As for being locked in the dormitory for nine days at a time, for most candidates, eating, drinking, and sleeping in it is even harder than squatting in prison.

But in the eyes of these scholars who seek fame, the hard work of the test must be endured, even if they didn't adapt to it before, they will get used to it after taking the test a few more times.

And Shen Xi is still on the way to adapt.

Compared with the strict search of the child examination and the township examination, the entrance search of the general examination is much more relaxed. This is also the meaning of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, who believes that since the people are selected by the state from the provinces, they are already considered to be the scholar class, and their personality should be fully respected, and they can no longer be insulted like civilians.

From the beginning of the Ming Dynasty to the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the search and inspection of the examination was carried out from time to time, and even when it was carried out, the inspection was very sloppy, and the candidates were never allowed to take off their clothes or check the mezzanine.

Therefore, in the early Ming Dynasty, cheating in the examination occurred repeatedly, and it was not until the 44th year of Jiajing that the imperial court "ordered the addition of two members of the imperial history to be in charge of searching, and the offenders were first placed in the Ministry of Rites one month before the Ministry of Rites, and still sent to the Department of Justice for conviction".

Shen Defu sighed in "Wanli Ye Won the Chapter: Science Field": "In the past 40 years, although there have been strict and lenient examinations, but undressing and taking off hats, searching again and again, there is no main body to be treated at the beginning of the restoration of the country!" ”

The meaning is obvious, we take the children's examination and the township examination, just to be able to enter the scholar class, and now we are promoted and can become officials, but now we are still treated like thieves, which is really chilling.

But that was decades later, at least in this examination in the twelfth year of Hongzhi, the search for admission was just a routine, and Shen Xi only needed to take his own test basket and casually turn over the contents to the searching doorkeeper to see, and then he could enter the Dragon Gate.

When you get inside, you will be lined up according to the number of the candidate's number. Each candidate will have an officer and soldier who is responsible for guarding the number house, and if the candidate has anything to do in the number house, he must pass through the officer and soldier guarding the door.

When he arrived at his own house, Shen Xi looked at the narrow place inside, which was even narrower than the number house that Zhixiang tested, and even the wooden barrel for and pee was old.

After entering, the door was locked, and Shen Xi suddenly felt that he had entered the boundless darkness.

Thinking that he would be confined for the next nine days, Shen Xi felt a little lost in his heart, anyway, there was no trial exam on the first day of admission. He sat down, closed his eyes, and thought about his thoughts, and soon it was dark.

The things that Shen Xi brought into the examination room were basically the same as those in the township exam, rice, pickles, and bacon, but with a thick stack of cooking cakes.

It is said that it is a nine-day exam, but in fact it will take seven days and eight nights in the dormitory, and you will be able to leave the exam room on the morning of February 16. Bring enough food for eight days at a time. Bringing a little less is definitely not enough to eat, but if you bring too much, you can't bring it into the exam room.

Shen Xi didn't plan to cook in the house, not that he couldn't do it. Instead, I was afraid that cooking on a fire would bring some trouble, so I simply brought some ready-made.

After all, it's only February now, and as long as it's not a liquid diet, it's still okay to keep it for seven or eight days. Many of them came from Lin Dai's mind.

Lin Dai was already looking forward to being a serious couple with her after Shen Xi went out of the examination room.

At dusk when eating. Shen Xi was thinking about what Lin Dai was doing at home, and estimated that she was sewing the clothes used in the newlyweds, just a simple red gown, she had been sewing since Shen Xi entered Taixue, but because the craftsmanship was not very good, it had not been made into ready-to-wear until now.

The first test of the general examination is still the four scriptures and the five scriptures, which is no different from the scope of the township examination. The three four-book texts and the four five-book texts are relatively broad, and they will not be handed in until the next morning.

In other words, in fact, the first exam took a day and a half, and I wrote seven articles in one go.

For Shen Xi, writing four books and five scriptures is already as commonplace, just the eight strands he has written over the years, at least there are two or three thousand, and more than a dozen a day, reading the memorized Cheng texts, plus the excellent eight-strand texts of the Ming and Qing dynasties that he has memorized in his previous life, there are tens of thousands.

For the imperial examination, the four books and the five scriptures of this first session are always the most important.

Since the teacher Feng Huaqi's scripture is "Spring and Autumn", Shen Xi's scripture also chose "Spring and Autumn", but this time he did not choose the title of "Spring and Autumn", but chose "Book of Songs", which he specially changed.

Shen Xi wanted to win by surprise.

For most candidates, the study of what this sutra is must be thorough, and they are basically not concerned with the rest of the pentateuch.

Shen Xi knows a truth very well, that is, there are many people staring at him, those fellow examiners are from Hanlin, and it is very likely that they will stare at him, so for the answer sheet of the candidates of "Spring and Autumn", these people will pay special attention, and may even find faults, so he will simply choose other topics.

On the morning of the ninth day of February, the first exam officially began.

The three and four texts are from the Analects, the University, and Mencius, and the four and five scriptures selected by Shen Xi are all from the Book of Songs, namely "Guofeng, Hufeng, Ganxuan", "Xiaoya, June", "Daya, Ban", and "Zhou Song".

Since the sun rose in the east, and the light in the hall was enough to read and write, Shen Xi began to hurry up and make an article, but in fact, for the people who can take the exam, there is no need to be too anxious about the first exam.

Because the exam will not be collected until the end of the last exam, even if you don't answer anything for the first seven days, and take another day to complete it on the eighth day, it is okay. But after the whole exam, there are more than 10,000 words to write, and it is a bit impractical to write it on the last day.

For Shen Xi, the rule is certain, that is, to put down the four scriptures and make the five scriptures first.

The content of the general examination is basically the same as that of the township examination, but the marking will be much stricter than that of the township examination, and the general examination will never be the same as the township examination, and only four books and texts will be read.

The proportion of the candidates' answer scores in the exam paper is almost the same after the three games, regardless of the style of the article, if which candidate writes which exam question is off-topic, it is equivalent to being brushed down directly.

The 3,500 candidates who participated in the general examination are not ordinary people, and if there are deviations and mistakes in the examination, it is almost impossible to think that they will be admitted to the Jinshi.

At the end of the first day, there was no shock.

Shen Xi knew the exam questions of this session in advance. But Shen Xi was very cautious before, even if he did a good job of writing an article in advance for this exam, he never put pen to paper directly, he always wrote the article in his chest, and then carefully considered it and revised the content of the article.

Others took seven or eight days to answer the questions, but he used four or five months, and when he learned from Shen Xi that he had won the township test to solve the yuan, he had been preparing for this exam, and he had not neglected it at all.

It turns out. The questions are exactly the same as those recorded in history, and there is no deviation in the slightest.

……

……

On February 12, the second exam question came down.

The second is the examination of public subjects, which examines "Treatise", "Edict Table", and "Judgment", and the examination is an excursive essay, no longer using Bagu Wen, and the questions will not come from the "Four Books" and "Five Classics", which is quite wide, similar to the college entrance examination composition.

The title of the examination for this session is "Gentleman's Neutrality and Impartiality". From the "Book of Rites", the original text is "Therefore, the gentleman is harmonious but not flowing, and he is strong; Neutral and unleaning, strong and correct. At first glance, it seems to be the golden mean advocated in Confucianism. But in fact, the main thing to examine is that officials cannot form parties for personal gain.

This topic is very confusing, and if the title of "The Book of Rites: The Mean" is directly answered by the situation of the eight strands, the scope of the discussion will be very narrow. On the premise of speaking on behalf of the saints, you can only speak in the words of the saints, and the saints will not tell you. Officials are not allowed to form parties for personal gain.

This is also the vicious place of this question, "the gentleman is neutral and does not follow", what I came out of is not the original text of the "Book of Rites", this is the exam question of the theory, you can play freely, if there is really that nerd who has to use the eight-strand text to answer, then this question is basically off-topic, you can pack up the cover and go home.

Shen Xi understood this, and it was much easier to answer the question.

As for the "edict table" and "judgment", they are all application texts of officialdom, and they are things that can be used when being an official.

The first is to prepare official documents on behalf of others, and the second is to write criticisms, the first is to deal with the superiors, and the second is to explain to the subordinates, and the content of the inspection is very comprehensive.

Shen Xi spent two days working on the second question, and he didn't have to wait for the third question to come down and copy it on the paper after the draft was prepared, as some candidates did, because Shen Xi felt that it was very troublesome to do so, so it was better to write it on the scratch paper and copy it directly to the paper, so that it could also buy more relaxed time for the third exam.

After the first two exams, for most candidates, this exam is basically the same, because according to the previous rules, the "strategy" of the third session is very simple, one question and one answer, and your views are written, then it is okay.

There are a total of five questions, and the "questions" that will be tested in the past have always been a formality, which belongs to the "additional questions", and it is difficult for the examiner to judge the merits of the candidates' talents from the "questions", after all, the questions are simple and easy to answer.

But the reason why Shen Xi seized the time to list the questions of the first two exams was that he knew that the biggest problem in this session of the exam was actually the fuse of the final question case, which was the third question in the last five policy questions.

This question has always been the focus of historical debate.

But the controversy itself is no longer on the topic, but outside the field, did Tang Bohu and Xu Jing really get the exam questions in advance?

This question stumped almost the entire candidates who participated in the examination, and only two of them answered the questions fluently, making Cheng Minzheng think that the two people who made the paper were Tang Bohu and Xu Jing, "very different, I will think that I am the best", so he was impeached by Zhonghuayu.

In the absence of conclusive evidence, Hua Yu hurriedly played it to Emperor Hongzhi based on Cheng Minzheng's words and the legend of the outside world.

In this Ministry of Rites examination, it was not the last champion Lun Wenxu who created the greatest reputation, nor Wang Yangming, who was only ranked seventh in the second grade, but later became famous in China for his mental studies. And the achievement is a great poet, calligrapher and painter Tang Bohu who has never met talents, wild and uninhibited, but has no chance with his career in his life.

This question changed the fate of many people, Cheng Minzheng suffered from prison, and died of a sudden illness only a few days after he was released from prison.

can only be blamed, Cheng Minzheng made this question too biased and difficult, and his sentence was too eary.

On February 15, the questions for the third exam were finally handed down.

Shen Xi didn't look at the other four questions, but directly paid attention to the third question, "Question: The attainments of scholars in the past sages are not the examination and discernment of questions......

It was the policy problem that changed Tang Bohu's fate!

***********

PS: The eleventh update!

I don't know if you've seen it? Isn't it very exciting? The Son of Heaven is working so hard, shouldn't everyone express their support for a wave of monthly tickets and rewards!

Whether there is a twelfth watch today depends on everyone's performance! (To be continued.) )