Mingyuan Building is the central building of Jiangnan Gongyuan, there are windows on all sides of the two floors on the upper floor, standing on the third floor can see the Gongyuan at a glance, playing the role of ordering and directing the whole examination room.

Seeing that the scholars entered their respective examination booths one after another, Zhu Jiqi, vice president of the national examination and secretary of the Nanjing Ministry of Rites, ordered people to officially ring the bell for the opening of the examination.

A group of stern-faced Tianwu soldiers passed in front of the examination booth with test papers in hand, and successively handed out test papers, draft papers, abacus and other items.

The candidates couldn't wait to open the papers, swept their eyes, and were dumbfounded.

The first test is nine numbers in the six arts, including: Fang Tian, Corn, Difference, Shaoguang, Business Skill, Average Loss, Equation, Winning Less, Sidelines, Pythagorean ....."

Looking at the dense topics, the scholars were furious, and many sour people who had studied secretly complained bitterly, and their beliefs were instantly shattered.

For example, there is a question: "In May of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, where did the flood disaster occur?" Where did the drought occur, and how much grain yield per mu did the affected areas have? ”

"How do you answer that?" Many sour Confucians, who only read the books of sages and sages and don't listen to what is going on outside the window, have straight eyes and can't put pen to paper for a long time.

There were also some scholars from the disaster area who smiled and wrote hard with pen and paper.

Song Yingxing stroked his beard and smiled, muttering while writing: "There is waterlogging in Huzhou Mansion in Zhejiang Province and Songjiang Prefecture in Nanzhili, spring drought in North Zhili, and drought in Nanzhili ......in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River."

His book "Heavenly Creations" includes agriculture and handicrafts, such as machinery, bricks and tiles, ceramics, sulfur, candles, paper, weapons, gunpowder, textiles, dyeing, salt making, coal mining, oil extraction and other production techniques.

In addition to the scholars and this big man in the affected area, there are also some scholars who like to read newspapers can also answer this question, and the Huangming Times has a column dedicated to introducing major events across the country, as long as you usually pay attention to current affairs, there is nothing you don't know.

There is another question: "Today, a woman swings a cup on the river, and the official asks, 'Why are there so many cups?' Geometry of the guest? ’

The woman said, 'Two people eat together, three people share soup, four people share meat, and whoever uses a cup of sixty-five, do not know how much the guest is?' ””

Song Yingxing didn't need to calculate the draft at all, just flipped his fingers casually, and calculated in his heart: "Put sixty-five cups, multiply them by twelve, get seven hundred and eighty, divide them by thirteen, and the number of guests will be sixty." ”

Yan Yingyuan, who was not far away, rubbed the small abacus on the table, thinking of the Tianyuan technique in arithmetic, he smiled calmly, his fingers quickly flicked the abacus, and he came up with the answer in just a few clicks, and wrote on the answer: "Sixty people!" ”

There is also a question: "During the period of raising donations for the imperial court, the ratio of the number of civil officials to military generals is four to three, and the ratio of the total amount of assistance is five to four. ”

Hou Fangyu touched his buttocks with one hand, pressed his hand on the abacus with the other, and didn't move for a long time, and his mind was messed up by these numbers.

If you want to say that the poetry is right, Hou Gongzi can still improvise, this is considered learning, it has always been regarded as a strange skill, and he usually doesn't look at it.

Hou Gongzi's exam number was specially taken care of, Li Shaoyou paced back and forth in front of his exam number, seeing his painful appearance, he was amused for a while, and secretly said in his heart: The exam is dumbfounded, let you pretend to be forced in Meixianglou and give Lao Tzu the test!

The performance of the same Jinling Fourth Prince is much better, he often discusses physics with Fang Yizhi, who is also a member of the six arts, and what he has learned is complicated, and it is a piece of cake to deal with these arithmetic studies that are not very difficult.

The inscription said: "I don't know the number of things today, the remaining two of the three or three numbers, the remaining three of the five or five numbers, and the remaining two of the seven or seven numbers. ”

Mao Xiang pen and paper while calculating and writing: "The remaining two of the three or three counts, one hundred and forty; The remaining three of the five or five numbers are placed in sixty-three; And the remaining two of the seven or seven numbers shall be thirty, and the sum shall be two hundred and thirty-three, and the subtract of two hundred and ten shall be twenty-three. ”

"Today, there are four zhang wide under the city, two zhang wide above, five zhang high, one hundred and twenty-six zhang and five feet, ask the product geometry?"

He replied, "One hundred and eighty-nine thousand five hundred feet." ”

In the eyes of many sour Confucians, these questions are much more difficult than taking the Bagu Wen exam, but there are still many people who answer them easily.

Many people have learned arithmetic, many of these arithmetic problems come from "Sun Tzu's Arithmetic" and "Nine Chapters of Arithmetic", as long as you master the method, let the numbers change, you can easily calculate, and even some bigwigs know quaternary and can solve quaternary higher-order equations......

After the nine-number test in the morning, there was a sigh in the Gongyuan, and many people were tortured by arithmetic.

I heard that the five rites were tested in the afternoon, and the scholars suddenly felt relaxed, and the five rites included sacrificing to the gods, the earth, and the ghosts, which is not simple?

However, when they got the exam questions, many people were confused, or dense questions, or not according to common sense, and many of the exam questions refreshed some of the sour seriousness.

For example, the first question: "Briefly sort out the relationship between the sun, the earth, and the moon." ”

Wang Fuzhi stared at this question, his face was a little strange, but he didn't stump him, as the team of the crown prince, he would naturally have an understanding of what the crown prince had experienced.

Chongzhen ten years of the first day of the big court, the sky suddenly appeared a solar eclipse, when the crown prince to the eunuch palace maids around him, the scene explained the phenomenon of solar eclipse, after the court promulgated a new calendar, the folk also issued the "Chongzhen calendar", which has the old red hair of the "celestial body running theory".

After the first day of the exam, many scholars left the Gongyuan in a daze, and some of them had their eyes confused, and their hearts flashed with a philosophical trifecta: Who am I? Where am I? What am I going to do?

"It's the first time I've heard that the earth revolves around the sun, so what is the explanation for the round sky?"

"The crown prince has already explained a few years ago, you should go and read the "Chongzhen Almanac" when you are old!"

"What's wrong with this world......

A group of scholars shook their heads and sighed and walked out of the examination room, waiting for the next four arts exams, they faintly knew in their hearts that those who only read the books of sages were destined to be planted here and unable to get up.

Back at their respective inns, the scholars began to discuss the correct answers with each other, and during this period, a large number of "experts" also emerged and began to analyze the style of this national examination.

As soon as the exam ended, the questions of the national examination spread all over the city, and in the face of strange questions, everyone was dumbfounded.

With the change of this examination, the content of the future examination may also change, for a time "Sun Tzu Sutra" and other kinds of arithmetic books sold hot in Nanjing, "Chongzhen Almanac" is a family.

If you want to pass the imperial examination and become an official, you must learn these things, although Zhu Cihong does not like this kind of examination-oriented education, but at this time he can only act like this, and he wants to change the impact of traditional education, and change its fundamental purpose to let the scholars learn consciously, which is far more real than forcing it to be implemented.