After Wei Chen handed in the papers, he left the number house, and came to the dragon gate to wait. According to the rules, ten people must be gathered before the prison officer will open the dragon gate and let people out.

At this time, the rain had stopped, Wei Chen put away his umbrella and waited boredly to open the door.

Not long after, several candidates came over and stood behind Wei Chen, who nodded at them as a greeting.

Although Wei Chen is famous, there are few people who really know what he looks like.

These candidates had never met Wei Chen, and they didn't know that the person standing in front of them was the famous Wei Xingyun, and they only looked at it twice because Wei Chen was the first to hand in the paper.

While waiting for the door to open, several people got together in twos and threes to talk about the examination room.

Of course, the main thing is to discuss the exam questions.

In the big test of life such as the township examination, those who dare to submit the papers in advance must be extremely confident people, and they are all gushing when they talk about their articles.

When encountering differences in opinions, several people fought for each sentence, arguing and arguing, and soon some people felt that something was wrong, and finally turned pale.

Wei Chen looked at the side and shook his head secretly.

After the exam, the ink has been decided, even if the question comes out with a flower, it is useless. Even if you do well in the exam, the next game will start again, and if you don't do well in the exam, you will be in a mess, which will be even more detrimental to the next one.

At this time, it is better to settle down and think about how to take the next test, this is the right way.

At this time, the ten people finally got together, the prison officer opened the dragon gate, and Wei Chen didn't care about the few candidates who were still arguing, shook his sleeves, and walked out of the door.

As soon as he came out of the dragon gate, Wei Chen was taken aback. I saw that there were black heads outside, and the candidates' family papers, scholars, servants, and coachmen were standing densely in the square in front of the Dragon Gate.

Seeing someone walking out of the dragon gate, everyone cast their expectant eyes to tell if it was their own children.

"Young Master!"

Wei Chen heard a familiar shout, and looked up, but it was the scholar Yuan An standing next to a carriage calling to him.

Wei Chen responded with a smile and stepped forward.

Yuan An took the exam box and asked with concern, "How did the young master do in the exam?" ”

Wei Chen glanced at him and said, "Forgot my rules?" There will be no questions after the exam. ”

Yuan An smiled stupidly, and asked again, "Are we going to wait for Sheng Gongzi and them, or go back first?" ”

Wei Chen sighed slightly: "With Zecheng's temperament, he must take the exam for three days, and he won't come out until the last moment of the paper, and it will be in vain for him to wait for him, let's go back and rest first." ”

Yuan An nodded thoughtfully, and immediately helped Wei Chen into the carriage, and drove towards a courtyard not far from the tribute courtyard.

The township examination began on the ninth day of August, and a total of three examinations were held, and it was not until August 18 that it ended. During this period, after each exam, the candidates have to leave the Gongyuan and wait until the next day to enter the next exam.

In order to let the candidates rest well and not be so embarrassed, it is still necessary to rent a place to live next to the Gongyuan.

Install the latest version. 】

This courtyard was rented by Weichen Tuo Shengwei a year in advance, specially for Weichen and Sheng Changbai and others to rest between the township test sites, less than a mile away from the Gongyuan, or the old residence of officials, a proper prime location.

Fortunately, Weichen rented it early, if it was half a year late, not to mention that the large cross-courtyard in this prime location could not be rented, even the firewood house of the inn ten miles away would have been sold out long ago.

When he arrived at the residence, Wei Chen had a sumptuous dinner, took a hot bath, and fell asleep with a pillow after returning to the house.

The high-intensity examination can be seen in the great consumption of energy.

After the first handing in the papers, the test papers were gathered by the examinees, and they were sent north along the Yongdao to the independent courtyard behind the Mingyuan Building.

The core building of the courtyard is the majestic and solemn public hall, the east is the supervision and examination hall, and the east is the three places of receiving the volume, sealing and supplying. The two rooms of the West Column are respectively transcribed and read twice.

Except for the supply center, which supplies food and groceries to examiners and officers and soldiers, the other four schools are closely related to the examination.

The receiving officer received the volume, first sorted out and stacked it in the receiving office, counted the number, and conducted a preliminary screening.

Any broken or dirty scroll will be taken out directly, reviewed by the prison officer, and transcribed in a blue pen.

The rest of the qualified test papers will be transferred to the sealing room, and the sealing officer will seal it with the name of the thick paper lake.

After sealing, the scroll is sent to the transcription room, where it is transcribed with a red pen by a hundred scribes.

Transcription is a big project, and it can't be completed in two or three days. While the scribes in the transcription room were working hard to write, the second session of the township examination had already kicked off in an orderly manner.

In the second session of the township examination, the test was applied styles such as theory, judgment, edict, edict, and table.

This is to test whether the candidate has the basic conditions for being an official, not about the style, but only to check whether the candidate is familiar with this kind of article, whether he can express it accurately and use rigorous words.

Although it is not difficult to take the exam, the amount of the exam is not smaller than the first one, and it is very cumbersome.

Although the ranking has almost been decided in the first game, the last two games still can't be careless.

It is said that there are also old-timers who wrote articles very well, and were even used as model texts for printing, but they were judged to be written in a mess, and as a result, they were brushed down several times, which was extremely miserable.

After resting for two days and getting two good night's sleeps, Wei Chen got up early again to meet the second exam.

On this day, the sky was clear, the worst weather had passed, and the autumn was crisp and cool, and it was time for the exam.

When Wei Chen, Sheng Changbai and others came to the Gongyuan, they listened to the candidates on the side talk about the fact that there were a few elderly candidates in the first session, who couldn't hold on to half of the exams and were forced to go out.

In addition to emotion, everyone is also quite empathetic. Wang Yaochen, Chen Jun and others usually don't exercise often, and their physique can only be said to be average, although they took a day off after the first exam, their faces were still very bad at this time.

The township examination, which rotates continuously, tests not only the candidate's intelligence, but also physical strength and endurance.

Weichen submits the papers in advance, and there are also considerations in this regard, and having an extra full day of rest than the rest of the candidates is an advantage in itself.

After the dragon gate was opened, the candidates entered the Gongyuan in turn, and still took the exam in the dormitory on the first day.

Wei Chen found his own number house and sat down, and found that there were several empty rooms around, probably some candidates knew that they did not do well in the first test, so they were disheartened and quit early.

Wei Chen didn't know this, so he buried himself in writing articles seriously, these applied styles were really not difficult for Wei Chen, and it took two days to write them all.

There are many more candidates who submitted their papers in advance this time than last time, there were more than a dozen people before Wei Chen, and hundreds of people handed in their papers that day, and Wei Chen was not conspicuous among them.

However, it can also be seen from this that the difficulty of the second session is not great, and what really determines whether candidates are admitted or not is the seven articles in the first session.

After the second exam, the papers of the first one were almost transcribed.

The transcript and the original volume are sent to the reading office, where they are proofread by the reading officer to confirm whether the transcription is consistent with the original volume.

After the reading was correct, the counterreader left the original scroll and sent the transcription to the court.

To the public hall has the outside into the inside, separated by the door curtain, the reading officer can only stop outside the curtain, behind the curtain has its own receiving officer is responsible for receiving the paper, according to the candidate's choice of the scripture into the corresponding room.

There are two senior officials of Jiangnan Governor and Jiangning Prefect in the outer curtain, but they are not allowed to enter the inner curtain for a step, otherwise the two imperial historians in charge of supervision will write a letter of impeachment.

Wang Wenqing, the chief examiner of this year's township examination, is the person who holds the power in the inner curtain.