The ruthless emperor in the late Ming Dynasty forced Chongzhen to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 292
Xuzhou.

Since ancient times, it has been an important place for military strategists connecting the north and the south. At this time, the city of Xuzhou was already overcrowded.

Originally, there were tens of thousands of candidates in Xuzhou, and with the influx of scholars from all over Shandong and Kaifeng, the number of candidates in Xuzhou reached 5000 at once.

Fortunately, Xuzhou magistrates and officials at all levels had already made preparations. In March, they not only built more than 2 sets of tables, chairs and benches, but also set up ten temporary examination rooms in the open space outside Xuzhou city.

Although the examination room is simple, the roof is all thatched, and there are no walls around it, just covered with curtains, but each examination room has ten large compartments, which can accommodate 2000 people in total, so facing [-] Candidates, officials in Xuzhou did not panic at all.

As for these candidates coming to Xuzhou and where they live, they don't care.

Tomorrow is the day of the college examination, so whether it is a scholar from other places or a local Xuzhou candidate, they have already arrived in Xuzhou.

With so many people, the inns in Xuzhou City must not be able to accommodate them. In fact, the rooms in the inns in the city have long been reserved by big families from all over Xuzhou, and almost all the guests staying there are wives and young ladies.

Most of the servants of the big families, who were in charge of the account room, lived in the homes of ordinary people in the city. The children of ordinary people could only sleep in thatched huts outside the city accompanied by their families.

Those who didn't know thought that there was another refugee siege in Daming, and the small merchants in the city also took the opportunity to make a fortune.

After the scholars from other places arrived, there were no places to sleep outside the city, not to mention staying in inns and bed and breakfasts, and they were all dumbfounded.

Fortunately, these scholars had money, so in the end they had to choose to live in remote villages. They waited until the night before the imperial examination, and hired villagers to carry them to the examination room outside Xuzhou overnight.

Compared with the ease of civil servants, the thousands of households stationed in Xuzhou feel tremendous pressure. Xuzhou is an important military town with a thousand garrison troops, but these people want to maintain the order of the ten examination rooms. The law and order in the vicinity is really stretched, so Xuzhou's 1000 guards had to draw another [-] people from the counties, and hired [-] village women to help, but they were still very nervous and panicked, worried that something would go wrong. .

On the first day of February, before dawn, countless candidates flocked to their respective examination rooms. As for the registration, it was almost done yesterday.

The civil officials are only responsible for leading these candidates to their respective examination rooms. There are ten examination rooms, two of which are women's examination rooms, seven are male examination rooms, and the last examination room is a backup.

At this time, outside the examination room, countless candidates had already lined up in a long line, holding vouchers in their hands, they were searched by the soldiers one by one, and then they could enter the examination room.

Around the examination room, there is a soldier standing guard every 200 steps. Each compartment is also patrolled and supervised by five soldiers. Each compartment can accommodate about [-] people. The distance between each seat is two meters, which is almost difficult. Peep into other people's test papers.

Candidates are not allowed to bring anything except brushes and abacus. Scratch paper and ink will be provided by the examination room.

The seven men's examination rooms are lined up together, and the two women's examination rooms are on one side.

At this time, there were also more than 2000 women queuing outside the two women's examination rooms. Although the crowd of onlookers were blocked a hundred meters away, the obscene laughter from the crowd still made all the women in the line blush. Very nervous and cramped, even the timid ones wanted to run away.

These women are of different ages, some are wives in their 40s and [-]s, and some are young women in their early twenties. There are the most girls over ten years old who have not left the court, and there are even several young girls aged seven or eight.

However, all the women were disguised as men, wearing scribes' long gowns, and their hair accessories were also combed into men's styles, with a simple headband tied.

If it weren't for their petite stature, almost all of them were born into rich families, and their faces were fair and tender, I'm afraid they really wouldn't be able to tell that they were all women.

There are also some women with a veil covering their faces, looking awkward and awkward, and it is these women who provoke the crowd of onlookers who are far away, and they will burst into laughter from time to time.

These female candidates also only had a writing brush stuck in their waists, and very few of them carried abacus in their hands. They entered the small huts next to the examination room one by one, and were inspected and searched by the hired village women.

And the two hundred village women were only responsible for the body search and the order in the examination room, and the garrison was still in charge of the periphery. The two women's examination rooms were in charge of the two women's imperial forest soldiers from Nanjing.

Although the weather has gotten warmer in February, the clothes on his body are still very thick, which undoubtedly increases the time for body searches, especially in the two women's examination rooms, which are still very awkward even in the straw shed.

"Hurry up, take off all the outer clothes."

"Ah! Why are you still undressing?"

"This is the rule. If you don't take it off and check it carefully, how do we know if you have writing inside?"

"Hurry up, don't dawdle, the people behind are still queuing up."

In a thatched hut, two big and three rough village women were not in a good mood. They obviously hated these ladies and ladies in their hearts. Now that they finally had the opportunity to make things difficult for them, they naturally would not let it go.

In order to prevent these wives and ladies from retaliating in the future, almost all the two hundred village women covered their faces with cloth. This was also allowed by the two women's guards.

The person who was made trouble was a young woman in her early twenties, with thin skin and tender flesh, she looked like she was born in a wealthy family. Seeing the two fierce masked strong women kept urging her, she had to take off her long gown tremblingly. down.

"Take it off, what are you doing here?"

A strong woman took the gown, checked it inside and out, then threw it on the table aside and continued to urge.

The little woman had no choice but to take it off again, and in the end she just took off her bellyband and obscene trousers, with her hands clasped on her chest, shivering from the cold, tears came out, and she regretted taking the exam.

The two strong women didn't dare to really embarrass him, they inspected it carefully before letting her put it on, which can only be regarded as being too strict.

Because in the previous imperial examinations, township examinations and general examinations, it was also necessary to strip naked and examine carefully.

After finishing dressing in a hurry, the little woman hurriedly took the brush and entered the examination room with tears in her eyes. Then she found a seat and sat down. Her lips were a little purple from the cold, and her body was still shivering from time to time.

The women who came in before were in the same situation, and many ladies regretted not wearing a cloak.

Although the examination was relatively slow, a group of two strong women only needed to be in charge of about 20 people, so it only took half an hour for 2000 people to enter the examination room after the search.

The male examinees in the other seven examination rooms were almost all searched and entered the examination room. With the sound of a cannon on the city of Xuzhou, the soldiers distributed the test papers uniformly.

After distributing the test papers, another bowl and a piece of white paper were distributed on each table. Finally, some ink was poured into each bowl, and the examinees then picked up their pens and ink.

However, most of the candidates were stunned and dazed when they got the test paper. After reading it for a long time, they knew what to do and how to answer the questions under the prompt written on the test paper.

(End of this chapter)