On February 13 of the eighth year of the Great Song Dynasty, Xin Chou, the auspicious day of the zodiac, everything is appropriate.

The genius Meng Mengliang, Sun Tu has been accompanied by a Tongfu family slave to the third class courtyard to participate in today's shooting test court, which will be a key test to change his life and destiny.

Different from the later Ming and Qing dynasties, the civil officials were under the control of the Ministry of Officials, and the military attaches were under the control of the Ministry of War, the civil and military officials of the Great Song Dynasty were actually under the jurisdiction of the Political Hall and the Privy Council.

However, as the central body, the political hall and the privy council, after all, are busy with official affairs, and it is impossible to manage even some small things and petty officials, so they set up Liu Neiquan and Sanban Yuan respectively under them to select, appoint and remove civil and military officials of the sixth rank and below. It can be seen from this that the power of the Sanban Academy in the entire court is also quite large, after all, among the hundreds of military attaches in the world, the vast majority of them are below the sixth rank.

At this time, the selection of military attachés was divided into shadow raids, military exploits, recommendations, and so on, and after these people had a chance to win the office, they would rush to Tokyo from all over the world, where they would conduct shooting tests to make the final selection.

As the name suggests, the so-called archery court is to perform his martial arts, especially bow and arrow archery, in front of the emperor (it is customary in officialdom to refer to the Son of Heaven with the court). Because the Great Song Dynasty was congenitally deficient after establishing itself, not only a large amount of land north of the Yellow River was occupied by the Liao State, but even the Hetao area was seized by the Western Xia, resulting in a serious shortage of horses in the Song army.

However, today's shooting test court is different from the past after all, the word shooting test is still there, but the court is long gone. Since Renzong, the Great Song Dynasty officials have not paid much attention to the selection of such low-level military attachés, let alone really moved to the third class to watch this competition, after all, now is an era of light martial arts and heavy literature, no matter how high your martial arts are, no matter how good your archery skills are, can you compare to the pillars of the country who read poetry and books?

It's just that although the Son of Heaven didn't come, the rules of the shooting palace were still quite strict, and when Sun Tu came to the door and revealed his identity, he searched his body again as usual, and then checked the behavior he submitted to ensure that he was undoubtedly himself. It was not until everything was inspected that there was no problem that they were willing to let Sun Tu in, and then the slave made a congratulatory salute: "The little official wishes his triumphant return." Then he turned and walked away.

Although the current officials can only call the people who have the official body, not even women can call their husbands like later, but at this time, it is also to ask for a mouthful, Sun Tu hugged his fist, and after thanking him, he walked into the gate of the third class courtyard with his head held high.

Although the quality of these three classes is not high, the area is really not small, and it is more than three times larger than the Liunequan, which is not far from it. And that's why there will be such an arrangement, after entering the door and turning a photo wall, passing through a portal, there is an answer - the place that should be the second hall, in addition to an official notice pavilion, is a school field that occupies a large area.

This is the examination place where today's shooting test is held, and at this time, there are already more than 100 martial artists waiting for the test on the edge of the school field, observing the surrounding environment with solemn expressions, thinking about the next competition.

After Sun Tu straightened his clothes, he also walked over, unexpectedly that these competitors would come earlier than him. However, there are few greetings between everyone, at most they look at each other and guess each other's strength, after all, this is a major event related to their own future, and no one wants to be famous.

After waiting here for a while, until the sky was bright, a little green-robed official was late, and after looking at everyone for a while, he took out a roster and named them one by one, while taking a roll call, and on the other hand, he had to observe the other party's appearance and do the final inspection.

It wasn't until everything was confirmed that the little official left, and after a while, several officials appeared in front of Sun Tu with a familiar figure, which was actually Wang Fangnian, the head of the third class of the courtyard who had a relationship with Tong Guan Mansion that day, but when he came to Sun Tu, he didn't have any reaction, and he didn't even sweep the tail of his eyes, as if he didn't know him at all.

But Sun Tu knew very well in his heart what the appearance of this person meant. Obviously, Tong Guan had already arranged everything, and he would definitely be able to get a good result in this shooting test, so as to win a military attache position.

Just as he was thinking about it, a person suddenly came up to him and whispered, "You are Sun Tu from Yuncheng County?" ”

"Exactly, Your Excellency?" Sun Tu glanced at this strong young man in surprise, he didn't remember what he had done with him.

The other party smiled: "I heard about you from Master." It is said that you are really good at martial arts, and today I want to take a good look at it and ask for advice. ”

"Who is the Venerable Master?" Sun Tu was still confused, he couldn't even remember what this person's name was.

"My master is Suo Ti Ha of the Daimyo Mansion, and my name is Zhou Jin." As he spoke, the officials over there finally spoke again, and lectured the people who were referring to them, although they said some clichés that made them loyal and patriotic in the future, but Sun Tu and the others did not dare to speak out below.

It wasn't until after he finished saying that Wang Fangnian said the key point: "Today's shooting test is mainly based on horse archery, and those who are excellent can try it separately." Next is the sequence of everyone's test, Wang Wall, the first, the year, the second ......" just reported all the way, to Sun Tu's surprise, he actually ranked very behind, and it wasn't his turn until fifty-three.

This surprised him a little, it stands to reason that this kind of exam is often the first to take advantage of some people, and to go to the back, because the examiner will also feel tired and impatient, although there is a standard for judging archery, but he should not be in such a back line when someone takes care of him.

But everything had been decided, and he didn't dare to raise any objections, so he could only enter the school field with the others with suspicion, and look at the first place on both sides to show his archery skills in front of the king wall.

This shooting test was first a test of foot shooting, seven arrows per person, and a target 80 steps away, but the eight bucket bows provided by the third class were used, which was one of the criteria for the elite of the forbidden army in the Song Dynasty today.

In fact, when the Great Song Dynasty was first founded, the standards were higher, and if you wanted to be selected as a forbidden army, you had to open a hard bow with one stone, and you could hit a target a hundred steps away with seven arrows. However, after a hundred years of devastating changes, the combat strength of the Song army has been greatly inferior to before, and even this rigid standard has been discounted.

However, even so, there are still those who fail to pass in this shooting test, and although some people have good results in foot shooting, they completely lose their accuracy when they get on the horse. This is also the consequence of the general shortage of horses among the people today, many people have not even ridden a horse a few times, how can they have superb riding skills and horse archery kung fu?

However, that Zhou Jin is obviously higher than many people. It took more than ten people to come out, and he actually had a clever series of arrows, and all seven arrows came out in a short period of time, and all of them hit the target red heart. Then on the horse is also galloping back and forth, without the slightest hindrance, seven arrows shot, the same arrow hit the target, is the best one among the top ten people.

Wang Fangnian waited for a few invigilators to show a satisfied smile, and then called Zhou Jin to him and said, "How strong are you?" How about trying a hard bow with one stone again? ”

Zhou Jin was not polite, he immediately took a stone bow and pulled it effortlessly, and then hit the seven arrows again. Then he fired a two-stone crossbow, only to miss it on top of a three-stone crossbow, but the performance was bright enough to impress everyone.

Sun Tu also admired this in his heart, no wonder this person is so arrogant, it turns out that he really has an outstanding ability, and there is still a big gap between himself and him in terms of archery.

It's just that Zhou Jin's performance put more pressure on those candidates behind, and the next few people actually missed one after another, and even failed to pass the foot shooting, seeing that several examiners kept shaking their heads, it seems that they may not be able to get the official position.

In this way, they appeared one by one, and when it was close to noon, the fifty candidates in front of them had already tried, and it was Sun Tu's turn to play.

And just as he was doing a warm-up exercise regardless of the strange eyes of others, a deliberately prolonged cry suddenly came from outside: "Your Majesty has arrived ......"