Zheng Sen also had a reason to say this. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info A hero and three gangs, Zheng Sen understands that relying on himself and his family alone is not enough in the future. As one of the four irons in life, these students can be potential helpers in the future. However, Zheng Sen also knows that it is impossible for a team to be maintained entirely by feelings, and feelings will be consumed and will change. The only things that can unite a team are ideals and interests, and ideals are, in the final analysis, only the interests of the future. Therefore, tying their interests to their own interests is the best way to unite people.

"But, isn't it a gentleman who doesn't say anything?" Hong Shijie suddenly came up with such a sentence.

"That's right, when a gentleman does things, his ultimate goal should be righteousness." Zheng Sen immediately replied with righteousness and awe, "But it's not that a gentleman doesn't need money. Money is not a profit, but a tool. This is like a knife, if a gentleman has a knife in his hand, he can cut off the ugliness and restore peace to the world; The villain has a knife in his hand, but he may do evil. The good and the bad are not in the knife, but in whose hands the knife is. The same is true of money, if a gentleman has money in his hand, he can help the poor and help the needy, so that the people of a clan, a township, and even a country, and the people of the world can be blessed by it. Is this self-interested? Therefore, if you plan to use money to do good deeds, then talking about money is naturally not about profit. You say don't you? ”

In fact, Zheng Sen's logic is not rigorous, and the argument is too simple, but it is still easy to fool a few teenage children. In fact, don't say it's a child, it's an adult who has seen a lot in modern society, according to their level, I don't know how high they are compared to Hong Shiying and Hong Shijie, and they are often confused by all kinds of pyramid schemes and other things.

Sure enough, just as Zheng Sen expected, the four members of the Hong family thought about it, and they all said that what Zheng Sen said made sense, and this discussion of money was indeed not profitable.

Because the preparation before the exam was already sufficient, it was relatively easy when it came time to take the exam. In fact, at this time, it is more about consolidating knowledge, but adjusting the mentality, neither too nervous nor too relaxed. The three children of the Hong family are quite nervous about participating in the scientific examination for the first time, compared with the children of the Hong family, Zheng Sen has a lot more experience in facing the exam, and his mentality is naturally much better. And his composure also infected the three children and made them relax a little.

According to the list released by the county government, the county examination will start on February 6, and there will be a total of four examinations. The county exam can be four or five, depending on the meaning of the county order. However, generally speaking, in order to reduce the amount of labor for marking papers and reduce administrative costs, most of them take four exams, and this is the same this time.

Each of the four exams takes one day, with two days of rest in between, so it takes almost half a month for the whole exam. A list will be issued after each test, but these times there is only a seat number on the list, and there is no name, and a final score ranking will not be given until the last test is completed, which is called a "long case", and the first place in this "long case" is called "case head".

Soon it was time for the first exam, the sky was still dark, and the five of them got up and arrived at the examination room, at this time there were already many people outside the venue, there were candidates, and there were also parents who sent the exam, and the bustling crowd reminded Zheng Sen of the college entrance examination in his previous life. According to the rules, first the roll call, body search, then the paper, singing and protection, and then the official opening of the exam.

Zheng Sen got the paper, unfolded it and looked at the title first, sure enough, many of them were what he expected, it seems that the sentence of Zhang County's order "pay attention to it" was really not in vain. In the past few months, Zheng Sen didn't know how many similar topics he had done, so he thought about it a little, picked up his pen, and wrote......

The duration of an exam is a whole day (candles are not provided for the prefectural exam), so in addition to stationery, there is also food to eat in the test blue. However, because the questions were prepared in advance, Zheng Sen finished answering all the questions before noon. He examined it carefully, and when he saw that nothing was missing, he began to transcribe the answers into the official answer sheet in neat pavilion style. Then he waited quietly for the ink to dry, and then got up and handed in the paper. The examiner sitting on the main examination seat saw it, took the paper, flipped it slightly, and said, "You are Zheng Sen?" Zheng Sen hurriedly replied: "It's a student." The examiner nodded, and without saying much, he waved Zheng Sen out of the examination room.

Out of the examination room, Zheng Sen looked around, but saw that Hai Dafu's carriage was parked next to a big mulberry tree, probably because it was still early, Hai Dafu was also sitting in his seat, holding the horsewhip in his arms, his hands in his sleeves, leaning against the wall of the car and napping with his eyes closed. Zheng Fu also took a stool, sat in the sun, and dozed with his head down.

Zheng Sen walked over gently. As soon as he walked a few steps away from them, Hai Dafu suddenly opened his eyes: "Huh? You're coming out, young master? Hai Dafu rubbed his eyes and sat up straight, and said in surprise.

At this time, Zheng Fu also woke up, hurriedly stood up, took the test basket in Zheng Sen's hand and said, "The eldest young master has finished the exam?" ”

Zheng Sen replied with a slight smile: "The exam is over." ”

"The young master hasn't eaten yet, has he?" Haida Fudao. Then he lifted the examination basket and glanced at it and said, "Everything here is cold, but how can you eat it raw?" ”

"These things are originally cold food eaten in the examination room, why can't you eat them?" Zheng Sen said with a smile.

"That's in the exam room, there's no way." Hai Dafu said, "Now that it's out, how can you still eat this?" Anyway, we don't live far away, young master, you get in the car, let's go back immediately and let Lao Gao get something hot to eat. ”

Lao Gao is, of course, the chef specially prepared for them by the Zheng family.

"Uncle Rich, I can't leave yet." Zheng Sen shook his head and said, "Now Shiying and they haven't come out yet, it's inconvenient for me to go first." ”

Haida Fuleng paused, then nodded and said, "That's fine." Then he turned his head to Zheng Fu and said, "Ah Fu, why don't you go for a trip, go back and let Lao Gao hurry up and get something hot." ”

Zheng Fu responded and stood up.

"Ah Fu, don't go." Zheng Sen said, "Shiying, I can naturally eat these things." As he spoke, he picked up a dry food from the basket and ate it......

It wasn't until the sun was in the west that Hong Shiying and the others came out of the examination room one after another, but seeing that they all had smiles on their faces, they all wanted to take the test well. Zheng Sen talked to them for a while, then got into the carriage together and went back to the small courtyard.

On the morning of the third day, the group list was released, and the seat numbers of several people were in front, especially Zheng Sen, who was at the top of the list. Everyone congratulated Zheng Sen, but Zheng Sen himself was extraordinarily calm, with almost no joy. This kind of performance made several of the Hong family admire.

"Just now I found my seat number on the group list, and when I saw my seat number ranked in the top ten, I jumped around proudly, and I was happy for a while, before I remembered to find the seat number of other brothers and Asen, and then I found that Asen was the first. And Asen quietly found the position of all of us at this time. I used to read Su Laoquan's "Heart Technique", and it was said that the general should be "Mount Tai collapsed in front and the color remained unchanged, and the elk was on the left and the eyes were not instantaneous". Assen can really be said to have the style of a general. ”

"Isn't it? If my seat number had been in that position in Assen, I'm afraid I'd still be dizzy right now. ”

Zheng Sen's calmness is not pretended, and of course it is not because he really has the "style of a general" that "Mount Tai collapses in front and the color remains unchanged, and the elk is prosperous on the left and does not look at it for a moment", but because he understands very well that the imperial examination is actually not interesting, because the Ming Dynasty is already eating jujube pills. Unless you are willing to surrender to the Manchus and hang a money rat tail on the back of your head, otherwise, how useful are those fames or something? In fact, Zheng Sen is now taking the imperial examination, just to increase his voice within the family, and he does not really expect to become an official by taking the Baguwen examination. With such an understanding, then in the face of such a small achievement, it is natural to be very calm, in terms of the degree of joy alone, the joy of being the first on the group list is far less than the joy after knowing that the first batch of immigrants has arrived safely in Taiwan.

In the following exams, Zheng Sen's grades have been very stable, although the test post poem is a weakness, but other aspects have made up for this shortcoming, his results have been stable in the top two, and when the long case is released at the end, he will naturally become the head of the case. And Hong Shiying and several of them also passed the county test, and the Hong Shiying brothers both entered the top ten in the county. It's just that after the county test, it will be the government test of Quanzhou Prefecture in two months. So Zheng Sen still didn't have to rest, and he had to immediately devote himself to the intense preparation for the exam.

……

It was also at this time that Zheng Zhilong arrived in Anping through shipbuilders hired by the Jesuits and the Dutch. They will each build two soft-sail clippers for the Zheng family.

The leader of the group of shipbuilders found by the Dutch was called Lawrence the Fat. He claimed to have worked as an engineer in the shipyard in Amsterdam and presided over the construction of battleships. However, Zheng Zhilong and Zheng Sen both suspected that this guy was bragging. The leader of the group of shipbuilders that the Jesuits recruited was Fabio Bearded, an Italian who claimed to have studied mathematics and astronomy at the prestigious University of Bologna and later worked as an assistant engineer in Spain, helping others build a battleship and two cruisers.

According to Zheng Sen's suggestion, Zheng Zhilong asked the two groups to design a single-deck cruiser, which was the so-called fifth-class ship in later generations, and make a corresponding model.