidates could take advantage of this time to eat and drink water, or call for help to take them to the toilet to solve their physiological problems.

Wei Chen also felt a little hungry, so he took out the food box from the test basket, picked out a few pastries and preserved meat, and ate it with water.

When the candidates in the examination room nearby smelled the aroma, they couldn't help but curse in their hearts: If you start eating so early, you really treat the examination room as a restaurant, right?

Some people swallowed their saliva to suppress their greed, covered their noses and continued the exam, while others couldn't stand the stimulation, so they simply took out their food and started eating together.

The examinee next to Wei Chen did not dare to drink water because he was afraid that he would have to urinate later. He also ate too quickly and choked immediately.

Seeing that the situation was not good, several officials quickly stepped forward, beat their chests and rubbed their backs, and finally got out the foreign object stuck in the candidates' throats, otherwise they might have died on the spot.

Wei Chen couldn't hear what was going on outside the window in the examination room. He didn't know what was going on outside. After eating and wiping himself clean, he began to write the last question, a five-character and eight-rhyme test poem.

This test poem does not account for a large proportion of the test score. The examiner mainly looks at the first time question, or even only the first sentence of the question. If the question is completely unreasonable, there is no need to read the rest and just read it. It's a waste to throw away the paper.

Therefore, the essay questions are the most important in the first test, and the test poems that follow are somewhat secondary.

However, Wei Chen is known as a ten-year-old prodigy who can write poems. If this test poem is too bad, it will be a slap in Wang Xuezheng's face if word spreads about it.

Fortunately, Wei Chen had a quick mind and had studied books such as "Yun Shi" and "Du Lei" in the library. Now it is no longer a problem for ordinary literati to sing harmony, and it is not difficult to compose a test poem on the spot. .

When he lowered his head and saw that the title was "Yin Yin Xia Mu Jiao Oriole", Wei Chen immediately knew that this sentence came from Wang Wei's "Poems in Jiyu Wangchuan Village".

Wei Chen closed his eyes and recalled the artistic conception in the poem, "The summer trees are twittering and the orioles are chirping, and I am quietly observing the hibiscus trees in the mountains." In an instant, the poem was written in his mind.

This time, he simply didn’t even write a draft and scrawled sixteen verses directly on the answer sheet.

There are thousands of trees in the long summer, and there are hundreds of warbling orioles in the thick shade.

The double breasts are yellow like embroidery, and the belt is green like a curtain;

The dark leaves wait for a long time, the high branches send the sound late;

The wind scissors on the tip of the tongue, and the rain outside the body;

Sitting like a cover of mica, singing can fight snow;

A good voice is hard to sing by yourself, and the flames are unknown;

Yangliu Sanyi Road, Cherry in April;

The sentiment is annoying, and the poem in the painting is written.

Wei Chen finished writing in one breath, put down his pen and checked it again. Looking at the time again, he saw that it was just a quarter of an hour, and there was still more than an hour before the end of the exam.