"First place in the preliminary round: Ling Xia, Taizu's ancient precepts were written silently, and it took ten quarters of an hour."

"Second place in the preliminary round: Autumn falls in the north, Taizu's ancient teachings are written silently, and it takes ten and a half minutes."

"Third place in the preliminary round: win Qiankun, Taizu's ancient precepts were written silently, and it took eleven quarters of an hour."

"Fourth place in the preliminary round: Mu Wanqiong, Taizu's ancient precepts were written silently, and it took twenty quarters of an hour."

"Fifth place in the preliminary round: Nangong Xiu, Taizu Gu Xun wrote ninety percent silently, and it took twenty-seven moments."

"Sixth place in the preliminary round: Zhuge Qing, Taizu's ancient precepts were written silently, and it took twenty-nine minutes to ......"

That night, the results of the preliminary examination were announced at the gate of the forbidden city, and among the more than 50,000 candidates, only 20,000 people passed the preliminary round.

Although the remaining more than 30,000 candidates are all children of official eunuch families, they can't complain about being eliminated because they can't write half of the content of Taizu's ancient teachings, and they can't complain about their children and grandchildren who can't even write half of Taizu's ancient teachings.

On the morning of the next day, Ling Xia and the remaining more than 20,000 candidates entered the Forbidden City, and today they will conduct a preliminary examination on the Jade Steps Field of the Forbidden City.

The forbidden city is different from the square at the gate, relatives can be allowed to watch around the square, but not in the forbidden city, except for some high-ranking and powerful military generals who can watch the heir exam, all the courtiers under the four grades are not qualified to enter the forbidden city.

After checking the test number, verifying the identity, verifying the information, and confirming that it is correct, the candidates were led to their respective positions, the left and the right, and the candidates were divided into two distinct camps according to their respective test numbers.

Ling Xia stood on the left, and when he saw the empty jade steps in front of him, his face showed a trace of puzzlement, not only him, but all the scholars around him were all empty in front of him. If there is no exam table and chair, how can you answer the questions? Isn't there a test paper in this round?

But it's not right, there are no exam tables and chairs on the scholar's side, but there are thousands of tables, chairs and benches neatly placed on the warrior's side, and there are pens, papers, and inkstones on the table.

But the problem is that the props on both sides of the martial arts are different at the moment, it is simply the rhythm of the two examination modes, looking at the candidates who were divided into two camps, Ling Xia's heart moved, and he muttered secretly: "Shouldn't it be divided into essay questions and martial arts questions here?" ”

Sure enough, Ling Xia's thoughts had just risen, Su Xiuyan got up and spoke, don't look at Su Xiuyan's thin and weak, shriveled and thin appearance, but when he spoke and admonished, his tone was majestic and loud, and his voice was hoarse and solemn, which made people feel daunted.

"Today, the old man presided over the preliminary examination by the emperor's holy decree, in view of the fact that some of the candidates such as you are good at martial arts, some are full of poetry and books, and there is a way that the ruler is long and the inch is short, for the sake of fairness, the content of the preliminary examination is divided into literary questions and martial arts questions, and a stick of incense is limited.

In order to demonstrate justice, the old man and Taifu and Taibao jointly came up with two exam questions, the scribe competition, and the warrior lyrics, which can make the literati understand the perseverance of the warrior and make the warrior realize the talent of the scribe. ”

"Scribe jousting? Martial arts lyrics? What is this? ”

"What kind of medicine is sold in the gourd of the old man?"

"Isn't it for scholars to fight? Let the warriors chant poems and paint, right? ”

"Scholars fight, insulting Sven. The warrior recites poetry and plays the harp to the cow. Shouldn't that be the intention? ”

Just when everyone at the scene was talking and didn't know what the exam questions meant? Su Xiuyan read out the exam questions: "According to the statistics of the Hanlin Academy, 21,867 people entered the preliminary round this time, among which 9,451 were warriors and 12,416 were scribes.

The world is described as a scholar with no power to tie the chicken, so today to test the physical strength of the scholars, a single number of candidates every five people in a group, later compete with each other, as long as they can defeat four opponents will be regarded as passing the exam, and finally to defeat the number of opponents to determine the ranking.

Everyone said that the warriors are all reckless, so today will test the talents of the warriors, when the scholars and scribes learn from each other, the candidates with the double number can sit down and answer the questions, your exam questions are improvised poems, as long as the words and sentences are neat, the content is appropriate, and complete the three poems, both regarded as qualified. ”

"What----- what----- competition?"

"What ----- say----- improvisational poetry?"

After listening to the exam questions read by Su Xiuyan, all the candidates at the scene were blindfolded, and the scholars looked around one by one, not knowing how to start talking? The warriors held the brush in their mouths and squeezed the ink in their stomachs.

Different from the candidates on the scene, the parents who were watching the battle around showed different expressions at this time, the parents of the military camp frowned one by one, while the parents of the civilian camp all showed joy on their faces, with an expression of victory.

Nangong Xiongba thought about it for a while, and immediately noticed that something was wrong. Su Xiuyan's two exam questions sound very fair at first glance, but if you think about it carefully, you will find that they are unfair, and the content of the exam questions is obviously biased towards scribes and scholars.

Quite simply, the scribes and scholars compete with each other in groups of five, and if they win four people, they are considered qualified, and if the scribes consult with each other to cooperate, everyone first pretends to lose to one person, and after this person qualifys, they are supplemented by people from other groups, and then everyone only needs to lose one more round to introduce another winner.

There is an obvious drawback in this question, that is, the loser will not be eliminated, if there are four scribes who are willing to give up the qualification and let those scribes challenge, then the four of them will be able to guarantee the promotion as long as they deliberately fail and admit defeat.

If this method is used, it is not possible that the camp of scribes and scholars will eventually be promoted collectively. But on the other hand, in the martial arts camp, each of them must make three poems with neat words and corresponding to the situation, if they can't make three, or the words and sentences are not neat and the content is not appropriate, they are considered eliminated.

It's okay for these warriors to memorize a few poems by rote, but it's difficult for them to improvise poems. What's more, it is necessary to compose poems on the spot with reference to the opposite scene within the specified time, even if someone can complete the exam questions, but it must be a very few, and when the time comes, a large number of warriors will be eliminated.

The more warriors are eliminated, the greater the victory rate on the scribe camp's side, and if all the warriors are eliminated, then the scribe camp will be left alone.

After seeing through the meaning of this, Nangong Xiongba glared at the ten generals who were in charge of invigilating the exam on the stage, blaming them for not noticing the abnormality when they reviewed the questions, and were calculated by the three princes.

Thinking that their camp was about to suffer a large number of elimination and purges, these generals and bigwigs all frowned, although they had seen through Sangong's plan, but at this moment, the exam had already begun, and it was impossible to modify it on the spot, glaring at Su Xiuyan angrily, and everyone looked at the examination table with a worried face, hoping that their children and grandchildren would be able to compete or a miracle would happen.