While Zhu Pingan was packing up and waiting for the scrolls to be issued, candidates came in one after another in the numbered houses, and the neighbouring houses on the left and the right were all filled with scholars one after another.
After about half an hour, a metallic sound was heard coming from the direction of Mingyuan Building, looking up, one could see several order flags waving on Mingyuan Building, followed by a blurred voice coming from the gate.
“Entry complete, close the door and lock the key, silence in the room!”
It turns out that the metal sound just now is the striking of the cloud board ah, Zhu Pingan only then realised, then at this moment the gate, the ceremonial door should be blocked.
Strike the cloud board means that the examination officially began, the court test on the examination discipline requirements are very strict, in front of the number of houses there are a considerable number of yamen and cross-sword soldiers to supervise, if there is a shift in the seat, change the volume, throwing paper, talking, looking around, chanting Oh and other situations, once found, that is to be investigated. So at this time the whole examination room became particularly quiet.
The courtyard exam a total of two exams, the field a, retest a, today this for the field. After hitting the cloud board, the officer successively distributed the test paper down, in addition to the test paper, each person has five pieces of straw paper.
As for the test questions are the same as the county test and the government test, the court test questions are also pasted on the board, by a number of yamen holding the title plate in the examination room walking back and forth for the candidates to see the questions.
However, when the officers started to walk back and forth in the examination room holding the title cards, Zhu Pingan clearly heard a cacophony of voices from the surroundings, and then heard the sergeant standing across the sword yell out, “Silence, if you dare to make any more noise, you will be punished for cheating.”
Under the pressure of the sergeant with the sword, the examination room quieted down, but the sound of suppressed cold breaths could be heard sporadically from all around.
Could it be that today’s exam questions were a bit perverted?
Zhu Pingan while the brush submerged in the research good ink, while not not without bad taste thought, the topic will not be the previous novel what draw a circle let us break the question to write the eight-legged essay it? When I saw that novel, I deliberately looked up the information, and in history, the candidate who won the first place in the examination of that question actually used this kind of broken question: “The beginning of the saint’s governance is also empty”, and really think of the broken question to the end. If so, wouldn’t one be too tainted.
However, when the magistrate held up the title card and came to Zhu Pingan, Zhu Pingan took a look at the title and knew why everyone reacted the way they did after reading the title.
There were two questions on the Four Books and one on the Five Classics, a total of three questions.
Pentateuch title is nothing, this Pentateuch question is the post scripture, with our previous school fill in the blanks is almost the same, the so-called post scripture, to study the scripture, cover its ends, the middle of the open only line, cut paper for the post. Where the post three words, at any time to increase or decrease, can not be different, or get four, get five, get six for the pass. The courtyard examination of this post scripture question is nothing more than the content of some long, Zhu Pingan often read the Four Books and Five Classics, so this question at a glance can be written out, I believe that for the other students students will not be difficult to go there.
The two questions on the Four Books and the Five Classics are, well, how can I put it, devastating.
The first question was just two words: Zi said.
Just look at the first question on some people headache collapse, said, said, said, Confucius said hair line, this let a person how to break the composition!
However, Zhu Pingan saw this question, but could not help but smile, yes, yes, this question he had read, once in modern times read an article, about called the Ming Dynasty eight-legged essay appreciation, the article inside the example of such a topic, but also gives the standard broken question.
Although this question was not the circle question that he had just thought of, it happened to be one that he had read before, so after seeing the question, Zhu Pingan did not get blindsided like other people ah sad face ah and so on, but he could not help but to hook up the corner of his lips and laughed silently.
Erm, this candidate was so angry by the question that he laughed back, so it seems that he should be the one who was most devastated by the question? The magistrate holding up the card cast a sympathetic look at Zhu Pingan.
After Zhu Pingan had neatly copied the first question on the cursive paper in lower case, he began to read the second question.
The second question was much more normal and was titled: The gentleman reaches up and the villain reaches down. This title came from a line in the Analects of Confucius. The son said: ‘The gentleman reaches up, the villain reaches down.”
A total of three questions, post scripture basically everyone will, can not pull the gap, play a decisive role in the two four books and eight stocks, the first question does let a person for a time can not figure out the mind, do not know how to break the question, fortunately, the second normal some, or even if more cross-bladed sergeant can not be bounced.
Relative to other people racking their brains, anxious, Zhu Pingan is much more relaxed and casual, raised his pen and began to start in the draft paper began to break the question to do the draft.
The first question title for the son said, which in the imperial examination question belongs to the small question, the big question is generally more sentences and the whole chapter, the small question is a sentence or a few words in a sentence, such as the first question of this “son said” is two words of the small question.
The so-called topic, in layman’s terms, is to analyse the topic, what this paper is going to say. The eight-legged essay on the topic of the requirements, the provisions of only two sentences, although there are also three sentences, but they are a long sentence in the pause, look like three sentences.
Break the title is very painful, these two sentences, you have to summarise the meaning of the title, explain the meaning of the title, but you can not say the meaning of the title, break the title is the first step of the eight-legged essay, but also the eight-legged essay of the first, the title of the broken good, twice the result with half the effort.
“A man is the teacher of a hundred generations, and a word is the law of the world.”
This side is Zhu Pingan copied on the draft paper to break the title of the two sentences, this is also the most standard broken title that he has ever seen. These two sentences do not reveal a single word of the title, but they make the words “son” and “said” very thorough.
After the broken title is the subject, Zhu Pingan in the modern era only read the title and broken title, and did not see the subject and other content, but after all, Zhu Pingan in the Ming Dynasty is also experienced a system of words of the eight years of study, the title is broken, the subject, the beginning of the speech, the eight shares of the four than the end of the end of the much easier, Zhu Pingan a little conception of brewing, then put the pen in the draft paper with a neat small regular script writing up.
Spilling standard lowercase eight-legged text, it took less than an hour to write the first question.
When Zhu Pingan finished writing the first question and just put down the brush, he heard three drums from the Mingyuan building, and then he heard the nearby yamen say expressionlessly, “Drink tea and use the toilet to help yourself, no noise, violators will be punished for cheating.”
This is the time to drink tea and go to the toilet during the intermission.
There is a water tank at the entrance of the dormitory, if you want to drink water, you can go to the water tank at the entrance to drink water, but you have to get up to show the exam inspector that you can, and you are not allowed to speak.
At the end of the dormitory, there was a dung horn with a bucket inside, which was also the toilet.
At this time, Zhu Pingan didn’t feel thirsty at all, but felt a little queasy in his abdomen, so he got up and signalled that he wanted to go to the toilet, and the exam inspector confirmed in the direction of the dung number that no one was there yet, so he agreed to Zhu Pingan’s request to go to the toilet, and fetched a sign from one of the places and gave it to Zhu Pingan.
Zhu Pingan took the sign with both hands and looked at it, there are words on both sides of the sign, one side is written “into the quiet”, the other side is written “out of respect”, the ancients said out of respect to the toilet is from here, right.
Zhu Pingan will be the card in front of the chest before being allowed to come out from this stifling number of rooms in the toilet, Zhu Pingan carefully out, lest touching over the ink and paper and inkstone.
After Zhu Pingan came out, there is a magistrate has been followed by Zhu Pingan to the end of the number house to go, really close to follow ah, inch by inch, Zhu Pingan can also understand, they do this is only to avoid candidates to take advantage of the opportunity to cheat.
However, at this time, it really feels like there is a kind of VIP vip treatment in general!
