Great Song Dynasty Writer

Chapter 284 "The Imperial Examination Monster" Zhang Heng

Afterwards, Zhang Fangping offered some more encouragement to the group.

It's nothing more than the spring imperial examination is just around the corner, only a few days away. Let them study hard, so that as the best students of Sichuan, they can one day pass the exam with flying colors, serve in the same court, and work together to support the country, and so on.
It wasn't a one-on-one conversation, so it was all just polite small talk.

For Zhang Fangping, time was extremely precious, especially since he had just been reinstated as the Minister of the Three Departments. He needed to reconnect with officials in the court, whether they were old clerks or new faces. As long as they had some influence, Zhang Fangping would personally meet and chat with them.

For officials in the imperial court, visiting the newly appointed Minister of the Three Departments was also an important procedural matter.

After all, big shots often don't remember who came and what they said or what they brought, but they definitely remember who didn't come, without saying a word or giving a gift.

The reasoning behind this is quite obvious. They're unwilling to go through the motions or even show a basic attitude; isn't that a sign that they're unwilling to be friendly with me?
So Zhang Fangping only said these few words to them before hurrying off to the reception room to see his guests, leaving them to chat there by themselves. He told them that if they didn't see him return within half an hour, they could leave on their own.

Lu Beigu chatted with Su Xun and Su Zhe for a few more minutes.

Then Lu Beigu asked curiously, "Why didn't Brother Zizhan come?"

Upon hearing this, Su Zhe's face immediately turned bright red.

Su Xun put his hand to his forehead and after a few breaths said with a wry smile, "To tell you the truth, ever since he returned to Meishan, he has been studying your book 'Shu Cuisine Record' every day. Whenever he thinks of that 'Zen Insight with Chopsticks' meal in Hejiang, his mouth waters, and he wishes he could grow wings and fly back. Then, when he arrived in Tokyo, he tried many new dishes. A few days ago, he insisted on cooking for us himself, but I don't know which dish he made wrong. After tasting it, he felt abdominal pain and had symptoms of dysentery. In the end, we didn't dare to eat it."

"And now?" Lu Beigu asked with concern.

It's true that Su Shi loved to eat, but if the butterfly effect of his time travel caused him to miss the provincial examination due to food poisoning, thus altering his life trajectory, he would feel guilty.

"It's nothing serious. I saw a doctor, who said it was diarrhea caused by something I ate, and prescribed some antidiarrheal medicine. It worked very quickly."

Su Zhe said, "It's just that my elder brother is a little weak these past two days and needs to rest more."

"That's good."

Lu Beigu breathed a sigh of relief.

Thinking about it, it makes sense. If it weren't for health reasons, the three Sus would definitely have come together for such an important matter as paying respects to Zhang Fangping.

At that moment, Su Zhe and his father Su Xun exchanged a glance.

Seeing Su Xun nod, Su Zhe said, "By the way, there's something else I wanted to ask. I wonder if Brother Lu has the time?"

"what happened?"

Lu Beigu countered with a question.

Whether or not someone has time depends on the importance of the matter. Lu Beigu planned to listen to what Su Zhe had to say first. If it was just a waste of his exam preparation time, he would definitely refuse directly.

"That's it."

Su Xun said, “A few days ago at the literary gathering, we had a dispute with three scholars from Fujian. One of them belittled the education in Sichuan as inferior to that in Fujian. We originally agreed to have a three-on-three competition on the eighth day of the month, according to the provincial examination standards of previous years, as a warm-up before the provincial examination of the Ministry of Rites.”

Su Zhe continued, "But because my elder brother has diarrhea, and the other colleagues from Meizhou are not quite up to par, in order to save face for the scholars of Sichuan, I would like to ask Brother Lu for help."

Scholars from Fujian?
Lu Beigu was slightly taken aback, then asked, "Which three people?"

"They are Lin Xi from Fuqing, and Zhang Heng and his uncle Zhang Dun from Pucheng."

Su Xun then explained, "The latter two are not well-known, but Lin Xi is a favorite to be the top scholar this year, and his chances of winning are quite high. It's just that he looks down on the education and culture of our Shu region."

"."

Lu Beigu remained silent for a moment.

Leaving aside the objective fact that Sichuan's education and culture seem far inferior to Fujian's, and setting aside Zhang Heng and Zhang Dun, two "unremarkable" examination prodigies in Su Xun's eyes, let's just talk about Lin Xi. This man's literary level is extremely high, and his writing style is sharp and ruthless.

But Lin Xi's character is really not good. He is a typical "literary scoundrel" who stirs up trouble with his pen.

The Jinshi graduates of the second year of the Jiayou era generally rose to the central government positions, which was a phenomenon during the reigns of Emperor Shenzong and even Emperor Zhezong. In the years prior to this, they had already established some connections with each other.

But with Lin Xi, it was all just a superficial relationship.

Historically, he spent many years wandering in local areas, thus surviving the Xining Reforms and eventually clinging to the coattails of Chancellor Zhang Dun after Emperor Zhezong assumed personal rule, serving as a drafter of imperial edicts for the emperor.

Afterwards, Lin Xi wrote many extremely harsh and vicious edicts, including edicts that demoted Su Shi, Su Zhe and others, as well as edicts that rebuked Sima Guang, Liu Zhi and others. Historical records state that "the words were extremely ugly and slanderous, even using the phrase 'old treacherous manipulating the country' to subtly criticize Xuanren, which made all readers indignant."

Finally, because Zhang Dun failed to fulfill his promise to Lin Xi to become a prime minister, Lin Xi even dragged Zhang Dun into a self-inflicted disaster. The two were demoted together, becoming a sensational case during the reign of Emperor Zhezong.

"Lin Xi is alright, but with Zhang Heng and Zhang Dun added in, it's probably a three-on-three situation where they don't stand a chance."

Lu Beigu was just telling the truth.

Zhang Heng was a pure genius in the imperial examination system.

If we disregard other factors and consider only hard skills, Zhang Heng and Liu Ji are in the same league, belonging to the type who, as long as their luck isn't too bad, could become the top scholar in any imperial examination.

Zhang Dun was no pushover either. Although he was nominally Zhang Heng's uncle, he was actually ten years younger than Zhang Heng. Given this inevitable age difference in experience, Zhang Dun's skill level was only slightly inferior to Zhang Heng's.

Historically, Zhang Dun was ashamed to be inferior to Zhang Heng and refused to accept the position. In the fourth year of the Jiayou era, he took the imperial examination again with Liu Ji, who had changed his name to Liu Hui. Liu Ji, who had changed his name, became the top scholar, while Zhang Dun ranked fifth.

Therefore, this is equivalent to having one top-tier player plus two first-tier players.

Lu Beigu was confident in his ability to compete with one of them, but Su Xun was only at a level where he would have some difficulty passing the imperial examination, and Su Zhe, although he was at the level of a Jinshi (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examination), was not among those who ranked very high.

Therefore, even with him included, it is unlikely that they could compete against the three Fujian natives, Zhang Heng and Zhang Dun.

"Is the opponent that strong?" Su Zhe felt a little uneasy seeing Lu Beigu's serious attitude.

After all, they had already heard that Lu Beigu had recently represented the Imperial Academy, teaming up with the Cheng brothers to fight against Liu Ji and his two companions from the Imperial Academy, and had won.

In Su Zhe's view, even though Lin Xi was a popular candidate, she was still no better than Liu Ji.

Lu Beigu, however, believed that the chances of winning were slim and that Zhang Er was even stronger than Lin Xi.

Su Zhe subconsciously chose to believe this judgment.

However, Lu Beigu didn't rule out the possibility of a definitive answer.

As long as Su Shi didn't get carried away and write recklessly, his academic level was somewhere between top-tier and first-tier. If Lu Beigu had partnered with Su Shi and Su Zhe, they would have had a very good chance of winning.

He pondered for a moment and said to Su Xun, “Mr. Mingyun, what I’m thinking is that since this is a competition between Sichuan and Fujian in terms of education, as a Sichuan native, I naturally have an inescapable responsibility. I also want to warm up and improve my exam performance before the provincial examination of the Ministry of Rites arrives. But in the end, it’s better to limit the competition to our generation.”

This wasn't exactly a subtle way of putting it; it meant that Su Xun was so old, a generation older than them, that if he were to participate, it would be the kind of situation where "winning would be a given, but losing would be very shameful," which was completely unnecessary.

Su Xun thought about it and felt that it made sense.

“But my elder brother…” Su Zhe hesitated, as if he wanted to say something but then stopped.

“I’ll go back with you,” Lu Beigu said. “If it’s dysentery, I do know a way to help him recover faster.”

(End of this chapter)