Great Song Dynasty Writer

Chapter 23: Bamboo Drifting

Yan Zhenqing has a poem that says:

"The lights are on at midnight and the rooster crows at dawn, it is the time for men to study.

If you don’t study hard when you are young, you will regret it when you are old.

Lu Beigu only rested for half a day during the Cold Food Festival. In the morning, he bought wooden throwing knives and yellow clay figurines for his nephew and niece, and then he prepared to officially start reviewing.

Because there are still more than two months before the county examination, which seems like a long time, but in fact, the round-trip time for Li Pan to take him to Chengdu must be deducted, so time is actually very tight.

Li Pan would definitely not care about his learning progress. Now there are too many homeworks to make up, and he has almost no knowledge in all subjects. He can only rely on his own hard work.

Moreover, when he returns to the county school after Qingming Festival, there will be a short test waiting for him on calligraphy and the meaning of calligraphy.

Carrying the two notebook versions of "The Commentary on Zuo Zhuan of the Spring and Autumn Annals" and "The Commentary on the Book of Rites", as well as "The Compilation of the Spring and Autumn Annals", Lu Beigu went out to find Lu Guangyu.

The reason why he needed to find someone to study with was naturally because Lu Beigu was not omniscient and omnipotent.

Although Lu Beigu has a fairly deep understanding of ancient Chinese literature, philosophy, history, etc., modern academic research is, after all, not the same thing as the ancient imperial examinations.

Even professional scholars who study the history of ancient Chinese philosophy would not actually memorize the entire "Analects" to the point where they can cut out the upper and lower sentences and fill in the blanks at will.

As for studying "The Five Classics Commentary", modern scholars usually study part of its content, and the purpose of the research is not at all to cope with the imperial examinations. It can even be said that the starting point is completely contrary to it.

Therefore, it may be no problem for a modern scholar to travel back in time and write a policy paper or even a memorial in classical Chinese, but it is obviously unrealistic to expect him to reach the level of being able to get high scores in the examination of calligraphy or the interpretation of calligraphy.

Everything needs to be learned from scratch.

Now Lu Beigu's Mo Yi academic performance is poor, and many of the understandings left by his predecessor are wrong. Even if he has two notebooks of his predecessors, he still needs to ask others for some things.

He certainly couldn't afford to hire a teacher, but he knew his friend Lu Guangyu.

Although the other party's overall performance is not particularly outstanding, Mo Yi's performance alone is ranked quite high in the county school.

At the current stage, he is definitely much better than himself who needs to start from scratch, so if he encounters some problems that he doesn’t understand when studying together, Lu Beigu can ask the other party for advice.

Erlangtan is not far from Gulin Town. Lu Beigu took a boat along Anle Creek and was about to reach his destination in less than half an hour.

But not far from Erlangtan, the boat stopped.

The people on the same boat kept making "tsk tsk" sounds, and Lu Beigu also looked out curiously.

The mist on Erlang Beach had not yet dissipated, but the river surface was already bustling. Dozens of green bamboos were floating downstream. Each bamboo, more than ten feet long, was polished to a shiny finish and glided lightly on the water.

The men standing on the bamboo were barefoot, with red cloth belts tied around their waists, and holding ten-foot-long bamboo poles. Sometimes they lightly touched the water surface, and sometimes they pushed it casually, and the bamboo body turned flexibly like a swimming fish.

In the middle of the river, a thin man was floating on a bamboo pole to the rapids. Suddenly, he lowered his body, hooked one foot on the bamboo joint, and hung obliquely on the water. He poked the stone with the bamboo pole in his hand like a spear, firmly resisting the turbulent current.

The bamboo body was shaken slightly by the rapid current, but it never turned over.

He grinned, suddenly twisted his waist, and pushed the bamboo pole forward. He used the force to fly into the air, turned a somersault, and then landed steadily back on the bamboo pole that had started to float, and continued to float downstream.

The crowd watching on the shore burst into cheers, and the sounds of reed pipes, gongs, and shouts blended together.

"Have you never seen single bamboo rafting, young man? We often use this method when traveling on the creek." The boatman asked with a smile.

"I haven't seen it before." Lu Beigu said honestly, "Now that I see it, it's really dazzling."

After paying the eight copper coins for the boat fare, Lu Beigu disembarked on the rocky riverbank. At the middle of Anle Creek, the mountains on both sides towered like city walls, and the river valley experienced a dramatic drop in elevation. Consequently, the few relatively flat rocky beaches, such as Erlang Beach, naturally became a gathering place for locals due to their convenient transportation.

Although it is called a settlement, Erlangtan Township is actually just a small village with a population of several hundred people at that time.

Walking up from the riverbank, the terraced fields with not very fertile soil are planted everywhere with the red glutinous sorghum unique to this area. Lu Beigu observed it carefully. Although it was just planted not long ago, both the size and the grains looked much smaller than ordinary sorghum.

Lu Guangyu's home is easy to find. It is located halfway up the mountain. It is a bluestone house that is quite grand in this area. His father is the local head of the household. According to the Song Sui Tang system, the grassroots unit in the city is the "fang", while the countryside has "xiang" and "li". Some townships have several "li", while others have one township and one "li". Initially, the Song Dynasty had township heads and "li" heads, but with the abolition of townships in the seventh year of Kaibao and the abolition of "li" in the Renzong Dynasty, these things no longer exist.

Therefore, the head of household and the elder have actually become the tentacles of the Song Dynasty court at the grassroots level, and have considerable power at the local level.

"Brother Lu?"

Before Lu Beigu knocked on the door, he saw Lu Guangyu coming out.

Lu Guangyu looked at him in surprise: "Aren't you going to rest today?"

Not long ago at a literary banquet, Lu Guangyu had invited Lu Beigu to his house, so he was not surprised that the other party came at this time, but was surprised that the other party was so diligent.

"I want to study."

Lu Beigu said seriously, "Brother Lu, is there anything wrong? If not, we can study hard together to prepare for the ten-day test."

Lu Guangyu put the thing in his hand over his back, scratched his head and said: "I really have nothing to do. I was thinking of going out for a walk. Let's study hard together."

Lu Guangyu led Lu Beigu into the study in his backyard.

The room was not big, but it was kept very tidy. There were two low tables by the window, on which were all the necessary writing brushes, inkstones, and paper. A few green bamboos peeked in from outside the window, casting mottled shadows on the bluestone floor tiles.

"Brother Lu, please take a seat."

The two sat opposite each other, and Lu Beigu took out the books and papers he brought with him.

When Lu Guangyu was thinking about getting up to pour himself some water, he found that Lu Beigu had already started studying seriously, so he had to sit back down.

Lu Beigu reads very fast. Although he does not have the ability to remember everything he sees, he has his own memory method. Coupled with his concentration, his learning efficiency is quite high.

At the very least, it is much more efficient than Lu Guangyu, who occasionally looks at the birds outside the window and scratches his back.

In fact, Lu Guangyu didn’t want to study, but now that he finally had a vacation, even if he stared at the book carefully, he just couldn’t concentrate.

Two hours passed in this dull manner. Lu Guangyu rubbed his sore eyes and couldn't bear it any longer.

When he looked up, he found that Lu Beigu was still sitting upright, with the pen in his hand writing down the key points on the paper, as if he didn't feel tired at all.

"Brother Lu?"

Lu Beigu raised his head, a thoughtful look in his eyes: "Oh? Brother Lu, is this over for now?"

"Yes Yes Yes!"

Lu Guangyu nodded repeatedly, meaning that it would be almost time for dinner after a short rest.

"That's great."

Lu Beigu picked up his freshly made notes.

(End of this chapter)