Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 367
After the roll call is completed, the candidates enter the venue.At this time, all the candidates took their seats according to the number printed on the upper right side of the paper, and a number was pasted on the long desk every two feet.

Gao Yushi looked around randomly before taking his seat, and found that he might be one of the youngest among the candidates this year. The reference value is not great.But he couldn't help but mutter to himself: If I had known that there were so many candidates, I should have discussed it with my third uncle when I was in the capital, and just give me a "child prodigy".

The so-called "raising child prodigies" is a unique rule of the Ming Dynasty, which is a special exam.It means that occasionally there are children around ten years old in a certain place who are extremely intelligent, and they can be recommended by the county, state, and prefecture officials as child prodigies to participate in the Taoist examination.Inspectors will take special care of such people and treat them differently.

This kind of young prodigy candidates, even if their stereotyped arts and sciences are slightly poor, as long as they are still passable among adult candidates, they will usually be admitted as an exception.In history, Feng Menglong, a great talent in Wanli period, was once elected as a child prodigy, and became a scholar at the age of 11.

This system of child prodigies is not a fabrication, but a historical fact. It is very likely that it was caused by the fact that there were too many child prodigies in the Ming Dynasty.

There were many child prodigies in the Ming Dynasty, which have already been explained in the previous article, so there is no need to repeat them.But in fact, not only are there many child prodigies, but there are also many who have directly recorded in history.For example, during the Jiajing period, Zhao Shichun, who was as famous as Tang Shunzhi and Wang Shenzhong, was also a master of stereotyped essays.

At the age of nine, Zhao Shichun "raised a child prodigy" to take part in the Taoist examination, but because the essay he wrote was too good, the supervisor suspected that someone had written it for him, so he called him for an interview, and he came up with the most common two characters in "Four Books" on the spot. Title: "Zi said", ask him to solve the problem.

Zhao Shichun said in response: "Every man is the teacher of a hundred generations, and a word is the law of the world."

This question is not only in line with the identity of Confucius, but also completely breaks the meaning of the two characters, which surprised the inspector.But after being amazed, the inspector wanted to try his talent again, so he asked him to use his name "Zhao Shichun" as a problem to solve the problem.

The child prodigy is worthy of being a child prodigy, Zhao Shichun still blurted out: "The surname is the first among hundreds of families, and the first name is the first among the four seasons."

This is... so clever that it doesn't make sense.The inspector was also very impressed, and immediately took it, and entered the school as a student.

Closer to home, Gao Wushi took a closer look at this time, and found that at the outermost end of each bench, there was an instructor from each county standing on the high bench to invigilate the exam.In this situation, he had heard Gao Gong tell him before that if someone whispered at this time, the invigilator would give orders to stop them, and even put a red seal on the test papers of the candidates who violated the discipline, as a violation of the rules.

Others, such as moving seats, changing papers, throwing papers, making noise, looking around, jumping over, and chanting, can be deducted from the test if it is light, and cannoned if it is serious.

Not long after Gao Yushi sat down, Li Yuantai, the supervisor, came out. He came here to set a question.It must be added here: there are more than one question in the Taoist test, but "one test and one test".

That is to say, due to the large number of people, the Daoist Examination is conducted in batches, and the batch of examinations held at the same time has the same examination questions. The next batch of candidates who take the examination will get another question. As for the occurrence of suspected fraud such as leaking questions.

Of course, in order to be as fair as possible, the difficulty of different batches of exam questions should be roughly the same. Candidates who have a large number of candidates will definitely take the big questions; even if the first batch of candidates take the cut-off questions, the later candidates will inevitably pass the cut-off questions, and so on.

At this time, still due to the large number of examinees, the announcement of the examination questions is also carried out in two lines: one is read out by the instructor to take care of those myopia; By.

At this time, the sky was not yet bright, and the examinees lighted the candles they had prepared and placed them on the desks. The candles in the examination room were shining brightly, and the questions were also copied on the light boards. Candidates transcribe.

Gao Yushi didn’t take special care of his seat this time. He sat in a remote corner and couldn’t hear the instructor’s voice clearly. There are five words written on the sign: "Great virtue never exceeds leisure".

Gao Wushi knew right away that this was a relatively not so tricky big question.

Although the big questions are not as tricky as the small ones, they test the examinee's skill and background more.For example, Gao Gong guessed that Guo Pu would only ask big questions instead of small ones when he asked questions for the high-level practical examination. Can be a Jinshi, and the Jinshi exam must be taken and only major questions are taken.

During the period between Long and Wan, the Daoist Exam questions probably had a half probability of being a big question or a small question, depending on the meaning of the inspector.

Today's question "Great virtues do not exceed leisure time" is no stranger to high pragmatism. It comes from "The Analects of Confucius Zi Zhang": "Zi Xia said: Great virtues do not exceed leisure time, and small virtues can come and go."

Great virtues, small virtues, still talk about big festivals and small festivals.Leisure, the lanai also, so the entry and exit of things are stopped.Zhu Xi's "Ji Zhu" made it very clear: "If the speaker can stand up to the big one first, the small details may not be completely reasonable, but they are not harmful." Zhu Xi's analysis of the purpose of this topic is close to and fully reasoned.

And "Reflection Records" said: "On people is different from how we deal with ourselves, we should look at the great integrity of people, the major integrity is to be expected, and the minor differences are ignored; the great virtues cannot be surpassed in our own dealings, and how can small virtues come in and out. ? If there is a discrepancy, you will feel at ease, and if you are not cautious, you will eventually be tired of great virtue."

This statement does not contradict Zhu's statement. Zhu's statement is for ordinary people, and this statement is for saints.Small sections are inevitable for saints, let alone ordinary people?

Once the meaning is understood, solving the problem will be targeted. Gao Yushi still maintains his habit of solving the problem very quickly, and is almost the first one to write down the problem and the problem on the draft paper:
"Those who watch people are arguing in their idleness, they should turn to the great virtues."

"The reason why Gai Xian is determined by the person, and the reason why he does not exceed it is determined by the person. To sum up the whole of a person, and to determine the greatness of his virtue, this is the reason for the debate."

……

In the Daoist Examination, the guns were fired and the door was opened to release the top card. Usually, there were very few candidates who handed in the papers at this time, and sometimes there were none.After seeing the opening of the examination booth, the crowd waiting outside saw two examinees, one large and one small, sent out by Chuidao farewell.

I saw the two people walking out along the Kowloon factory, one of them was only fifteen or sixteen years old, but he was obese, and he was a little out of breath after walking a few steps, which was a bit different from the image of a talented person in the eyes of the big guys, which made people can't help Somewhat disappointed.

Looking at the other person in a blink of an eye, he was shocked.It turned out that this person was younger, maybe only about ten years old, although he was not short, but the childishness between his brows and eyes was still there, but his expression was calm, not like a boy.

Everyone was about to inquire about the origins of the two, when the scribes called their names and sent off the two top examinees who had handed in the papers. Then they knew the origins of the two: the fat boy of fifteen or sixteen was named Chen Xu, and he was originally from Henan Province. My father changed his native place to Kaifeng, so he was in Kaifeng for reference; the ten-year-old boy named Gao Yushi was originally from Xinzheng.

Everyone commented one after another: "If only these two dare to fight for the top card this year, I'm afraid that the top case will be one of them!"

Gao Yushi was not interested in listening to their discussions. Instead, he chatted with the candidate named Chen Xu. Although the two of them had not communicated for a long time, Gao Yushi felt that this person had solid knowledge. If he performed normally in the examination room, it was really possible. Take the lead in the trial.

Although Gao Wushi didn't think that he must take the lead in the case earlier, he couldn't help but feel a little uneasy at the bottom of his heart. However, this Chen Xu is really too fat. After standing and talking with Gao Wushi for a while, he couldn't stand up. Gao Wushi had no choice but to say goodbye to him and go back by himself.

Three days later, the four Dao exams were over.After waiting for another five or six days, the list came out. This time it was not a round list, but a normal list. The first column of the Taoist case was clearly written: Kaifeng Prefecture Xinzheng County High Pragmatism. No.2 is really none other than that fat boy Chen Xu [Note 1].

　Note 1: Chen Xu of Henan Prefecture, there is no other record in the history books, only one: Henan Jieyuan in the first year of Wanli.This gentleman, Henan Jieyuan, unexpectedly has no record of being a Jinshi. Although it may be due to bad luck, this book still intends to take care of Jieyuan's face, let him die young, and set him up. The situation of poor health.In addition, in this chapter, he and Gao Wushi participated in the Henan Taoist Examination in the fifth year of Longqing, which should be considered a reasonable fabrication, and readers should not worry too much about it.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)