The ninth day of the eighth month, midnight.

Zhou Chong carried the huge examination box and said to Wang Yuan: "Second brother, everything is packed, you can check it again."

Wang Yuan squatted in front of the examination box and looked through it slowly. He had two brushes, two inkstones, three ink strips, dry food, drinking water, candles, fire folds... all of them were available. In addition, there were oil cloths and blankets, which were tied without putting them in the examination box.

"Ga!"

Several doors in the yard were pushed open one after another.

The book boys were playing torches, and the students clasped their fists to each other and blessed: "I will win this subject!"

Although Jin Ju didn't say anything, he still bowed his fists to the others and returned the greeting.

The students in the yard outside were also ready, and there was another burst of blessing, and everyone came to the street one after another.

Qingyun Street was filled with people, and the light of torches was everywhere, and laughter came from time to time. There was an occasional scream, but I forgot to bring my admission ticket and ran back to my residence to get it.

Even if you rent a house near the Gongyuan, you have to clean it up at 1:00 a.m. If you live in a hotel further away, you will have to prepare to go out the night before.

Before the fourth day of the morning, at about 2:30 in the morning, all the students gathered in front of the dragon gate.

The government has prepared long-distance lanterns, and each one has a place name written on it. For example, Wang Yuan and others gathered in front of the lanterns of the "Guizhou Xuanwei Office" - if it is replaced by the land in the south of the Yangtze River, it is necessary to queue up in counties, because there are many candidates in each county.

Tian Qiu and Wang Yuan said goodbye with fists and ran to the line in front of the card lights of "Guizhou Sinan Mansion". There were only more than a dozen people in his lineup.

Wang Yuan carefully observed the entire Guizhou team and found that nearly 400 people took the exam, which may have been stimulated by the two additional juren quotas this year.

If the imperial court takes 30, the number of candidates for the full number of candidates in Guizhou should be 630. If there are too many candidates, the number of candidates in each province should determine the list based on the scores after the examination of the subject. The number of candidates for the examination cannot exceed the quota of the province multiplied by 30.

There are several sects in the Gongyuan, and all the scholars from Guizhou gathered at the West Gate. The inspectors named the name - the central sect is the most valued, and the supervisors personally named it.

"Wang Yuan, a student at Guizhou Xuanwei Department!"

When Wang Yuan heard his name, he walked over quickly with the exam box.

One inspector took the admission ticket and carefully compared Wang Yuan's appearance characteristics. Another inspector searched Wang Yuan's examination box, and finally another inspector searched him.

After the inspection, the inspector said to Wang Yuan: "Go and get the papers and wait to enter the venue according to the number."

Wang Yuan received the answer sheet and draft paper, and stood inside and waited.

Li Ying had already come in and smiled and said, "I hope you don't go to shit, haha."

Shit is a room specially used for shit and peeing. Each examination room has one or two rooms.

Fortunately, in the Ming Dynasty, one test only took one day, and there was not much more feces and urine. In the Qing Dynasty, one test took three days, and they had to eat, drink, defecate and urinate in the examination room. You can imagine how odor the shit was.

After waiting for a while, it was finally Wang Yuan's turn to enter the venue and soon found his seat.

It’s a pity that there are four or five test seats away from Shit Number, and the impact is not too great.

The examination room is a large square, some provinces are rich and powerful, so they are paved with bluestone slabs. Yunnan is a bit bad, all of which are compacted mud. Since the tribute court has not been opened for three years, the grass grows taller than people, so it needs to be cleaned one or two months in advance. Some grass poles remained under Wang Yuan’s seat.

There are many trumpets in the square, each trumpet is about ten feet long, just like a bamboo and wood cage for livestock. The trumpets are separated into countless trumpet houses (examination rooms), which are similar in size to public security booths, but they are very low, so Wang Yuan could only bend over and enter.

As soon as Wang Yuan entered the house, a soldier came immediately. This kind of soldier was called "公司".

A number army guards a candidate to prevent anyone from cheating, but they can only stand outside the number house and cannot enter the house to disturb the candidates' answers.

Wang Yuan stood up with his waist and cleaned up the spider webs and dust in his house. Then he took out a hammer, nails and oil cloth and covered the entire house with oil cloth to prevent the wind, sun and rain.

If the oil cloth is not nailed firmly, you have to worry about accidents - let’s not mention it when you are in the rain. If you encounter strong winds, blow away your written answer sheet, and you won’t even cry.

Nailing oil cloth is a necessary skill for scholars, and even the giant baby and talented Jin Gu are very skilled.

After completing these preparations, it was already five o'clock in the morning (about five o'clock in the morning).

"Dong...dong!dong!dong!dong!"

One slow, four quick, five sounds, which was a fight outside. The updater even shouted the slogan of avoiding ghosts and exorcising souls: "If you have wronged, you will be revenge!"

Originally, the candidates wanted to take a nap in the middle of the night, but they didn't feel sleepy when they heard the shouts.

Wang Yuan was quite determined and fell asleep on the table.

But less than a quarter of an hour after sleeping, the Hu Jun, who was standing outside, typing on the Hu Jun house and reminded him: "Have you got up, the question paper is here!"

Historically, due to the serious cheating of the imperial examination, the Jiajing Dynasty carried out many reforms. For example, the provincial examination questions must be temporarily decided by the examiner and the supervisor on the day of the examination, and the candidates are allowed to issue randomly intercepted strange questions.

But it is still the Zhengde period, and there are not so many rules for the provincial examination. The examination questions were issued two or three days in advance, and there were no interrogation questions that disrupted the meaning of the classics. This kind of question can be issued at most when the candidates were candidates.

At this time, the sky was getting brighter, and Wang Yuan lit a candle and read the topic while grinding the ink.

The intensity of the provincial examination in the Ming Dynasty was very high. One test a day was performed. The first test was to write seven eight-part essays, including three questions in the four books and four questions in the five classics. The papers must be submitted at dusk. That is to say, the real answer time is only one day, and the seven eight-part essays are enough for the candidates to work hard.

In the Qing Dynasty, the time required was much more abundant, and the examination content did not change much, but there were three days and two nights to answer questions, so the grinder could also be polished out.

After briefly scanning the seven questions, Wang Yuan closed his eyes and conceived the first question.

When the sky was clear, Wang Yuan blew off the candle and began to write it on the draft paper. No one came to stamp the provincial examination, so he could freely allocate time and hand in the paper before dusk.

The first question is taken from "Mencius: The Complete Heart": "What is great and transformed is called saints, and what is saints but unknowable is called gods."

The examiner was very tricky in giving the questions. He discussed the word "sacred", and even Zhu Xi's annotations were not explained clearly.

Zhu Xi just quoted Zhang Zai and Cheng Yi and added his own understanding to explain it. The general meaning was: "Great can be done, but transformation is difficult. To be great means that a person's greatness has been integrated into all aspects, and you cannot even see his greatness. This is a saint. As for God, it is not that there are gods and people above the saints, but that gods and people have already achieved their ultimate goal, and mortals cannot even imagine it."

If we contact the context of "Mencius", we can explain it from the perspective of "learning and achieving it", but if we want to write the eight-legged essays with great significance, we must contact the "Only the most sincere world can be transformed" in "The Doctrine of the Mean".

Most candidates have already written a poem at this time, but they are basically limited to "Mencius: The Complete Heart", so it is difficult to associate the relevant content of "The Doctrine of the Mean".

Wang Yuan smiled and quickly solved the question: "The great sage regards the name of the Holy Spirit to show the ultimate achievement of learning."

He also solved the problem from "learning and learning", and then used "reason" to follow the topic: "When it is great and the holy spirit, it is all full of principles." He began to speak again: "However, if it is not learned, how can it be tame?"

The wonderful thing is that after "Chinese stocks", it directly turns to "Doctor of the Mean", explaining that only those who are sincere can achieve the holy spirit. The conclusion of the whole article is "learning with sincerity", and returns to "Mencius·The Complete Heart", which perfectly combines learning, sincerity, benevolence, wisdom, goodness, reason with greatness and saints, and saints unknowing.

After all, Wang Yuan studied with Wang Yangming for more than a year and unconsciously integrated into the idea of ​​"unity of knowledge and action", but the manifestation was not abrupt, nor did he violate Zhu Xi's annotations.
Chapter completed!