Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 362 Take the case lightly (Part [-])
On the tenth day of the first lunar month, the Xinzheng county government announced to the whole county that the county examination had been scheduled for the twelfth of February this year, and the examination would be held at the county government.

After hearing the news, Gao Wushi had no airs about the prince's close ministers, so he went to the county government office to sign up in person the next morning, filling in his name, place of origin, age, and the three-generation resumes of his parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, and showing the prepared documents in advance. The school in this county produces a bond certificate to prove that he has no false identity, concealment, replacement, or false name, and that he has a clean net worth, and that he is not a prostitute, a prostitute, a soap, a slave servant, or his descendants.

The officials of the Xinzheng County Government Office are all local hereditary officials from generation to generation. For them, even if they don’t know the magistrate of the county, they dare not not know the young master of the Gao family who is taking the exam. Therefore, every necessary step has been arranged long ago. Good man, finish it respectfully and with high pragmatism.

On the twelfth day of the second month, the sixth house of Gao's family sent four domestic servants who were most familiar with the county government officials, together with ten Gao Yushi's cavalry, to escort Gao Yushi to the county government office to wait for the examination under the leadership of Gao Yu.

In fact, Gao Yushi arrived at the county seat a day earlier, and slept in Wubo Gaocai's place that night. It was only two miles away from the county government office, so he didn't need any guards at all, but Mrs. Zhang disagreed, thinking that this was Gao Yushi's first scientific examination in his life , there can be no accidents - even if he is walking on the road, no one can delay him for a moment.

The majesty and prestige of a powerful eunuch, high pragmatism is very experienced.

When Gao Wushi arrived at the county government office according to the usual scientific examination time, it was still dark and the lamps in front of the government office were brightly lit. The county magistrate was already sitting on the stage outside the gate. , Gao Wushi took the long-eared bamboo basket from Gao Yu, who was a temporary guest student, after the test was awarded, and entered the arena with the basket.

The long-eared bamboo basket carried the pen, ink, inkstone and food needed for the exam, but no paper was needed, because the exam paper was prepared by the county government office. There were more than ten pages of roll paper, each page had fourteen lines, and each line had ten Bazi, with red lines and vertical grids, and several blank draft papers.

Xinzheng is not counted as a county, it is only a middle county, and there is no special examination room, so the examination place is in the lobby of the county government.The lobby has five rooms and two volumes, a total of ten rooms. It is extremely spacious. It was originally the place where important cases were heard and the rules of office arrangement were enforced. At present, there are tables and chairs on both sides of the lobby and under the corridor for examination purposes.

The seat number is printed on each examination paper, but in fact, the county examination does not require you to sit according to the seat number, so candidates often snatch the second and third seats that are well-lit and protected from the sun and rain after entering the hall. rows of seats.This is because the head row is under the eaves, and although the light is sufficient, it is difficult to shelter from the wind and rain, while the seats in the back are not well lit.There is only one day in the county examination, and no lights are allowed, which is called "not following the candle". If the light is too dark, it will be very disadvantageous for the examination.

However, Gao Yushi obviously has certain privileges. Although there are quite a lot of candidates competing for seats, his seat has never been robbed, allowing him to easily sit in the third row in the second row-this is the best seat, obviously It was also arranged by the county clerk in advance for him.

After the county lord finished roll call, all the children entered the hall, and then the county government sealed the door and locked it, and the county lord personally announced the exam questions.

In the Ming Dynasty, there was only one exam in the county examination, and all four books were given. In the south, there were usually two stereotyped essays in the exam, and in the north, there was only one exam.

The so-called small questions are questions with incomplete meaning.This kind of question either takes a word or a few words from the Four Books; or cuts off the first half of a sentence with a complete meaning and leaves only the half sentence, which is called a cut-off question; or cuts off a sentence with a complete meaning. Leaving only the first half of a sentence is called truncating the next question.

When doing the truncated question or the truncated question, the words of the truncated part must not be directly written in the text, but the meaning of the truncated part must be included, so it is very difficult to do.There are also titles such as partial questions and dry questions.

The more difficult small problems are the so-called interception problems.Take a sentence in the Four Books or Five Classics, cut off the first half of it, and then put it on the top half of the next sentence, which is called an interception question.

Some interception questions even match the first half of the first sentence of a section or a chapter, often the meanings of the two sentences have nothing to do with each other, and candidates have to try to connect the meanings of the two sentences, which is the most difficult thing to do .However, because this kind of topic can best exercise and test the candidates' thinking, it is widely used in children's examinations, but not commonly used in rural and general examinations.

As for the reason, it is also simple.The township examination and general examination already belonged to the grand ceremony of talent selection, and the use of such questions that split the meaning of the scriptures was inconsistent with the purpose of the imperial examination to instill Confucian orthodoxy among scholars.

Gao Wushi sat down and found that there were many more draft papers on his desk than those on the neighbor's desk, and he couldn't help but be a little dumbfounded.

In fact, he didn't feel that he needed extra care for taking the county exam.But looking back, with his Gao family's status in Xinzheng, if he just took care of him and didn't do anything more out of the ordinary, he was considered very moral!

Gao Yushi opened the question paper and saw that it said "know it or know it from birth".

Sure enough, it was an interception question, but fortunately, the interception was not very biased.

This question comes from Chapter 20 of "The Doctrine of the Mean": "You may know it by birth, or you may know it by learning, or you may know it when you are tired, and it is one of the knowledge."

Hey, the meaning of this question, could it be...

Gao Yushi subconsciously raised his head and looked at the county magistrate sitting on the stage, only to see that the county magistrate who was not young happened to be looking at him too. Through various rumors about his child prodigy, he regards himself as a person who was "born to know it", but he used this topic to remind himself not to be proud just because he was born knowing it, because those who "know it by learning" and "know it by being difficult" As long as you "know it" in the end, according to Confucius, it's all the same.

Of course, understanding what the county lord kindly reminded me is not the same thing as "solving the problem", and solving the problem depends on the skills of writing articles.

However, although this question is a cut-and-set question, the county may have considered the general level of students in the north, so the meaning of this question has not been separated, and it is still a question with a clear theme.

Gao Wu said honestly: Knowledge, benevolence, and courage are the virtues of the world; life knowledge, learning knowledge, and difficult knowledge can all be obtained in order to walk safely, benefit, and encourage, so the ancients said "it is one of knowledge", " And it's a success."

Therefore, the gist of this question should be determined as follows: learn to live in peace, learn to learn to benefit from learning, and learn to learn and practice, and according to the traditional Confucian habits, the focus should be on "understanding and practicing".

With a smile on his face, Gao Wushi studied the ink easily, picked up the pen and flicked the pen, without any delay, and started to draft the draft as smoothly as possible.

Seeing this, the county venerable on the stage was quite surprised. After thinking for a while, he couldn't help standing up and starting to patrol the field, but deliberately walked to Gao Yushi's side.

I saw that Gao Yushi had already written three paragraphs in standard Taige style.

The county venerable only glanced at the high-practical problem, and said in his heart: There are no worthless people under the fame.

But I saw the inscription on the high-level and pragmatic draft:

The attainments of knowing are not all the same, and being able to know is no different from knowing.

　Writing the exam, today is just this chapter, I don’t think I need to explain why...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)