The Prosperous Era of Longwan

After returning from Pengze County, Wei Guangde began a busy study life.

In order to prepare for the exam, even though Master Sun didn't think much of Wei Guangde, he just wanted him to study and gain knowledge, but he still had to practice what should be practiced.

Although Wei Guangde had studied the same as those senior exam-takers before, he had not been exposed to many things, just like the eight-part essay he was holding in his hand at the moment.

I don’t know what channel it was passed through, but Wei Guangde knew that it would not be easy. It was a test paper that Tang Yong, Tang Jixian, who is now respected in Pengze County, tried to prepare for the rural examination and conference.

Tang Yong is from Cantonese. He is not tall. It can be said that when he first came here, he was still dark and thin. He really didn't look like a Jinshi.

However, since he was sent directly to the lower county level, we can actually know that his palace examination results were not very good.

After all, those who are ranked before the exam usually stay in Beijing and serve as officials. The top ones will definitely enter the Hanlin Academy, while the lower ones will observe politics in the Six Ministries and then work in the central ministries.

Although it is said that accompanying a king is like accompanying a tiger, if you stay with the leader, you are more likely to be promoted.

Therefore, among these Jinshi, who doesn’t want to stay in the capital?

But this Tangxian Zun was obviously not good enough and was assigned to Jiangxi.

However, Wei Guangde would not look down upon him. It didn't matter that he was living among the young and the old but was poor. Jiangxi was a good place, which meant that there should still be people in the court, otherwise he would not have come here to serve as county magistrate.

For such a low-profile and low-ranking Jinshi, it is naturally not easy to find his examination papers.

From this, Wei Guangde could see the character of his teacher Sun Fuzi, who seemed to be a master of exam-oriented education. Perhaps this was the method he summarized to pass the stage from the county examination to the college examination.

Collect the examiner's articles, understand his preferences, and adjust your writing style according to his preferences.

Many people may think that the county examination, as the lowest level of the ancient imperial examination, should not be difficult and should be easy to pass. In fact, this understanding is wrong.

Strictly speaking, county examinations are not considered imperial examinations recognized by the imperial court.

In the eyes of the imperial court, the provincial examination was actually an examination conducted by abbots sent by the imperial court. The hospital examination and other examinations were only conducted by local officials, so they did not pay much attention to them.

However, in fact, among the six imperial examinations, there were quite a few students who passed the county examination, prefectural examination and college examination.

For example, Master Sun just introduced the county examination situation in Pengze County to Wei Guangde and other students who were taking the county examination for the first time. He mentioned that the county examination is held twice every three years. The county examination is only held in the year of the competition, that is, There is no county examination in the examination year.

Every time there is a county examination in Pengze County, nearly a thousand students in the county take the examination, including not only Yin Yin students like Wei Guangde, but also old candidates with white hair.

And how many people pass each county examination?

Fifty.

There are only fifty places for them to pass the county examination.

The subsequent government examinations were similar, with thousands of people competing for dozens of places.

When it comes to the college examination, it becomes even more intense. Although after layers of selection, the remaining ones are all children, and the number seems to be small, but the competition for places becomes even more intense.

In the Ming Dynasty, counties were divided into large and small counties based on their fiscal revenue. Counties at different levels had varying numbers of scholars, but basically there were more scholars in large counties than in small counties.

Under the quota limit, the number of scholars in the county determines the number of people who pass the academy examination.

Well, just talking about Pengze County, based on the number of college examinations in the past, there are only about ten people each time, the minimum is nine, and sometimes there are twelve or three.

For the losers, even if you are very talented and can crush students from other prefectures and counties, I'm sorry, but you still have no chance to get the title of scholar.

You can only compete for a few places in the county, defeat local children, and win the honor.

This year, according to the news Master Sun heard, there are about 800 to 900 students taking the exam, and there are only 50 places. This pressure is not small, and it basically exceeds the elimination rate of the provincial examination.

For the time being, Wei Guangde has not thought too much about the government examination. He will pass it step by step.

In the past few days, Master Sun's homework assignments have also increased dramatically. There are two eight-part essays and one scripture every day. There are not many requirements for things like test poems.

In fact, now Wei Guangde can make up a test poem. After all, he can save eight-legged essays, and many things are similar.

What's more, for the county examination, more emphasis is placed on the eight-legged essay, that is, the four-script essay and the five-scriptural essay. The rest are just passable.

Only when it comes to the provincial examination and the general examination, policy theory has some effect, and when it comes to the palace examination, it is purely a competition of policy theory.

However, because the ranking in the general examination has a great influence on the palace examination, the hope of reaching the first, second and second place just by relying on the palace examination and coming up with an outstanding policy paper is still very slim.

Wei Guangde has been thinking about Tang Xianzun's articles these days, and then tried to modify the style of what he had written before, trying to be closer to Tang Xianzun, hoping to gain favor.

As for Zi'er, it's too late now to improvise.

Fortunately, Master Sun felt that Wei Guangde's calligraphy had improved a lot and was enough to be recognized by people, so the probability of being rejected in the first game was low.

Five days before the exam, Wei Guangde and his mother went to Pengze County and moved directly into the Wu family's house in the county.

Mrs. Wei Wu brought an old lady with her, and the Wu family arranged for two servants to come and serve her.

After all, she is a young lady from the Wu family, and her uncle Wu Zhankui is looking for someone who is known to the Wei Wu family. Although she is older, she does things more appropriately and is less prone to mistakes.

The maid who had served my mother since she was a child was also called here. The maid who was supposed to accompany her when she got married was because my mother was kind and knew that she had a sweetheart in the Wu family, so she stayed here and was sent here this time. Serve Mother Wei.

Adhering to the habit of having fun in major exams and having fun in small exams in his previous life, Wei Guangde put all his books aside in the last two days, stopped reading those sample essays, and stopped revising his own articles.

God knows what questions Tangxian Zun will ask.

If you're lucky, maybe you'll be able to take the test questions that you're familiar with and can write a good article, and that'll be cool.

He ate and slept every day, and Mrs. Wei was very worried at first when she saw her son like this. However, Wei Guangde lied, saying that he had already read enough poems and books, and was full of knowledge, so it was useless to continue reading.

It is more useful to read a book at this time than to take a bath, change clothes, pray to God and worship before the exam.

Wei Guangde's performance was naturally noticed by his uncle Wu Zhankui and his aunt.

At first, Wu Dong didn't seem to be in the mood to read before the exam, but he often ran out of the house to find people to drink and chat with.

Afterwards, they learned from their son that it was because he was nervous and couldn't read at all.

From the elder brother's mouth, he learned that Wei Guangde's abnormality might be due to nervousness before the exam. Wei Wu did not dare to ask Wei Guangde to read any more, and let him make the decision on his own, whether he wanted to read or not.

Time has quietly arrived on February 17th, and the first county examination is about to begin.