From dawn to noon, Wang Yuan had already answered three questions on four books and one question on the Five Classics, and his speed could only be regarded as decent.

I was so hungry that I didn't eat the meal I ate before going out last night, but I didn't eat it at all in the morning.

Wang Yuan took out a few steamed buns from the food box, poured another bowl of water, picked up the ham and smashed it on the table, and slowly slice the meat with a knife. He cut the steamed bun in half, sandwiched the ham meat in it, and drizzled it with some jam, and the ham sandwich was ready.

Although the intensity of the Ming Dynasty township test is high, it is better not to toss people, and one test for a day, just bring lunch.

In the Qing Dynasty, it was really nonsense, a test took for three days, and candidates had to bring a stove to cook in the examination room. For example, Mr. Duxiu, who is often asked to sit down by his classmates, when he took the imperial examination, he ate half-cooked noodles for several days, boiled water and cooked noodles by himself, and swallowed whatever sauce he wanted.

After eating ham sandwiches, Wang Yuan continued to write.

Hurry up and hurry, and finally in the middle of the afternoon, I finished the last Pentateuch question. This title is selected from "The Book of Rites: The Prince of Wen": "Therefore, it is also cowardly, respectful and gentle." ”

Translated together with the omitted previous text, it is: "Three generations of monarchs must use etiquette to educate the prince." Music can cultivate sentiment, and etiquette can beautify appearance. If the etiquette and music penetrate the heart and express it outside, the prince will be able to grow up healthily and develop a modest and respectful and gentle temperament. ”

This question can be discussed from many aspects, such as education, etiquette, and morality.

Wang Yuan chose a combination of the three, and the central idea was: "The teacher who educates the prince should be virtuous and virtuous, and use his words and deeds to infiltrate and guide the prince." The same should be true of the teachings of public schools at all levels, so that all scholars in the world can become gentlemen. ”

"Lile can please the heart, Derong is beautiful in itself, and Gaili is happy to be in harmony with the way inside and outside."

After solving the problem, Wang Yuanwen thought well, and wrote this article smoothly.

By the time all the seven eight-strand essays were written, it was already three o'clock in the afternoon, that is, at half past four in the afternoon.

Wang Yuan spent another half an hour polishing the seven articles and making a few detailed revisions, and then began to transcribe them to the official answer sheet.

It was nearly three o'clock in the evening, half past six in the evening.

The summer days are long, and it's still very early before dark.

Wang Yuan said that he wanted to hand in the papers, and the soldiers immediately communicated with the invigilator, took his answer sheet, scratch paper and admission ticket, and sent them to the examiner.

The official in charge of the file is very important, and must be served by an honest official, as for what is considered incorruptible, only the ghost knows. Its responsibilities are: distributing test papers, storing test papers, and sending answer sheets to the sealing official for sealing. After the copyist has finished copying the scroll, the reader compares the scroll with the ink scroll word by word to prevent transcription errors. After the reading was completed, the scroll was handed over to the examiner again for safekeeping, and finally sent to the examiner for correction.

Wang Yuan couldn't leave immediately after handing in the papers, and he didn't bother to leave, so he fell asleep directly on the exam table.

Tossed for a night last night, and did a day of problems today, and my brain was as dizzy as paste.

In the evening, it was getting dark.

The trumpet army ran to wake Wang Yuan up and signaled that he could leave.

Wang Yuan picked up the exam line and yawned and got out of the room. At this time, nearly half of the people who handed in the papers and left the venue poured out of the examination booth, chattering about the content of the exam.

The exam ends at 4 o'clock in the evening, i.e. 9 o'clock in the evening, which is dusk (7 p.m. to 9 p.m.).

For those students who have not yet completed the exam, candles will be provided by the official. After an hour, if you haven't done it yet, then I'm sorry, it will be forked out directly by the trumpeters.

Zhou Chong had been waiting outside, and when he saw Wang Yuan coming out, he immediately greeted him and said, "Second brother came out early, and he must have done well in the exam." ”

Wang Yuan said with a smile: "According to what you say, wouldn't it be the best to hand in the blank papers?" ”

Zhou Chong sighed: "The second brother is in the mood to laugh, and he must have done well in the exam." ”

Wang Yuan stopped joking with him and asked, "Who else handed in the papers?" ”

Zhou Chong replied: "I saw Tian Akita Xianggong just now, and he said that his brain was very dizzy, so he went back to sleep first." ”

It seems that Li Yingzhusheng is still taking the exam, and Wang Yuan is too lazy to wait any longer, so he takes Zhou Chong back to eat and rest. I won't take the second exam until three days later, so I can get a good night's sleep tonight and relax my mood in the next two days, and I can basically adjust.

It wasn't until the morning of the second day that Wang Yuan finally knew that Li Ying was actually forked out of the examination booth by the army.

"I didn't finish the last scripture, and I definitely won't be able to win this time." Li Ying said with a sad face.

Zou Mu took pity on him and said with a wry smile: "I finished writing, but I didn't have enough time, and the last one was written blindly." ”

"It's better to write blindly than not to write at all." Li Ying was even more depressed.

Wang Yuan asked Yue Zhen: "How did you do in the Wenshi exam?" ”

Yue Zhen said: "It's okay, I finished writing it in time." ”

The main thing is that Guizhou scholars have not been exposed to wind and rain, and they can be admitted to Xiucai casually, how can they encounter a high-intensity exam that writes seven eight-strand essays in one day? And I didn't sleep all night last night, and my brain was confused until noon, the more confused I was, the more I couldn't write, the more I couldn't write, the more confused I was, and the vicious circle could collapse people.

Of the more than ten students who came to Yunnan together, only Wang Yuan and Tian Qiu handed in their papers before dusk, and the others all failed.

However, if everyone collapses, it depends on who is not so bad, anyway, 21 Guizhou people will be recorded this year.

……

Generally speaking, there are two examiners for the township examination, and the chief examiner is a talented person hired by the Chief Executive.

It is best to invite a respected person, and there is really no choice, so ask a teacher from all over the world to be the chief examiner - at least at the professor level.

The examiners of this year's Yungui Township Examination are named Wen Shu (shù) and Zou Qing.

Zou Qing won't mention it, Lao Xiucai is only one, he is a professor of Fuxue here in Kunming, and he is completely in the nature of being a full-fledged escort.

Wen Shu is a second-year jinshi in Chenghua, who is 76 years old this year and has served as the prefect of Chongqing and Sinan. When he was the prefect of Chongqing, he gave relief to tens of thousands of hungry people, so that thousands of bandits were automatically disbanded and obeyed the government's resettlement work. When he was the prefect of Sinan in Guizhou, Wen Shu had an unpleasant quarrel with the eunuch, and he was so angry that he resigned and retired to this day.

Wen Shu also settled in Taoyuan County last year, half a year ago, Wang Yangming passed by Taoyuan and specially visited Wen Shu, who had been admired for a long time.

The age difference between the two is dozens of years, but they talked very speculatively, and they communicated for half a month. Wen Shu specially rented a boat and accompanied Wang Yangming to visit the Peach Blossom Spring, and Wang Yangming wrote two poems, "Taoyuan Cave" and "Evening Park on the Yuan River". Historically, Wen Shu's epitaph was written by Wang Yangming.

Not long ago, Wen Shu returned to Yunnan to deal with family affairs, and was personally invited by the political envoy of Yunnan Zuobu to be the chief examiner.

"Mr. Tangerine, the Guizhou volume has been read." Professor Zou came over with a stack of red rolls.

Wen Shu nodded and said, "Let it go." ”

After the first exam, you will start marking and correcting the papers.

In addition to the two examiners, there are several fellow examiners, all of whom belong to the marking officers.

These marking officers are called curtain officials, and they are only responsible for writing questions and marking papers; The invigilator is an outside officer and is only responsible for supervising the exam.

The patrol is responsible for both inside and outside the curtain, and has the greatest rights, but cannot participate in the marking work.

Wen Shu was already old and dizzy, and he had to stick to the test paper to see clearly, and the speed at which he corrected the paper was so slow that it was panicking.

Finally finished the Yunnan volume, Wen Shu took the golden scroll, and said with a smile on his chin: "This son is very talented, and the Four Books and Five Classics should be the first in Yunnan." ”

At the time of Wenshu's township examination, Yunnan and Guizhou were still on the same list, and the number of people in the two provinces was also calculated together. Now they have long been separated, each with its own place, and two lists need to be posted.

After reading Jin Wei's article several times, Wen Shu was still unsatisfied, and Professor Zou could only remind: "Mr. Tang An, the second exam will be taken tomorrow, and you haven't read the Guizhou paper yet." ”

"I'm old and confused." Wen Shu laughed to himself.

The Guizhou volume has been corrected by several graders, and good articles have been ranked first.

Each grader will use circles, boxes, crosses and other marks to indicate his or her rating of the answer sheet. The more circles you get, the better the article is written, and it's all crossed and thrown directly to the bottom.

Wen Shu, as the chief examiner, only needs to look at the dozens of papers at the top, and the articles of the two or three hundred in the back are purely spicy.

Wang Yuan's answer sheet ranked first in Guizhou.

This is also thanks to the patrol of the imperial history Zhang Yu, who supervised the whole process inside and outside the curtain, and eliminated any links that could cheat, otherwise someone would definitely find a gunman to write the article on his behalf.

"Sure enough, good article!"

When Wen Shu saw the first eight-strand article, he couldn't help but be amazed. He communicated with Wang Yangming for half a month, and he was already convinced of the doctrine of "the unity of knowledge and action", and Wang Yuan's article happened to faintly reflect the "unity of knowledge and action".

This is the time for the examinee to match the examiner!

After reading all seven of Wang Yuan's articles, Wen Shu sighed: "I have left Guizhou for 20 years, and I don't want Guizhou to have such a person." Next year, Guizhou will definitely go out of Jinshi! ”