This is the examination room, no matter what everyone thinks in their hearts, no matter how curious they are about Du Jinning, it is impossible to keep talking. After everyone said these few words to Du Jinning, they quieted down. After that, several more people came in one after another, and they were the county heads of small counties, and they were all arranged to sit in the second row.

After a quarter of an hour, the sky began to light up, and the messenger came in and carried the lantern out, and in a few moments the cloud board sounded, and the gong sounded.

The government examination began.

A few messengers came in and stood in the four corners of the room with their hands behind their backs, and then the prefect in official uniforms walked in surrounded by several people, and said a few words as usual.

It is said to be distributed, but in fact, it is bought with money, and it is traded in cash; Today's exam has three breaks, morning, noon and evening, during which you can also buy food and go to the toilet through the errands.

The four treasures and meals of the study are all bought in cash, and the price is more expensive than outside. This is done to prevent candidates from cheating in the four treasures and meals of the study, and at the same time to earn a sum of money for the government, which will be used for the government and hospital examinations over the years. As for whether the officials and officials were greedy for ink in this entry and exit, that is an unquestionable question.

After Du Jinning got the four treasures of the study, he carefully checked them all first.

She heard that in the past, there was a Xu official who had passed the government test and was very greedy for ink, which caused these pen, ink, paper and inkstones to be difficult to use during the government test. For example, when I was writing, the tip of the pen suddenly fell out of the barrel, and the ink suddenly stained the test paper, ruining the exam.

Although after that exam, some candidates appealed to the examiner, but because not everyone is like him, and the officials dare to be so greedy for ink, there is no prefect to reap the benefits together, and in the end, the matter will naturally be over.

After checking it, Du Jinning put a little snack. Although these pen, ink, paper and inkstones are not very good, they can at least be used. The pen is not loose, the inkstone is strong, and the paper is a test paper, which will be released after a while. It's just that the ink is not very good, not as delicate and oily as good ink. The ink is difficult and not smooth, and the writing is not smooth, which greatly affects the beauty of calligraphy.

And in the imperial examination, it is still very important to write well or not. This is also the reason why Du Jinning has been practicing calligraphy diligently since he went to school.

But this is not difficult for Du Jinning. You must know that when she was in Peach Blossom Village, because she had no money and needed to write a script to earn money, she didn't use these inferior pen, ink, paper and inkstone. She is also a person who loves to use her brain, and she has also figured out some ways to use these things well.

For example, the inferior ink in front of you needs to be sharpened slowly, and it takes at least a quarter of an hour to grind the ink than other good ink, and the technique of grinding the ink is also exquisite. Although the ink produced in this way is not as oily as good ink, it is not much different.

Knowing that this ink was not good, she didn't polish the ink like the county exam, waiting for the test paper to get her hand. This is a closed room and an exam number, and there is no problem such as wind and rain knocking over the inkstone, so she immediately began to grind the ink.

When she sharpened the ink to a fine and slippery finish, the messenger happened to deliver the test paper to her.

Unfolding the test paper and looking at it, Du Jinning was dumbfounded. Where is this test paper, this is obviously a blank paper, okay?

She was about to call the errand officer, when she heard Zhou Zhi next door shouting: "Poor master, this volume is blank." ”

The errand officer didn't look back: "The test questions will come later." ”

Du Jinning closed his mouth.

It is easy to leak questions when printing test papers, so many examiners do not print test papers, and directly ask the messenger to walk back and forth in the examination room with a sign with the questions written.

She was not in a hurry, she first looked at the test paper, and saw that the paper was not bad and there would be no problems, so she calmed down and waited.

This time she didn't have to wait long, and after a while, an errand officer came over with a sign, stopped in front of her exam number for a while, and then walked to the next exam number.

Seeing the title written on the sign clearly, Du Jinning's heart became more and more stable.

Two scripture questions, each of which is required to be no less than 300 words.

This kind of question and requirement may be difficult for some candidates. It is not uncommon for them to spend most of the day writing a scripture. But Du Jinning has always been quick to do the questions, write a question in the morning, write a question in the afternoon, and it is estimated that he doesn't have to eat dinner here, and goes back to the small courtyard to eat directly.

The first question is: The people are full of rulers and insufficient.

This title is from "The Analects of Yan Yuan".

Mourning Gong asked Yu Youruo: "The year is hungry, and the use is insufficient, what is it?" If you say, "Thoroughly? He said: "Second, I am still insufficient, how thorough is it?" He said: "The people are enough, who is the king and the insufficiency?" The people are insufficient, who is the king? ”

For a person who is committed to agronomy, "annual hunger is insufficient" is a topic that he is very happy to talk about. Agronomic research can only be carried out if the higher-ups attach importance to the food problem and are willing to spend more manpower and material resources on grain planting. As soon as the results of scientific research are released, the output will increase, and the people's lives will be rich.

On this topic, Du Jinning has a lot to say, and he doesn't need to think about the content of his writing like other students.

Therefore, not long after getting the topic, she dipped her pen in the inkstone, and wrote on the scratch paper: "The people are rich in the bottom, and the king is rich in the top." ”

This is to break the topic, and use two sentences to break the essence of the whole text.

Next is the title, affirming the meaning of breaking the topic: "The wealth of the king is hidden in the people." If the people are rich, how can you be poor alone? ”

Although the scripture questions of this era are not necessarily written in the form of eight-strand essays, it is already clear who the chief examiner of the government examination is, and Du Jinning will naturally not do his homework in advance to study and understand the style and preferences of the prefect Zhou Dongping.

Zhou Dongping is in his forties, a son of a poor family in Hebei Province, and was recommended to study in Guozijian because of his excellent results in the township examination. He has been committed to the promotion of Bagu Wen in the imperial examination, and feels that this form of writing is the fairest and the most able to test the intelligence of candidates.

In later generations, everyone said how the Bagu Wen constrained people's minds and stifled people's wisdom, so that many readers only cared about reading the scriptures and studying the Bagu, and did not talk about practical knowledge. After being admitted to the official examination, he became a loyal servant of the emperor. The famous thinker Gu Yanwu once criticized the Bagu Wen and said: "The harm of the Bagu is equivalent to the burning of books, and the corruption of talents is worse than the ...... in the suburbs of Xianyang."

Could it be that the ancients were stupid and could not see the harm of Baguwen? Why have they used such a style for hundreds of years? There's a reason for that.

During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the officials were all scholars, and the common people basically had no opportunity to be officials. No matter how amazing and brilliant you are, if you want to be an official, you can only be attached to the scholar clan and be a petty official at the bottom. Liang Shanbo's father belongs to this category.

Therefore, the power at that time was controlled by the family, and what system the emperor wanted to implement had to depend on the face of the family. The supremacy of imperial power did not exist at that time.

In order to break this situation, during the Sui Dynasty, the imperial examination came into being. The children of the poor family finally have a way to get rid of their low status and display their ambitions.

In the Sui and Tang dynasties, the content of the imperial examination was still very practical, and it was all about the art of war, martial arts, and so on. However, after a period of operation, it was found that as long as it was a practical subject, parents could pass on their experience to their children, and the children of the scholars who had the experience of the previous generation had an overwhelming advantage over the children of the commoners, which was extremely detrimental to the children of the commoners, and social mobility would be blocked by this, and the hereditary technocratic families would be formed again, and the threat of the scholastic families to the imperial power would still exist. This is contrary to the interests of the royal family.

Since the content of the assessment involves practical skills and the inheritance of experience, wouldn't the assessment of the imperial examination be made virtual? So Baguwen came into being.

Bagu is actually similar to the ancient Olympiad, it has little practicality, it is a kind of close to pure intelligence test, to the greatest extent to exclude the influence of the candidate's parents or family technical level, so as to ensure its fairness, to achieve the purpose of fighting against the powerful of the Jingxue family for the imperial power.

Zhou Dongping is a highly intelligent person, and it was not all smooth sailing on the road to the imperial examination. Starting from his own experience and class, he has been shouting for Baguwen on various occasions over the years.

Although Du Jinning had reservations about the writing form of Baguwen, and the time she had been learning the art of making with Yuan Xiuzhu was short, in order to hide her clumsiness, she didn't plan to write Baguwen at first, but the unwillingness and suspicion of those candidates just now still stimulated her. And when she entered the examination room, she found that the head of the case was still very good for checking this level, and she would naturally not let go of the opportunity to get the head of the case.

She's going to give it her all.

Therefore, she had to do what she liked, and she planned to write these two scriptures in the form of eight-strand texts.