Chapter 76: Backfire
Shen Yichen speculated on Sun Tixue's intentions and wanted to know the deeper meaning behind his actions.
In fact, Sun Ding himself didn't have any complicated thoughts...
It's purely because of the test. You can't ask Shen Yichen to take the test alone. Without other candidates to witness it, it seems more like a secret operation.
Therefore, we simply gathered together a few of the more famous and controversial "troublemakers" in this year's college entrance examination and had them take the exam in the hall.
This way, there is human evidence and the risk is reduced.
As the pre-exam body search was coming to an end, the number of candidates scheduled to take the exam in the classroom had exceeded ten.
During the waiting process, everyone had different expressions on their faces, but they remained silent. This was not because they were unfamiliar with keeping a straight face, but because of the examination room rules. After entering, you are not allowed to talk casually, even in this kind of occasion.
Finally, after the last candidate entered the examination room, the sound of a gong was struck, and the gate of the Xiajiang examination room closed.
Shen Yichen and others were brought by the soldiers to the lobby of Duzhi Building. Unlike the empty environment in the previous two times, this time there were tables and chairs in the lobby with test papers on them, waiting for them to sit down and answer the questions.
Sun Tixue held a high position and wore a formal blue civil servant robe. In fact, in terms of official title and rank, he was not as good as Li Min, the prefect of Yingtian Prefecture, who took the provincial examination.
However, the power and status of many officials in the Ming Dynasty were not simply determined by their ranks.
It’s like many people know that civil officials are more valuable than military officials, and military officers of the same rank are far inferior to civil officials. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, even military generals of the second or third rank were being scolded like their grandsons by civil officials of the sixth or seventh rank.
There are also such distinctions among civil officials, such as Beijing officials are superior to foreign officials, and censors are superior to governors. Among them, the most honorable ones are the Censorate, the Six Departments, and the Hanlin Academy.
Although the Superintendent of Education was in the local area, he was not a local official and was still in the sequence of Beijing officials. In addition, Sun Ding also served as the Inspector of Southern Zhili, so even if Li Min, the prefect of the third rank, was in front of him, the status and power might be 50-50 at most.
"Students Shen Yichen, Xu Donghai, Luo Zheng...pay homage to the Grand Master."
After Shen Yichen and others entered the lobby, they first saluted to Sun Tixue in unison, and then stood there waiting for the other party's instructions.
When Sun Ding saw Shen Yichen coming in, his eyes lit up, but he didn't show any reaction, and even his facial expression looked very serious.
After all, the college entrance examination was extraordinary. Those who passed it had the title of scholar, and outstanding candidates could enter the Imperial Academy as tribute students. This was equivalent to entering colleges such as Tsinghua and Peking University in later generations and receiving a full scholarship.
Therefore, various etiquettes should be more rigorous in such occasions.
In addition, he learned from the lesson of Li Min in the college examination, so he should not be too close to Shen Yichen to avoid giving others a handle to criticize him. And Shen Yichen was not the only one to sit in the exam this time. You took the initiative to greet him, so should you treat other candidates equally?
If everyone is treated equally and more than a dozen instructions are given, will there still be an exam?
Facing all the candidates bowing to him, Sun Ding nodded slightly on his forehead as a response .
"All students have been arranged to sit in the examination today. I believe you understand the rules and procedures, so I will not say more."
"Today's college examination will test one article each on the Four Books and the Five Classics. For the Classics, you can choose the classics you are studying. However, I am different from others in that I will give equal weight to the Four Books and the Classics. I hope you will not be careless."
After hearing what Sun Tixue said, some of the dozen or so people who were taking the exam looked overjoyed, while others looked a little heavy.
Because according to the rules of the imperial examination system, the first exam and the Four Books should be given emphasis, and in some exams even the first question will be given emphasis.
Take the county and prefectural examinations that Shen Yichen had taken before, for example. The first score could directly determine whether he would pass or not, and even the ranking could be determined in advance.
It is easier to understand why the Four Books are important. The ancient imperial examinations used eight-legged essays, and the questions in the eight-legged essays were taken from the Four Books. If we don't attach importance to this, what should we attach importance to?
Therefore, the college entrance examination has one question on each of the Four Books and Five Classics. In theory, the Four Books question has a higher scoring weight than the Five Classics question. In other words, if two candidates have equal literary talent, but one of them excels in the Four Books question and the other in the Five Classics question, then when the final ranking is considered, the candidate who excels in the Four Books question will win.
Under such rules, candidates would naturally focus their study on the Four Books. However, Sun Tixue did not do so. He required candidates to develop in all aspects of morality, intelligence, physical fitness, and aesthetics. This was a difficult hurdle for candidates who did not pay attention to the meaning of the classics.
Unfortunately, Shen Yichen was one of those candidates who were not taken seriously by the Jingyi test.
In fact, to be precise, it’s not that Shen Yichen didn’t take it seriously, but his previous studies were too sluggish and his energy was limited so he could only focus on the Four Books and put the classics at the back.
This is like Shen Yichen's poetry is poor. He just casually wrote a five-character, six-rhyme test poem to get by for the county exam. It doesn't affect the final score anyway, so the quality is not important.
If Li Tingxiu had not helped last year and appointed the top scholar Lin Zhen as his mentor, Shen Yichen might have set a precedent of getting the first place in the prefectural examination but failing the imperial examination.
Seeing everyone's different expressions, Sun Ding didn't care what these candidates were thinking, and spoke again: "The test papers are on the examination table, you can take your seats in order, and I hope you can pass the exam."
"Yes, Grandmaster."
All the candidates nodded in agreement, then walked to the examination desks and took seats according to their serial numbers.
Shen Yichen discovered that his examination table was facing Sun Tixue, which made him look down. He didn't know if it was an accident or Sun Tixue's deliberate arrangement. It was a bit stressful to be stared at while writing the test paper.
After taking his seat, Shen Yichen did not rush to open the test paper, but looked up at Sun Tixue and happened to meet his gaze.
Sun Ding's expression finally changed, and a fleeting smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. It was obvious that he had been paying attention to Shen Yichen, hoping that he could win the first place in the college entrance examination again.
There was even one thing that Shen Yichen didn't know. The reason why Sun Ding emphasized the importance of the Four Books and Five Classics was actually to create some advantages for him within the scope of his authority.
Think about it, Shen Yichen took Lin Zhen as his master, and Lin Zhen was the top scholar and a master of scriptures. How weak could the level of scriptures taught by his disciples be?
Compared with other candidates who focus on the Four Books, Shen Yichen can be said to be ahead at the starting line!
With Sun Ding's character, he would definitely not do something like helping Shen Yichen to commit favoritism and fraud, so he has done his best to help in any way he can, and it all depends on how Shen Yichen can perform on the spot.
However, what Sun Ding did not expect was that although Shen Yichen had accepted Lin Zhen as his teacher to study the classics, it did not mean that he was strong in the classics. He was just cramming to make up for his weaknesses.
Therefore, this well-intentioned operation has the meaning of backfiring...
When I opened the test paper, I found that the test questions were different from the normal test questions. The questions for the test were already written on the test paper, so I didn't have to wait for the soldier with the sign to pass by and copy them.
On one of the test papers was a question from the Four Books, with the title: It is so vast that the people cannot name it; it is so majestic that it has achievements; it is so brilliant that it has articles.
After all, Sun Ding was a school official by profession and had been an educational supervisor for decades. His understanding of the Four Books and Five Classics was much more professional than that of Li Min, the prefect of Yingtian Prefecture.
When it comes to setting questions, this major does not need to come up with all kinds of weird questions to trouble the candidates. It can set some normal and standard questions.
This question comes from the passage in The Analects of Confucius, Taibo, where Confucius praises Yao. The general meaning of the translation is: Yao is so great that the people don’t know what words to use to praise him.
His achievements are so noble, and the etiquette system he established is so brilliant and beautiful!
If you want to understand it in the simplest and most crude way, you can also regard this passage as flattery. It is just a wave of boasting, but it is relatively much more elegant.
The fact that the topics of these Four Books are not unfamiliar means that it is easy to find ideas to solve the topics. The direction is to praise the contributions of the ancient sages and wise men to nurturing the world, point out what good things Yao did, which wise men he appointed, and so on.
Then don’t forget the most crucial point, which is to use the past to illustrate present events.
This point is not obvious in the academy examination, after all, the emperor is far away. But in the provincial examination, especially the metropolitan examination, when you see a topic praising ancient sages and emperors, you must find an answer to quote it to the current emperor.
Then write a paragraph that you feel is flattering, pointing out how wise and brave the emperor is, how good he is at governing the country, how talented etc. The highest level is to flatter Confucius more than the original text, then congratulations, you are not far from getting the middle.
The reason why we say "not far from the middle" instead of "completely the middle" is that you can't just brag without doing anything. The emperor selects you to be an official and do things, not to just flatter him.
This kind of dry-blow method seems particularly insincere and careless.
So you have to add your own ambitions in the last paragraph, motivating yourself to assist the current emperor in the future, accomplish great things, benefit the people, etc.
This wave of praises not only praised the ancient sages, but also the emperor of the current dynasty, and finally praised himself. The whole process was well-coordinated and deserved full marks. If the examiner did not accept it, it would be a shame to the "true feelings" in the article.
Maybe it’s because he has written too many eight-part essays, but now Shen Yichen is very familiar with this kind of routine questions and can solve them easily!
Sun Ding sat in the hall, his eyes constantly scanning the candidates below, and of course his main attention was on Shen Yichen.
Sun Ding hadn't seen Shen Yichen during this period, but he heard a lot of rumors about him, such as how he won the first place in both the county and prefectural examinations, how the private school of Duke Chengguo cheated, and how his poem "Sword Like Rainbow" "killed everyone" at the flower-viewing poetry party. All of these rumors were well-known to him.
To be honest, Sun Ding had never expected that at the family dinner at Duke Chengguo's mansion, an unattractive young man sitting at the last seat could turn the literary world of Yingtian Prefecture upside down.
However, no matter how brilliant one is in the literary world, it cannot compare to the name on the gold list. Today, whether Shen Yichen will make it to the top or fail depends on these two questions on the Four Books and Five Classics.
