Do you know that it starts with Meng Tong?

early morning.

The direction of Jiangning Mansion Academy is already buzzing with people.

If you can see at night, you will see that the north bank of the Qinhuai River is densely packed with sedans, carriages, and even donkey carts and ox carts. Even the river is filled with boats of all sizes.

There are ten counties under Jiangning Prefecture. In addition to Jiangning and Shangyuan in the city, there are eight counties: Dangtu, Jurong, Liuhe, Jiangpu, Gaochun, Youyang, Fanchang and Tongling.

The number of these candidates from all over the country is more than three times that of the Youyang County Examination. They gather here for the same purpose, which is -

Government examination!

In the darkness before dawn, more than [-] candidates were crowded in front of the examination room, in county units, waiting for their names to be called for the prefectural examination. Various shouts came and went in the square.

"Are there any candidates from Jiangpu County? Come to me!"

"People from Pingshan Academy come here, come to the west of the examination room!"

"Candidates from Youyang County, come to Niutou Lantern!"

……

The bull-head lanterns in Youyang County are carried on long bamboo poles and are very conspicuous in the dark night.

Wei Chen, Sheng Changbai and Chen Jun searched for a while, then saw the bull's head in the air and squeezed past it with the test basket in hand.

The teacher of Youyang County is the leader of the candidates in Youyang County. He is maintaining order in the candidate team. When he saw Wei Chen and the other two people coming, he immediately said: "Wei Chen and Sheng Changbai, you two have received your seat number and can go to the examination room." Wait alone in the northwest corner."

"Ah, do you want to squeeze in again?"

Wei Chen and Sheng Changbai stood on tiptoe and looked at the dark crowd, looked at each other helplessly, sighed and continued to squeeze towards the northwest corner.

After squeezing for a long time, Wei Chen suddenly felt a chill on his left foot. When he lowered his head, he saw that his shoes had disappeared.

Wei Chen couldn't help but be speechless for a while, why am I so unlucky!

When Wei Chen and Sheng Changbai arrived, there was already a group of people standing here holding lanterns. These were the top ten in the county examination. Wei Chen saw several familiar faces inside, including Tao Dazhi, Wang Yaochen, and You. Several people in Yang County were of the same year.

When Wei Chen saw Tao Dazhi, his first words were: "Do you have any extra shoes?"

After hearing what Wei Chen meant, Tao Dazhi smiled understandingly: "Brother Wei, did your shoes get stepped on too?"

The candidates next to me all felt the same way when they heard this, and they all came together and said:

"Me too just now."

“My hat is knocked off my head!”

"My pen was also broken by stepping on it!"

What surprised Wei Chen was that Wang Yaochen, who had always been quite cold in his eyes, actually echoed: "My inkstone also broke."

Wei Chen looked at Wang Yaochen in surprise and asked, "Then what did you do?"

Wang Yaochen curled his lips and said, "Bought now."

Wei Chen was surprised: "Is there a salesman here?"

Tao Dazhi smiled and said: "Brother Wei doesn't know something. Every year there are so many people attending the government examinations. Countless shoes and hats are squeezed out, and pens, inks, papers and inkstones are broken. The examination room has regulations that do not allow entry if you are not well-dressed. When the officer saw it, If it is profitable, I will buy a batch of goods and sell them to the candidates at a high price."

"I see."

Wei Chen suddenly realized.

After a while, a salesman wearing uniform and carrying a load passed by. Tao Dazhi stopped him and asked him to come closer.

Wei Chen took a look through the lantern and found that there was indeed food in the burden.

There are all kinds of high-end stationery, shoes and hats. When I asked again, a pair of cloth shoes cost one tael of silver!

The price has increased dozens of times!

But no matter how expensive the other party sells it, Wei Chen has to buy it, otherwise he won't be able to enter the examination room.

So Wei Chen had no choice but to be slaughtered, took out his money and bought a pair of cloth shoes and put them on his feet.

At this time, there was a loud bang, the gantry slowly opened, and candidates lined up in a line of 50 people to wait for the search to enter.

Wei Chen had experienced the inspection during the county examination and felt that it was not that strict. However, it was only during the government examination that he saw how powerful the inspection was.

The candidates stood in front of the gantry one by one, took off their clothes and shoes, even loosened their hair buns, and then took out the items in the examination basket one by one to be searched.

There was an examinee in front of him. When the officer found him, he could not stop trembling.

The officer realized something was wrong and saw that the examinee's legs were tightly clamped. He kicked him and cursed: "Open your legs!"

The examinee opened his legs tremblingly, and the officer reached into his crotch and pulled out a stack of paper.

The officer threw the paper on the ground and cursed: "You old bastard, you took everything with you into the valley! Someone came and took off his pants and took him to see the governor!"

Two officers came forward and took off the candidate's pants. The candidate struggled hard and shouted: "You can't do this, it's an insult to politeness!"

The officer scolded: "What are you talking about? Give it to me!"

When the candidate was taken away, Wei Chen saw his face clearly. He turned out to be the gray-haired old Confucian scholar he had seen when he registered.

The old Confucian scholar broke free from his restraints and fell to the ground, tears falling down: "You gentlemen, please forgive me this time. I passed the county examination at the age of 17, but the government examination came and went. I have taken the test dozens of times. I just want to be a child!"

The officer said coldly: "If I take you, what will others do? There's no point in begging me. If you have anything to say, just go to the Lord and say it!"

As soon as the words fell, the two officers carried the old Confucian scholar away, one on the left and the other on the right. The candidates watching on the side were all talking about it, and Wei Chen was also sighing when he saw this.

After the inspection, Wei Chen and Sheng Changbai followed the flow of people into the examination room. After checking their identities and a series of procedures, Wei Chen got the paper with his seat number written on it, and it was stamped with the word "Tang".

Wei Chen greeted Sheng Changbai, and the two of them walked directly to the court, where their examination room was.

When they arrived in the hall, they saw Magistrate Shen Du sitting on a high-backed chair, looking down the hall. Wei Chen and Sheng Changbai immediately lowered their heads and bowed to him.

Magistrate Shen's eyes stayed on the two of them for a moment, without any expression, and quickly looked at the other candidates.

When Magistrate Shen looked away, Wei Chen and Sheng Changbai secretly breathed a sigh of relief and took their seats according to their seat numbers.

As the candidates finished entering, Magistrate Shen said in a deep voice: "I have issued a total of nine sets of questions to ensure that each of you gets different questions from those before and after you.

So everyone, please concentrate on answering your own papers, don't whisper to each other, and don't look around, because even if you succeed in peeking, it will be of no use! "

After hearing this, the candidates in the hall were in an uproar.

Master Fu Zun did this extremely well. There were nine sets of questions in one exam, blocking all the ways to cheat!

As soon as the noise started, the soldiers guarding the examination room were heard shouting in unison.

"quiet!"

Magistrate Shen's voice turned cold and said: "From now on, if there is any violation of discipline, you will be expelled from the examination room immediately!"

The candidates fell silent for a moment.

"Distribute the test questions now and the exam begins!"

Chapter 46 Who is making noise in the hall?

"Bang—"

With a crisp bang, the clerk of the government office began to write questions.

Wei Chen respectfully took the test questions tied into a tube with a red rope from the opponent's hand and tried to calm down his mood.

When I opened the test paper, I saw two questions on the Four Books, one question on the Five Classics, and two questions on five-character and eight-rhyme poems.

Wei Chen first looked at the first four-book question listed at the top.

As we all know, the imperial examination has three levels: eight-part essay, first exam, and first question.

The first question of the first session is particularly important.

There are [-] candidates for the government examination, [-] papers for the first exam, and [-] essays. How can the examiner have the patience to read each article one by one?

Many examiners only look at the first question and have a rough impression of your article. If the first question is not written well, they will simply throw away the paper. No matter how colorful the subsequent writing is, it will be in vain.

Therefore, Wei Chen attaches great importance to this question.

Wei Chen looked at it carefully and saw on the test paper it was written: If there is no great reason, then you will not give up. There is no need to prepare for one person.

This passage comes from "The Analects of Confucius - Weizi Chapter" and is the admonishment given by Duke Zhou to his son Boqin.

It means that if there are no big mistakes among old friends, don't abandon them and don't blame a person for perfection.

When Wei Chen saw this question, his eyes widened immediately. This question was actually a big and upright question, much simpler than the small questions that were cut off.

More importantly, he had just done this question not long ago!

For more than a month, Wei Chen, Sheng Changbai, and Chen Jun have almost stayed behind closed doors, and have been using question-sea tactics to conduct pre-exam assaults.

After the three wrote the article, they first evaluated themselves and then evaluated each other to find out their respective shortcomings.

Regarding the article written by Wei Chen, Sheng Changbai and Chen Jun both spoke highly of it. They believed that the article was profound in purpose, full of reason, and quite similar to the Korean and Suhai trends.

However, Wei Chen did not feel proud of the two people's praise. Instead, he thought over his article several times, combined with the information provided by Sheng Changbai that Prefect Shen preferred [-]-parallel prose, and became even more picky in the wording. attitude, and polished the article again.

This final article is firmly engraved in Wei Chen's mind, and he will not forget it even if decades pass!

Wei Chen couldn't help but look up to the sky. Before the exam, he was unlucky enough to be stepped on and lost his shoe. During the exam, he was lucky enough to get the original question. Luck is really elusive and unpredictable...

At that moment, Wei Chen was grinding his ink and picking up his pen, and he started writing without thinking.

First, break down the topic concisely and concisely.

"Abandoning the past lightly is a matter of frugality."

Then, there is a long paragraph of haiku, eloquent and majestic.

Wei Chen wrote an article of several hundred words in one go, without any sluggishness.

While most of the candidates in the examination room were still thinking about how to solve the questions, Wei Chen had already finished writing the most important first question!

After writing the first question, Wei Chen composed himself and calmed down his emotions.

Relying on the literary talent of this question alone, his admission to the government examination is basically a certainty.

However, there are still four questions, so you can’t take them casually. Although these questions are not as important as the first question, if the level of two people’s first questions is between equals, the next few questions will become the key to determining the ranking.

The second question, not surprisingly, is

A cut-and-take question.

"Everything is elegant and elegant, Ye Gong"