In the early Ming Dynasty, there was no fixed number of admission places, and the smallest one only admitted 32 people, and the largest number of admissions was as high as 472 people in the eighteenth year of Hongwu and the fourth year of Yongle. After that, sometimes 100 students were admitted, sometimes 200 students were admitted, sometimes 250 students were admitted, and 300 people were admitted. It was not until the 11th year of the Ming Xian Sect that it was stipulated that the general admission was limited to 300 people, and if there were special circumstances, the temporary application and the edict increased the number of 50 or 100 students, which was "non-constant".

In the thirteenth year of orthodoxy, the proposed number of admissions announced by the imperial court was 150, which was the same as the number of admissions in the previous subjects.

The people who will be admitted to the examination are called Chinese-style lifters, and in the Qing Dynasty, they were called tributes, and the first Chinese-style lifters were called "Huiyuan". In the early days of the Ming Dynasty, there was no distinction between north and south. In the 30th year of Hongwu, Liu Sanwu and Bai Xintao served as the chief examiners of the examination, and 52 people led by Song Cong were admitted, all of whom were southerners, and the first place in the March court examination was still southerners.

After the list was released, the northern candidates were in an uproar, accusing Liu Sanwu and Bai Xintao of being southerners and favoring fellow villagers when admitting them. Zhu Yuanzhang also thought that there was a bias in this admission, and he was very angry, so he immediately ordered Zhang Xin and 12 others to conduct a review.

After the review, some people reported that Zhang Xin and others were instructed by Liu Sanwu to deliberately submit the bad files to the emperor for review. Zhu Yuanzhang was even more angry when he heard this, so he ordered Bai Xintao and the other three to be executed, and then Lao Zhu personally read the file and readmitted Ren Boan and other 61 people. In June, the court tried again and selected Han Kezhong as the first place, these are all northerners.

At that time, people called these two admissions the "North and South List" and the "Spring and Autumn List". From then on to the Yongle period, there was no clear provision for regional admission. It was not until the first year of Hongxi that Mingrenzong ordered Yang Shiqi and others to set the admission quota, with southerners accounting for six-tenths and northerners accounting for four-tenths, and during the Xuande and Orthodox years, it was clearly divided into three volumes in the north, south and middle, among the 100 jinshi admitted, 55 in the south roll, 35 in the north roll, and 10 in the middle roll, although the number of admissions in each subject is uncertain, but the proportion is still this ratio.

Zhao Yan's competitor in this exam is actually the same northern lifter, and the proportion of the northern lifter in all candidates is definitely not more than 30%. Let's go into more detail, among the 800 or so candidates who are also in the north, as long as Zhao Yan can get within the top 50 in the exam, the matter of Zhongjinshi is a certainty, so in this test, compared with the many prodigies who are everywhere and have many junjie like dogs, Zhao Yan is the kind of person who is the most happy and the most happy.

The entrance examination is from the eighth day of February to the sixteenth day of February, which is said to be nine days, but in fact it is seven days and eight nights.

Zhao Yan was not idle after entering his house, because eating, drinking, and sleeping during the exam had to be carried out in the cramped house, so he immediately counted the food and cooking utensils he brought in, and then looked at the mottled commode in the corner, and forcibly lifted the lid to take a look, but fortunately, it was empty, and there was no imaginary 'old dung'.

With a long exhale, Zhao Yan looked at the cooked food he brought in—bread, pickles, and bacon, although he tossed for most of the day from the residence to the end of the entrance, Zhao Yan had no appetite at all, so he put down the exam board, picked up the blanket in the luggage and lay down properly.

At this moment, it was the end of the afternoon, and the sunlight that should have sown the world was blocked by the door panel of the house, so Zhao Yan could only open his eyes and be bored in a daze in the dim and gloomy house.

Outside the gate of the Tribute Courtyard, as the figures of the examinees gradually disappeared at the gate of the Tribute Courtyard, most of the onlookers had dispersed, and the figures of the two emperors and one eunuch such as Zhu Qizhen had already left, seeing the back of the last lifter enter the threshold of the Tribute Courtyard and disappear behind the door, most of the remaining people did not disperse, but still stood in place, smiling on their faces, stretching out their fingers to point at the shackled figures at the gate of the Tribute Courtyard, and ruthlessly saying some mocking and sarcastic words in their mouths.

The only thing that is the same is that they are all candidates for the examination, but for various reasons, they carry notes full of words, books and other things, and as a result, they have not even passed the search check, and after being searched by the sergeant, they were locked at the gate of the Gongyuan according to the instructions of a certain official, and they were locked at the gate of the Gongyuan with a shackle, and they were only disposed of after the examination was over.

A half-old man with a mottled beard closed his eyes tightly, and although his thin body trembled a little under the heavy shackles, he still had the energy to whisper: "It's over...... Why...... How can I be so stupid...... The reputation of the first life is completely ruined......"

Several other people who wanted to cheat and were found out of the movers, their psychological quality may not be much stronger than this old lifter, among them, there are those who are in tears, those who are stunned, and those who try to explain to the nearby sergeant, the future is once lost, so they are not desperate, but the miracle will not appear, and the lightest punishment waiting for them is to remove their fame and ban them from the exam for life.

The questions in the first session of the examination are still the four books and the five classics, from the county test to the township test, and from the township test to the meeting test, Zhao Yan is no longer Wuxia Ameng. After the exam questions were sent, Zhao Yan first skimmed through the questions, and then conceived them in his mind before starting the draft.

The test question of the first article of the four books is 'the people are sufficient, the king is not enough', as usual, it is the set of questions that are broken.

The people are rich from below, and the king is rich from above. The wealth of the king is hidden from the people; If the people are rich, how can you be poor alone? If it is said that the monarch and the people are one, it is necessary to mourn the public......

It's not pretty, but it's quite regular words appear one by one in Zhao Yan's pen, don't talk about the content of the article, just say this word, if the marker reads it, it is estimated that he will brush his beard and look at it, if he meets an examiner who has difficulty in choosing, it is estimated that he will also make a comparison with the text on other papers, and finally hesitate to cross it, this candidate, I'm sorry, other people's handwriting is better than yours, you still stay where it's cool.

It took two days to write the questions of the Four Books and the Five Classics, and Zhao Yan finally checked it to confirm that there were no typos and other things that affected the beauty of the volume, so he carefully put it aside, and then stood up and moved.

It's just a word for tiredness, but there is no way, this is self-inflicted, and only after suffering can he become a master, Zhao Yan can only comfort himself like this now.

ate something casually, then covered his head and fell asleep, and Zhao Yan woke up at dawn the next day. The early morning in February was a little cold, but fortunately, there was a fire to cook in the house, and after Zhao Yan finished the first hot meal after entering the house, all kinds of negative emotions had been forcibly left behind.

The second game is still the internal medicine of the examination theory, judgment, and edict, relying on his excellent memory, Zhao Yan answered this one very smoothly.

The third test is the current policy of economic history, in fact, this is a kind of question and answer question, which accounts for the lowest proportion in the whole exam, and it is the first and second exam questions that are used to eliminate most candidates, so as long as the candidates are not too biased in their thinking and the logic is a little stricter, then this third session is definitely proper, and there are few graders who will carefully look at the papers of the third field.

Time blink to the night of February 15th, there was a light rain during the day, at this moment the house was wet and cold, Zhao Yan shrank down and touched his forehead with his hand, a little hot, secretly said that he might have a cold, forced to light charcoal and boiled some hot water, drank a few sips and fell asleep.

On February 16, Zhao Yan walked out of the tribute courtyard with the flow of people in a daze, he was so uncomfortable at the moment that he couldn't even remember how he handed in the papers before and how he came out of the house.

The crowd that greeted the candidates was three layers inside and three layers outside, surrounding the entrance of the Gongyuan in an airtight air, Li Er and Zhang Shun stood in front of the crowd, and saw Zhao Yan with a pale face at a glance.

"Brother Zhang hasn't come out yet?" Zhao Yanqiang asked Zhang Shun with spirit.

Zhang Shun was about to answer, but his eyes rolled but he looked directly behind Zhao Yan, and said, "Childe, you can figure it out." ”

Zhang Wenyuan looked no better than Zhao Yan, his eyes were blank, his face was pale, his hair was scattered, and he walked swayingly, but he was only weak, and he didn't catch a cold like Zhao Yan.

After returning to Li Xun's small courtyard, Li Xun was not at home as usual, Qiu Yue saw that Zhao Yan was carried back by Li Er, and was immediately startled, after hearing that Zhao Yan seemed to be infected with the wind cold, he hurriedly beckoned the cook Hu Shi to ask for a doctor, but was stopped by Li Er, saying that Zhang Shun had gone to ask for a doctor, Qiu Yue and Hu Shi were busy serving Zhao Yan and Zhang Wenyuan to settle down, and then served two bowls of porridge that had already been boiled, Qiu Yue personally fed Zhao Yan a bite by bite and ate most of the bowl, and the doctor also arrived.

In the doctor's pulse, Zhao Yan was lying on the bed, covered with a thick quilt, and unexpectedly remembered Li Yun's little face in his mind, and he didn't know what this little girl was doing. She was 'sweating' with her hugging......

Thinking about it, Zhao Yan suddenly realized that he was so shameful, and then he remembered that his body was already seventeen years old, and it seems that there should be a lot of seventeen-year-old fathers in this era...... Zhao Yan wasn't sure, he could only guess in his heart: Probably, maybe, maybe.

With a weird smile on the corner of his mouth, Zhao Yan fell asleep, and the doctor prescribed a prescription for him after taking his pulse, Li Er didn't ask, and went directly to the nearest pharmacy to grab the medicine, during which he heard the guy who grabbed the medicine say that this is the simplest medicine to dispel wind and cold, and Li Er breathed a sigh of relief.