The imperial examinations were selected for scholars, founded in the Sui Dynasty and began in the Tang Dynasty, but it was not until the previous dynasty that a set of rules and scales were truly formed. After the Dayue Dynasty, it was completed and became a real court ceremony, allowing more ordinary people to advance.

However, due to some movements in later generations, all the systems of the ancients were worthless for a period of time, and the most criticized one was the imperial examination system. After all, there were too many mediocre officials selected from this system, and there were too many so-called people who were not talented and unacceptable were blocked from the officialdom by it, and some people even wrote books to implicitly sarcastically in the Ming Dynasty.

But in fact, the imperial examination system has become the most advanced talent selection method in the world in the Middle Ages. Compared with any other means of selecting talents, it is the fairest one. At least under the imperial examination system, whether you can succeed depends only on your personal talent knowledge, not your origin, and no longer the future of some big shots can determine a person's future in just one sentence.

How did the court select talents before the imperial examination? It was first self-recommendation, but you had to have a certain reputation before you could get the eye of high-ranking officials. This was obviously not something that ordinary people could do. Then there was the so-called system of recommendation and the Nine-rank Zhongzheng system. Perhaps these systems were fair at the beginning, but as time went by, the result would be that the family members of the poor had no chance to stand out.

Therefore, it was not until the Sui and Tang dynasties that the imperial examination system was adopted, which was a relatively fair method. However, even in the Tang Dynasty, which had officially promoted the imperial examination, there were actually still candidates who were directly promoted by high-ranking officials and were not regarded as fraud at that time. It was not until the Song Dynasty that the situation was curbed, and the imperial examination system finally became like that. The poor family finally stood on the same starting line with the rich children - at least it seemed like that.

The Dayue Dynasty inherited many systems of the Song Dynasty, including the imperial examinations, but also improved them. For example, in addition to composition, poetry was also an extremely important part of the scientific examinations of the Song Dynasty. However, in the Dayue Dynasty, Taizu and Sun Tu issued an order early in the morning to cancel the writing of poetry in the imperial examinations, and replaced them with the assessment of various official articles.

However, what is most important in the exam is the article that really determines the scores of the candidates. However, it is not the eight-part essay promoted by the Ming and Qing dynasties in history, but is more similar to the style of crafts and ancient Chinese, and is more free. However, if you really write it well, it will be a test of the academic talents of the candidates, and it is now called the time essay.

The county exam is for a whole day. There are three articles to do, all of which are selective. They are selected from the three questions of the Four Books, choose one of the four questions of the Five Classics, and choose one of the three official styles of the three official styles. The last question is actually not very important. As long as the first two questions are well written, they can be won.

The four books in today's county examination were taken from "Mencius", "The Great Learning" and "The Doctrine of the Mean", while the five classics were drawn from "Shangshu", "The Book of Changes", and "Spring and Autumn Annals" (two ways). Li Ling was slightly stunned when he heard the oral narration of Wei Liang, because he had a question written at home after he gave the question, and he had been instructed to improve it.

In other words, he had already done this exam many days ago and had mastered the correct answer. This was really too much. But soon, Li Ling calmed down again, which was actually reasonable. After all, he had a deep relationship with the Wei County Magistrate, and the county examination was not a particularly strict matter, and he didn't even have a name. If he really wanted to win, he wouldn't have a word from the county magistrate?

Li Ling was not polite at the moment, and soon wrote down the Five Classics title that he was most familiar with, and it was a version of the introduction and improvement of Wei Liang's guidance. The word selection and sentence use had already reached a very high level. Then there was the title of the Four Books, but before continuing to write, Li Ling hesitated for a moment.

The safest thing is of course to write down the article he had written and revised that day, but is there anything wrong with doing this? After thinking for a while, Li Ling suddenly changed his mind and chose another title taken from "The Great Learning" - "Absent-minded, blindly obeying, not listening, not hearing, and not knowing the taste of food. This means cultivating oneself means correcting one's heart."

This question is actually quite straightforward. It is not as confusing as those weird interrogators later. It just asks the candidates to explain some principles of a gentleman cultivating and uprightening his mind. Of course, this is not enough to just say it. It also needs to be discussed in combination with the context and then through many annotations and some of his own insights, at least it must be meaningful and reasonable.

After a few months of sudden writing after the Chinese New Year, Li Ling has indeed made considerable progress in writing articles. The topic is not very difficult at this moment, so as long as he grasps the direction and grasps the argument, he can write the article well. Although it is not as good as another article that has been corrected by Wei Liang, it is also one of the top articles among many articles he has been in the past few days.

It was just that I spent more time writing this way. It was not until noon that I finally finished the second major question. When I looked up again, I found that some of the candidates around me were still writing hard, while some began to take out the already cold food and eat it.

Li Ling felt hungry at this time, so he put down his pen and took the meat pie that Yue'er prepared for him and started to chew. However, the thing became cold and a little dry and hard. After taking a few bites, his throat felt uncomfortable and he couldn't help coughing.

In fact, it was not only him, but other candidates who ate also coughed softly for some reasons. Some people used water to drink, but it was too cold, which aggravated the cough a little. Li Ling took out the water bottle and felt hesitant.

At this moment, Su Bing came to Li Ling again, put a clay pot on his table, and smiled at him again. Li Ling glanced up and found that the water in the jar was still steaming. Obviously, he had already arranged it for him. He was not polite at the moment. After nodding to thank the other party, he drank the hot water in the clay pot. In this way, the dried meat patties tasted much better.

For a moment, many envious eyes came straight towards Li Ling. Everyone was drinking cold water, but you had hot water supply. They were all candidates. The gap was too big, right?

However, in front of the county magistrate, these candidates did not dare to speak, so they could only take a look at each other angrily, and then continued to eat their own. Anyway, people compare themselves and don’t be human...

After eating and drinking, Li Ling felt a little urinating as soon as he picked up his pen. After all, it had been a whole morning and the gate had not been opened to release water. At that moment, he picked up a bamboo stick, signaled to the yamen officer who was invigilating the exam next to him, and quickly walked out.

In fact, not only him, but others have also acted similarly. Because the county examination room is very simple, there is neither a separate examination room nor a toilet in the examination room, the candidates have to go out and release it. For the order of the examination room, everyone got two bamboo sticks as early as when they entered the venue, which is the certificate for going to the toilet during the examination. There are only two opportunities and time limits. Once they are used up, they can only pull in their pants for the third time or give up the exam...

After turning around, Li Ling finally calmed down and began to deal with the third not-so-important question.

The so-called judgment list is all official articles. The script is the statement made by the superior to the subordinate's yamen, and the statement is the official document submitted by the subordinate to the superior. As for the judgment, it is the judgment made by the government office on a lawsuit.

In fact, in Li Ling's opinion, these three questions are the necessary conditions for becoming an official, but they are much more practical than the Four Books and Five Classics. However, most of the candidates nowadays have never been exposed to such official documents, so for them, these documents are the most difficult to write. At least the court does not attach much importance to them at the moment, and it will pass if it is a little decent.

However, Li Ling was familiar with this. After all, he had been a poor student in the county government for several months. He read more than a hundred articles of various writings, so he naturally read them at this moment. It took less than half an hour to complete the last question.

At this point, he had successfully completed the three questions of the county exam. Looking at the left and right, everyone was still thinking hard and burying their heads. After all, except for the second and fourth book questions, he spent some time, and the other two questions were given for free.

At this time, Li Ling could hand over the person directly, but he did not do so. Instead, he pretended to wait for a while until the sun slowly set to the west and he felt the desire to pee again, and finally saw a candidate taking the article and handing the paper.

When he saw the candidate coming up, Wei Liang looked at Li Ling thoughtfully, then accepted the paper, and whispered a few words to the candidate before letting him leave.

Then the second person who handed in the paper also went up and said a few words to the county magistrate as usual. If you want to say that the county exam is not strict, not only will the title not be discarded, but the candidates can also talk to the examiner when handing in the paper. Maybe they will be appreciated and won directly - of course, this is the benefit of the first few people who handed in the paper. If there are too many people behind, the examiner will not be able to pay attention to you.

Li Ling also stood up at the moment. As the third person who submitted the paper, it was not too eye-catching, at least he thought so himself.

Wei Liang smiled and said, "How did the exam?"

"It's done."

"Why did you just hand in this time? I think you were sitting there more than half an hour ago."

"Uh, I don't want to attract too much attention, the impact is not good."

While speaking, Wei Liang flipped through his article casually. When he saw the title of the Four Books, he was obviously stunned: "Why choose this question?"

"Although I have a great grasp of the other question, this is also my exam for myself."

Wei Liang looked at him deeply, quickly swept the whole article, and smiled on his face: "No, I've made progress again, and I can prepare for the next home test." As he said that, he picked up his pen and drew a circle on Li Ling's test paper, which was considered to have won him on the spot.

He was a little confused about Li Ling's approach at first, and then satisfied. The previous writing of one question was to carry his kindness, while the other question was not selected and written, but to show his strength and avoid making mistakes and being told by others. It can be said that it is quite safe. Therefore, this progress can refer to articles and people.
Chapter completed!