As long as it's an exam, the results will be released, whether you want it or not. Of course, the Ziting retest is no exception:

Fourteen jinshi, three qualified, barely qualified; Eleven, parallel goods, dethroned. He was convicted of cheating and the evidence was conclusive.

It's a fair and just result, it seems!

For a long time, there has been a misunderstanding in our thinking: those who cheat are parallel imports, and the children of cheating families are parallel goods among parallel imports. From this, we can easily deduce a conclusion: those who cheat are parallel imports, and the children of cheating families are parallel goods among parallel goods. Fourteen Jinshi all cheated, and fourteen Jinshi were all children of a family. Therefore, the fourteen Jinshi are all parallel goods, parallel goods in parallel goods. Taking this conclusion to the results of the re-examination of the sleeve pavilion, it is easy for us to take it for granted that the results are reasonable, fair and just.

However, the cheater must be a straw bag, a parallel import? The children of the family must be straw bales and parallel goods? Not necessarily, especially in the Tang Dynasty.

The imperial examination system in the Tang Dynasty was not perfect enough, not imperfect, but very imperfect. The imperfection of the system provides unlimited possibilities for cheating. No matter how many beautiful and moving stories and good stories circulate behind them, no matter how brilliant the culture they spawned, they cannot hide a basic fact: the protagonists of these stories, the creators of these cultures, are actually cheating.

The scale of admission to the imperial examination in the Tang Dynasty was not large, not small, but very small, pitiful, only a dozen places. In the face of the imperial examination elites from all over the country, no one is sure of victory. Even if you are full of poetry and books, even if you are full of literary talents, even if you pick out your talents and learning, and call them such a name, there are more than Cao Zijian, you are still not sure, and you are sure of winning.

If you want to make your way through the fierce battle, you will have to beg for the powerful, and you will be able to influence the power of the examiner. Therefore, in the Tang Dynasty, cheating in the imperial examination was a norm and an unspoken rule, unless there was an alternative like Wei Guanzhi who did not accept any invitation. Of course, the cheating mentioned here does not refer to pediatrics such as entrainment, but to the rolls, invitations and general lists dressed in romance. When the roll becomes a fashion, when the entrustment becomes a must, when the list becomes a trend, there is only one possibility left for those who refuse to go up and down with the world: to fall off the list, 100% off the list.

cheating, there is still a silver lining; If you don't cheat, you're dead. Therefore, the imperial examination elites from all over the country, as well as the families behind them, had to do everything they could, pull relationships, and go through the back door.

Therefore, in the Tang Dynasty, cheaters were not necessarily parallel goods, and there were many genuine and high-quality products. Yang Hunzhi, who is reckless in his belly, certainly needs to bribe the powerful, Wang Wei, who is as talented as the sea, has to rely on the recommendation of the princess, and even the dissolute Du Mu has to put down his figure and beg for the ...... of celebrities.

As for the children of the family, the historical figures who were influential in the Yuanhe period, such as Du Huangshang, such as Li Jifu and Li Jiang, such as Wu Yuanheng, such as Pei Du, such as Linghu Chu, such as Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan, Yuan Zhen, Bai Juyi, which one is not a child of the family?

From this, we read a conclusion: the fourteen children of the family who cheated may have straw bales and parallel goods, but there should also be genuine products or even fine products. However, the results of the re-examination showed that there were 14 jinshi, 11 straw bales and parallel goods, and the other three were a little better than straw bales. Such a probability cannot be said to be none, but it is very small, not to mention that the examiner is Qian Hui, who is talented and has been a bachelor of Hanlin.

There is a problem with the retest, there is a problem with the result of the retest, there must be a problem! But what's the problem? For such a result, why didn't Pei Du have the slightest doubt and objection?

The problem lies in that poem and a fu, or more precisely, the problem lies in that fu!

The title of that article is "Lonely Bamboo Pipe Fu". The image of the lonely bamboo pipe comes from the two sentences on the Confucian classic "Zhou Li": "The dance of the lonely bamboo pipe cloud and the qin of the cloud gate, the winter solstice is played on the round hill on the ground, if the music changes six times, then the gods all descend, and the ceremony can be obtained" and "the lonely bamboo pipe of the empty mulberry piano and the dance of the salty pond is played on the summer solstice in the square hill of Zezhong, if the music changes eight times, the earth is only out, and the ceremony can be obtained." ”

"Zhou Li" is a Confucian classic, one of the "Three Rites", and one of the "Nine Classics" explicitly stipulated by the Tang government. The 14 new science and technology scholars who participated in the re-examination were all at a loss and did not know the source, so they had to scribble indiscriminately and perfunctory, often writing less than a thousand words, but the digression was thousands of miles, and the off-topic ran to the sky. If Li Chen lived in the Tang Dynasty, he would definitely run to the fourteen poor worms happily and shout loudly, "Run, brother!" The iconic slogan.

Such a result seems to have verified the conclusion that the fourteen Jinshi are all straw bales and parallel goods. However, I still have those two words: not necessarily!