Along the way, Tang Shen thought carefully about Liang Song’s words, and he suddenly became more confident about the county exam the day after tomorrow.

In the past four months, Liang Song could always find flaws in the essays and test poems he wrote. However, now he finally understood that the flaws his teacher picked out were never that the content he wrote was not good, but that he could express his thoughts in a better form.

You c an fi nd t he la te st cha pte rs at ( th e bl mu se . c o m )

Compared with the ancients, what was Tang Shen’s advantage? His advantage was that he had a free mind and soul that transcended the times! He would not be shackled by this era, and his vision would always be a step higher than that of people of this era. This was his greatest advantage, and perhaps one of the reasons why he was accepted by Liang Song as his student.

Tang Shen had some thoughts about the county exam, and suddenly he remembered something.

“Sir, were you really unable to climb Xiangshan today?”

Liang Song was stunned and asked, “Why do you ask that?”

Tang Shen: “Sir, you just want me to climb to the top alone?”

Liang Song: “Haha, you kiddo, you think a lot. I’m old and can’t climb anymore. The mountains stand tall and the scenery stops. Although I can’t reach it, my heart longs for it!”

The teacher and student stayed at Zhao juren‘s house for another night. Tang Shen copied the books. The day before the county exam, they returned to Gusu City.

On the day of the county examination, crowds of scholars gathered before dawn outside the examination halls in the five counties of Gusu Prefecture.

Under the sky full of stars, government officials guarded the entrance to the examination hall, and the local county magistrate was present in person. The governor of Gusu Prefecture was Liang Bowen, but during the imperial examinations, Gusu City was merged with the adjacent Wu County for the examination. Wu County Magistrate Jia Liangsheng arrived early, wearing official robes and a black gauze official hat, holding a long white jade ceremonial tablet.

Jia Liangsheng sat in the middle of the entrance door of the examination hall. At this time, one main door and two side doors of the examination hall were all opened. There was a table and chairs in front of the main entrance, and Jia Liangsheng sat there. The two side doors were each guarded by government workers.

When the time came, Jia Liangsheng shouted: “The candidates may come in.”

The county deputy took the order, stepped forward, and called out the candidates’ names. Each time he called out five candidates, the five candidates would walk out of the row of candidates, and look at each other to confirm that the other four were correct. The county deputy called again: “Who is the guarantee?” At this time, a xiucai came forward and called out his own name, indicating the name and place of the people he guaranteed.

This was the five-person joint guarantee system of the ancient imperial examination.

Before the exam, five candidates must be found to jointly guarantee each other. The five people then find someone of a scholarly rank together and ask the scholar to vouch for them: guaranteeing that the candidate was who they say they were, had a clean background, and had no criminal history in three generations of their family. If anyone among these five people and the guarantee scholar cheated, the remaining five people would all be disqualified from the imperial exam, lose their honors, and be thrown into prison for trial.

The county deputy shouted: “Sun Yue, Li Jin… Tang Shen!”

Tang Shen stepped forward and confirmed each other’s identities with Sun Yue and the others. And with a xiucai acting as a guarantee, their group also passed.

The county deputy confirmed that all candidates have vouched for each other, and the chief registrar of Wu County then came forward. Each time he called out the names of two candidates, the two candidates each walked to a side door.

Gusu Prefecture was a prosperous place and an important place for imperial examinations, with many talented scholars. Each candidate carried a long-eared examination basket and walked to the side door and handed his identity booklet to the government worker. After the government worker checked it, he was then released into the examination hall.

“Gusu City, Tang Shen!”

Tang Shen walked to the side door on the left. A government worker took his exam basket and checked whether there was anything he shouldn’t have brought. Another government worker took his identity booklet and looked at his face.

The identity booklet stated: Tang Shen, tall and slightly thin, with no birthmark, fair face and good looks.

“Pass!”

After the body search, Tang Shen entered the examination hall carrying his examination basket.

After all the candidates entered, they gathered in the open space in front of the examination hall. Wu County Magistrate Jia Liangsheng came in and ordered the examination hall door to be closed. The three doors were immediately closed. After Jia Liangsheng completed the inspection, everyone took their seats according to the number cards they were issued.

There were a total of 120 seats in the examination hall, arranged in ten columns and twelve rows, arranged according to the heavenly stems and earthly branches. Tang Shen’s position was ding wei (forty fourth year D8 of the 60 year cycle, e.g. 1967 or 2027), which was the fourth column and eighth row.

This examination hall was completely different from when Liang Song brought Tang Shen to see it last year. In addition to one hundred and twenty more desks and chairs, a roof was built in the examination hall to prevent the examination papers from being exposed to the sun and rain. However, no matter how well prepared the yamen was, once the 120 people were seated, the examination hall soon became stuffy and smelly.

Tang Shen sighed, already very satisfied.

Gusu Prefecture was a main place for imperial examinations. The government here attached great importance to the imperial examinations, and had the conditions to provide more than 100 desks, chairs, and a roof for candidates. As for some poor and remote places, don’t even think about building a roof. Candidates had to even prepare desks and chairs by themselves and carry them into the examination hall. Sometimes scholars from poor families could not find a desk at home, and even had to borrow tables and chairs from restaurants and teahouses to use as tables and chairs for the exams.

All candidates sat down and the government workers began to distribute test papers and answer sheets.

Hearing the crisp ringing of the gong, Tang Shen opened the test paper and read the questions clearly.

The first question: “When a nation or clan is about to flourish, there are sure to be happy omens.”

Tang Shen was stunned.

This question was so simple!

The county examination was the only one among all the imperial examinations in which the county magistrate could independently make questions. In order to show their erudition and talent, many county magistrates would come up with some weird and bizarre questions, such as the rumored intercepting questions. Tang Shen pondered about it and realized that Jia Liangsheng, the magistrate of Wuxian County, was only twenty-six years old this year and had only taken up his post in Wuxian County last year. He had no roots in Gusu Prefecture, nor was he an old-school county magistrate, he had no intention of making it difficult for the candidates.

This sentence “When a nation or clan is about to flourish, there are sure to be happy omens” comes from “The Doctrine of the Mean” Chapter 24. The original sentence was “When a nation or clan is about to flourish, there are sure to be happy omens; when a nation or clan is about to perish, there are sure to be ill omens.” It meant that when a country or clan was about to prosper, there would be auspicious signs and when the country or clan was about to fall, there would be evildoers causing trouble.

The question was not obscure and the meaning of the question was very clear.

The question was simple so candidates were less likely to make mistakes. But simple questions also made it more difficult to get high scores and get a good ranking.

His teacher once said that his greatest advantage was that he could see further than people of this era and think more openly than people of this era.

After thinking for a long time, Tang Shen opened his eyes and wrote the first sentence on the draft paper.

“Man has a period of prosperity, Heaven has a response to peace. Interactions between Heaven and man, such opportunities are very good. It is said that this is Heaven at peace and harmony, rather than a sign of human affairs. I don’t believe it.”

After writing this sentence, Tang Shen looked at it carefully. This time he was very aggressive in breaking the topic. If he made a mistake here, he would make mistakes every step after. But this was what he wanted to say: I don’t believe it!

After breaking the topic, Tang Shen had the rest in his mind, and he started writing as if words flowed out of him. Soon he finished the initial leg, middle leg, later leg, and final leg all in one go.

After he finished writing, he checked it carefully to make sure there were no flaws, and then copied it onto the answer sheet. You could scribble freely on the scratch paper, but there should be no stains on the actual answer paper. If there were traces of modification or smearing, the most you would receive was a deduction of points in the modern world, but in this era, it could directly turn an excellent essay into scrap.

After finishing copying in Guange style, Tang Shen was already sweating profusely.

He looked at the second question. This second question was also not difficult at all. The title was “the marriage of Wu”, which comes from “The Analects of Confucius·Shuer”. The original sentence was “I have heard that the gentleman is not partisan, but maybe he can be since Prince Wu took a wife with the same surname, saying that she came from ‘the elder family of Wu.’ If this prince knew the rules of propriety, then who doesn’t know them?”

It was about a passage by the Minister of Justice Chen criticizing Confucius.

The Minister of Justice Chen asked Confucius if Duke Zhao of Lu was a man who understood etiquette. Confucius said yes. After Confucius left, he said to Wu Maqi, I heard that a gentleman (Confucius) never protects others biasedly. Would a gentleman also be biased? Duke Zhao of Lu married a woman of Wu whose surname was also Ji, so he asked her to change her name to Wu Mengzi. Was Duke Zhao also aware of etiquette?

Tang Shen did not intend to take any more risks with this question. For the sake of conservatism, he broke the topic by saying, “It was disrespectful for Duke Zhao to marry someone with the same surname and have the other change their surname.” He quickly wrote a well-organized essay.

After finishing the second eight-legged essay, it was already noon, and some candidates took out dry food and started eating.

Tang Shen carefully copied the essays on the draft paper onto the answer sheet. He wanted to solve as many test questions as possible while he still had the energy and the examination hall environment was good. Otherwise, by the time an issue cropped up, it would be too late.

After finishing transferring over the answer to this question, Tang Shen took out the dry biscuit in his exam basket and began to eat it. He had just eaten half of it when he smelled a foul stench.

Tang Shen: “…”

Whose fart was that? It stank to high heaven! ! !

Suddenly the mood for eating was gone, and Tang Shen looked at the last test poem.

When solving test poems for exams in the previous dynasty, candidates were only required to write a five-character and six-rhyme poem according to the topic. In this dynasty, the late emperor, on the basis of the previous dynasty, required that eight-legged essays could be added to the test poems. This meant that when candidates wrote test poems, they had the option of only writing poems regardless of content. But if the poem written by the candidate had an eight-legged essay incorporated, and it was not just a poem, only then could they get high marks.

Whether it was essay or poetry writing, there were four levels: 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. In other words, if you want your test poem to get first-rank, you must write an eight-legged test poem. Otherwise, even if you were the Poet Immortal reincarnated, you would only get a second-rank at best.

The topic of Jia Liangsheng’s test poem was “Thoroughbred Horse Neighs”.

Thoroughbred horse, a fine steed.

An ancient article “On Horses” immediately appeared in Tang Shen’s mind! There was no “On Horse” written by Han Yu in this era.

Only after Bole came into the world were there horses able to gallop one thousand li. Such horses are common, but a Bole is rare.

But does this mean there are truly no good horses, or that he does not understand horses?

Tang Shen immediately had an idea, and he wrote: “The fine steed is a confidant, its neighing suddenly became abnormal…”

After finishing writing, he pondered over words’ level and oblique tones, changed a few words, and copied the poem onto the answer sheet.

After doing all this, Tang Shen looked up again and found that the sun was already setting. At this time, the earliest prescribed time for handing in papers had passed. Six candidates had already handed in their papers and were sitting in their seats waiting. Each time, ten candidates’ papers must be collected before the door could be opened. The first ten candidates who submitted their papers were the most distinguished and were called the “top candidates.” When they leave, there would be ceremonial gongs and drums to see them off.

Tang Shen checked his paper to make sure it was correct and handed it to Jia Liangsheng.

Jia Liangsheng glanced at Tang Shen, took his paper and put it on the desk. He glanced briefly at Tang Shen’s paper. The first thing he looked at was the test poem “Endowed With The Neighing Of The Fine Steed” written by Tang Shen. Jia Liangsheng’s eyes lit up and he nodded frequently. Then he looked at the second essay “the marriage of Wu”, and his expression didn’t change much.

You c an fi nd t he la te st cha pte rs at ( th e bl mu se . c o m )

When he saw the first essay, “When a nation or clan is about to flourish, there are sure to be happy omens”, Jia Liangsheng was stunned and astonished. Then, as if his whole body was struck by lightning, he stopped secretly peeking in astonishment. Instead, he held the paper in front of himself openly and read the essay seriously.

This scene was seen by the candidates who had already handed in their papers. They were all startled. They knew that Magistrate Jia’s reaction was that the paper was either brilliant or terrible. But among the seven people who had already submitted their papers, Tang Shen was the only one who didn’t notice Jia Liangsheng’s actions because…

He was about to faint from the odor!

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