I go to the ancient imperial examinations

Chapter 162 The Palace Test Begins

Now that he knew the whole story of the fight and the bet, the Holy Majesty put down the letterhead and asked doubtfully: "Can the 64 squares on this chessboard really hold all the rice grains of the Daqing Dynasty?"

"I'm not good at arithmetic." Gu Qingzhou smiled lightly. The letter was delivered to him quickly before the court. Gu Qingzhou still opened the letter on the carriage, so he didn't know the result.

Even though Prince Yu was born in the royal family, he is still a military commander in essence, and he is not proficient in arithmetic. At this moment, he directly said loudly: "My lord, why don't people from the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Industry perform the deduction?"

After a while, Eunuch Liu brought three people who were best at arithmetic from the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Industry into the imperial study.

"My minister pays homage to the Holy Majesty." The three knelt down and saluted with tense and uneasy expressions.

The two people from the household department are only the principals of the sixth grade, and the person from the engineering department is the fifth grade doctor. Normally, the three of them are not qualified to meet the saint. Suddenly, they received the oral order from Mr. Liu. Something went wrong.

"Let them see." The Holy Majesty handed over the signed bet to Eunuch Liu.

Eunuch Liu took it with both hands, walked in front of the three of them and said in a low voice, "Please, my lords, the pen and ink are ready. Your lords are proficient in arithmetic. Your Majesty asked your lords to deduce the results as soon as possible."

After entering the side hall next to the imperial study, the three of them were relieved. After thanking Eunuch Liu, they got together to make a bet.

But at this moment, Prince Yu, who couldn't sit still, bowed his hands to the Holy Majesty and said: "My Majesty, I will also go to the side hall to have a look."

Regardless of whether the Holy Majesty agrees or not, Prince Yu has already strode towards the side hall with great strides, with such a hasty attitude that he doesn't even care about the impoliteness in front of the imperial court.

"Uncle Huang can't wait for a moment." The sage smiled helplessly, looked at Gu Qingzhou and said, "You little disciple can make a fuss."

Sensing the change in the tone of the Holy Spirit, Gu Qingzhou temporarily put aside the difference between the monarch and his subjects, and took the words with a smile, "The little girl is only nine years old, and her temper is a little more lively. This bet is too fast, but this girl is also generous. All the money from Xiangpanzi has been donated.”

"I'm sorry that the child can't be caught by the wolf." The Holy Majesty picked up the teacup and drank the tea, the words were very meaningful.

Thinking of what was written in the bet, the Holy Majesty understands why Gu Qingzhou cares about Zhan Feiyu, regardless of her intelligence and talent, the little girl's scheming is deep enough, but her original intention is for the border soldiers, so she rushed Seeing this, the Holy Majesty has a little more affection for Zhan Feiyu, whom he has never met.

Gu Qingzhou and the Holy One talked about the salt tax again, but there were already hurried footsteps outside the hall, and the monarchs and ministers looked at each other, and it seemed that there was a result.

"Gu Qingzhou, when Zhan Feiyu comes to the capital, I will go to the gate of the city to greet you in person." Hearty laughter sounded, and Prince Yu stroked his beard, and the folds on his face were superimposed with a smile. The mood is excellent.

Eunuch Liu led the three adults into the imperial study, and if he hadn't deduced it himself, no one would have thought that the final number would be so huge that all the rice in the Daqing Dynasty would not fill a chessboard.

"Your Majesty, since this rice grain is going to be sent to the border, I will not interfere, and leave this bet to the prince." Gu Qingzhou unceremoniously threw the hot potato to Prince Yu.

On weekdays, Prince Yu, who is the king of idleness, would definitely not agree, but the Chen family is the eldest prince's natal family, and the eldest prince had seriously injured the guards of Prince Yu's mansion before. Very happy.

Furthermore, this bet is related to the soldiers at the border. Prince Yu glared at the evasive Gu Qingzhou contemptuously, and said loudly to Sheng Shang who was sitting on the dragon chair: "This king has accepted this matter, and the bet in black and white is here. Old man Chen dares to break the contract, this king beats his parents so hard that they won't recognize him!"

It is an indisputable fact that the Chen family is rich. Donating a total of 55 shi of rice and grain in ten years will not hurt the fundamentals of the Chen family. The Holy Majesty will definitely not stop him, "Then I will leave this matter to you, the emperor."

On the other side, the eldest prince received a secret letter from the Chen family at noon.

After all, Mr. Chen sent the letter to the family first, and then Mr. Chen sent the letter to the capital. This back and forth was half a day late.

"A nine-year-old girl is playing around with you? That's 55 shi!" The eldest prince roared furiously, with a murderous look on his face, not only for Zhan Feiyu, the culprit, but also for Zhan Feiyu. To the Chen family who lost the fight.

"Elder Prince, calm down." Kneeling on one knee, Chen Shuduo was the eldest grandson of the Chen family, and now he is the official doctor of the fifth rank, and also the leader of the Chen family in the capital.

The Holy Majesty hates foreign relatives interfering in politics, and the Holy Majesty is only in his early fifties and is physically strong. Therefore, except for Chen Shuduo, the rest of the Chen family were sent out as officials and did not stay in Beijing. According to the situation on the surface, many officials in the DPRK have already taken refuge in the Chen family.

"Calm your anger? How do you ask this prince to calm his anger?" The voice of questioning sounded. The eldest prince has a violent personality. Because he is the eldest son of the emperor, he has always acted domineering and arrogant, but he stumbled one after another when it came to Zhan Feiyu. Before that, it was Liu Jian. Now it is the Chen family.

In a rage, the eldest prince kicked at the chair, and Huanghuali's armchair was kicked and hit the wall, and shattered into several pieces of wood with a bang, which is enough to know the anger that the eldest prince cannot suppress.

"I've lost all my face, I'm afraid that the prince will become a laughing stock tomorrow morning!" The eldest prince became more and more annoyed when he thought about it, but this matter had already been reported to the imperial court, and if Prince Yu intervened, there was no room for change. .

In fact, whether it is the Chen family or the eldest prince, they don't care about the hundreds of thousands of shi of grain at all. The south of the Yangtze River is rich, so it is not difficult to make a few 10 taels of silver a year by doing anything casually.

But this bet made the Chen family lose face, which is equivalent to losing the face of the eldest prince.

In particular, the eldest prince is good at martial arts, and he is still working in the military department. The rice grain was given out, but the benefits were taken by Prince Yu and Zhan Feiyu. The eldest prince couldn't swallow this bad breath.

But if you don't fulfill the bet, it's tantamount to offending all the generals in the court, and the eldest prince can't even hope to gain a foothold in the Ministry of War, "Okay, get up and answer."

Only then did Chen Shuduo stand up, hesitantly said: "The Holy Majesty always pays attention to military power, why don't we do something about it, Prince Yu has been at the border for 20 years, and now intervening in this matter, there is a suspicion of buying the morale of the army..."

This dirty water can't be splashed on Zhan Feiyu. She is a nine-year-old girl who has not yet taken the government examination. She is still white now. It would be ridiculous to say that she has disobedience and treason.

But Prince Yu was different. If this worked well, the Holy One would be on guard against Prince Yu, and instead the First Prince would take the opportunity to place his own people in the army.

The eldest prince was moved for a moment, but after considering it for a while, he said in a cold voice: "Father is not foolish, and besides, Father intends to let the emperor's uncle take over the salt production, the military power may have been handed over to Father. If we spread rumors, it will cause a lot of blood."

If Prince Yu had the military power in his hands, this rumor might still have some effect, at least it would make the Holy Majesty feel bad, but otherwise, the one who would be hated by the Holy Majesty would only be the eldest prince who played tricks.

"Forget it, let's put aside the matter of the bet for the time being." The eldest prince thought clearly, if he wants to gain a foothold in the army, he cannot interfere with this matter. Or the military generals at the border will blame themselves for this, so the Chen family can only send the grain to the border neatly, and they can gain a reputation that they are willing to gamble and lose.

Yin Wu's eyes were fierce, and the eldest prince looked at Chen Shuduo and said, "Cousin, you send a letter to grandfather, I don't want to see Zhan Feiyu come to the capital."

Even though Zhan Feiyu was a little girl, the eldest prince didn't want to let her go out to make things difficult for him.

"Yes." Chen Shuduo replied, but murderous intent quickly flashed across his seemingly gentle face, causing the Chen family to suffer such a big loss, and if he didn't take revenge and go back, outsiders would only think of the Chen family as a soft persimmon!
……

After Zhan Feiyu sent the letter and bet to the capital, he ignored it, and it was April [-]th in the blink of an eye.

At a quarter of a hour, the gate of the Tribute Academy opened, and thousands of examinees accepted the preliminary examination one by one. They entered the venue one by one. They entered the four examination rooms under the leadership of four children holding lamps. Kaoyin (that is, admission ticket) to find their own seat.

Examination candidates are not allowed to bring in anything except the references, pens, ink, special paper, etc. are provided by the examination room.

The first two exams take one day each, and the third strategy theory exam takes two days. The quilts for the night are also provided by the exam room. Each candidate is separated and occupies a place.

Zhan Feiyu, as the head of the case in Shangsi County, can be assigned a hall number, so he saves the steps of finding a house, and directly enters the court under the leadership of the yamen servants. in front of the exam.

"Is that Zhan Feiyu?" someone asked in a low voice.

She was the only young girl among the candidates present at the hall, but even if some people were not convinced, and even superficially thought that a woman's lack of talent was virtue, but Zhan Feiyu was a student of Gu Xueshi, no one dared to say this.

Secondly, in Liji two days ago, Zhan Feiyu won the battle with Fatty Chen, not only won hundreds of thousands of shi of food for the border soldiers, but also donated all the money earned by Xiangpanzi to the Disabled soldiers, which made Zhan Feiyu not yet participate in the government examination, and his reputation became louder than ever.

Being watched by everyone, Zhan Feiyu smiled and said hello. After all, the exam is about to start, and no one dares to speak loudly at this time.

But among the crowd, a skinny young man stared at Zhan Feiyu with gloomy eyes. That creepy gaze made people feel chills in the back. Those who didn't know thought that he and Zhan Feiyu had a deep hatred.

"That's the chief of the case in Huai County, Kou Yuanxing." A young man standing next to Zhan Feiyu said in a low voice, then stood up straight and stopped speaking. After all, he was already weak, and Zhan Feiyu was short. At first glance, she looked like a six or seven-year-old girl, and it was fine to take the exam in the same class. If the key point was to lose, it would be embarrassing.

The case in Huai County?Zhan Feiyu couldn't help thinking of Wang Linlang, she was from Huai County, and Kou Yuanxing's fierce eyes made Zhan Feiyu suspicious.

After a while, a group of candidates entered the courtroom one by one and sat down in their respective seats, and the sound of the cloud board sounded after a long while, which was different from the county examination where the test questions were written on the test board, and all the candidates had to copy the questions first , the first round of the government test is to send out the test questions directly.

After Zhan Feiyu finished writing his name, he looked at the test questions: three questions in the "Four Books", four questions about scriptures and meaning, and one poem with five characters and eight rhymes.

The first question comes from "The Analects of Confucius".

The Master said: "Those who are born with knowledge are the top; those who learn to know are the next; those who are tired and learn it are the next; those who are tired and do not learn, the people are the bottom."

The second question comes from "The Doctrine of the Mean"

Signs are far away, long distances are broad and thick, thin and thick are wise.Thin and thick, so it carries things; brilliant, so it covers things; long, so it becomes things.

The third question comes from "Mencius"

Li Xian Wu Fang
Compared with the interception questions that appeared in the county examination, Zhan Feiyu felt that Zhang Zhifu was much more kind, and the "Four Books" questions were obviously more normal, but there were advantages and disadvantages.

Those who take part in the prefectural examination are those who have passed the prefectural examination in each county. Shangsi County is only a medium-sized county, and there are more than 30 candidates who have passed the prefectural examination. In the whole Nanxuan Prefecture, there are more than 50 candidates, and only about 40 will be admitted in the end. According to the consistent rules of the imperial examination, the chief case of each county is a default child student, so only about [-] people will be admitted out of more than [-] people.

But for Zhang Zhifu and the other examiners, there were three questions in the first "Four Books", more than 2000 people, that is, more than 6000 articles. successful candidates.

However, the questions in the government test are quite satisfactory, which means that it is more difficult to stand out. From handwriting to breaking questions, you must be brilliant, otherwise you will be lost in the more than 6000 articles.

It's not just Zhan Feiyu who can think that the capitals of these county test cases that can be mentioned in the hall are not stupid, so after the test papers are issued, everyone does not immediately answer the questions, but thinks about how to solve the questions and how to let the examiners see the article. Impressive at first glance.

Time passed bit by bit, Zhang Zhifu sat behind the case, his eyes swept across the audience, but a group of candidates all lowered their heads, so that people could not see their expressions.

After a while, Zhang Zhifu suddenly stood up, but the candidates looked over one by one. At this moment, the candidates who were still thinking about how to solve the problem suddenly became nervous and their minds became a mess.

For those who are timid, with a shake of the hand holding the pen, a cloud of black ink is left on the paper. Fortunately, this is just a plain paper used to make a manuscript. If it is an examination paper, there is no need to take the examination. It's out.

Compared with other people's nervousness and anxiety, Kou Yuanxing's back was only a little tense, and he returned to normal after a few breaths.

The flowing handwriting appeared on the manuscript paper. Others were still thinking about how to solve the problem, or they were still scribbling on the manuscript paper, but Kou Yuanxing had already written one-third of his article.

After Zhang Zhifu took a few glances, there was no expression on Junya's face, and he walked to the next candidate...

It is estimated that Zhan Feiyu looked as usual in the audience. After realizing Zhang Zhifu's arrival, Zhan Feiyu did not change his breathing rhythm, and quickly wrote down two sentences on the paper.

Huh?Zhang Zhifu squinted his eyes halfway, and a smile flashed quickly from his eyes. She was able to think of a unique sentence to solve this well-regulated question.

(End of this chapter)