Chapter 15

Chapter 15

After the Qingming Festival, Aunt Ji and Uncle Ji didn't dare to do anything, for fear that Ji Yuan's parents would send the ghost messenger to cause trouble again, but they also cursed secretly in their hearts.

Ji Yuan has nothing to complain about.

But I would never dare to stop someone from studying.

They did everything before to stop Ji Yuan from studying, but they were retaliated against like this.

Ji Yuan still goes out early and comes back late, but now the days are longer and the time he has for reading has increased greatly.

Master Zhao even gave him two candles so that he could study when he returned home.

The private school in Anji Village was also divided into two parts.

Some are progressing more slowly, such as the younger children An Xiaohu, who are five or six years old. They just need to continue reading enlightenment books.

Or if you really can't continue reading, such as Ji Li, An Changsun, etc., continue to consolidate your previous knowledge.

The other part, in other words, is the sprint class.

Ji Yuan, An Dahai, An Xiaohe, and two other pretty good students.

They recited from "The Great Learning" to "The Analects of Confucius", then "Mencius" and "The Doctrine of the Mean".

First memorize the Four Books until you are familiar with them.

Next comes the Five Classics.

The Five Classics are even more difficult. Many scholars find it difficult to master the Five Classics in their entire lifetime. It is enough for them to be able to specialize in one or two of them.

These are the foundation of the imperial examination system and also the core ideas of Confucianism.

History, philosophy, literature, politics, etc. are all covered.

Although it was only an exam for the county school, he was competing with students from the entire Zhengrong County. Now he only had to recite the entire text, and then explain its meaning word by word, quoting classics, and telling the story.

According to Ji Yuan’s understanding, it means memorizing the text first.

After memorizing the text, do reading comprehension, recite uncommon characters and allusions, derive other meanings, and then write an essay based on your own ideas.

It sounds simple, but ancient books have no punctuation marks, so how to break sentences is a problem.

If there is no teacher to teach, it is difficult to learn even if you have books, and memorizing is even more difficult, which is no different from memorizing an incomprehensible book.

There is nothing else to say except hard work and diligence.

After Ji Yuan's family settled down, he spent more and more time on his studies.

It is daybreak now, so I get up early to dig some herbs and cut grass for the three cows.

In the morning, I went to An Dahu's house to eat and clean the cowshed. I recited lessons while herding cattle in the morning, had lunch at noon, and continued the same process.

I waited until the afternoon to send the three cows back to the cowshed and continued to memorize my article.

I work overtime to practice calligraphy before it gets dark.

Anji Village also gradually became busy. It was the spring ploughing time and everyone's attention was drawn to the fields.

Half a month has passed in a flash, and the big exam at the end of March is here again.

This exam is also divided into two parts.

For students in the enlightenment stage, the exams also focus on enlightenment content.

For students in the sprint class, the difficulty of the exam increases sharply.

Everyone knows that the place for the county school entrance exam will be chosen among these five people.

Although it is said that there are five, the focus is only on Ji Yuan, An Xiaohe and An Dahai.

Early in the morning at the end of March, Madam An secretly added an egg to Ji Yuan's breakfast and whispered, "Dahai ranked second last time, all thanks to you. How about this time?"

Ji Yuan looked at the two eggs and the stunned An Dahai beside him, and whispered, "It should be fine. Brother Dahai has memorized most of it. I think the silent memorization will be a little more difficult this time, but the Four Books will not be too difficult."

The meaning of "motie" is to write from memory. Given the previous sentence, write down the next sentence from memory.

The private school topic is a new topic given by Mr. Zhao in February. It requires students to write an argumentative essay based on a sentence.

Most of the students were reciting articles in March. Given Master Zhao's personality, he would definitely focus on testing them on reciting written content.

There will probably be a few questions on the Four Books for them to practice.

Only after they have memorized most of the Four Books and Five Classics will they focus on writing argumentative essays.

Who made them still primary school students!

So Ji Yuan didn't take it seriously.

But it’s different for Mrs. An. Her son Dahai ranked second in the exam last month!

She also suppressed the third room. She even walked differently this month.

Everyone who sees her would ask, "Is your son Dahai going to take the entrance exam for the county school?" Congratulations.

In fact, before this, Mrs. An had never thought about taking the entrance exam for the county school. At most, if the third branch of the family could study, her family would also have to study.

Literacy is always good.

It’s different now. If his son Dahai can be admitted to the county school, he might really be able to achieve fame and honor.

But she knew that her father-in-law wanted a scholar to appear in the family.

A scholar who does not bow when meeting an official can be exempted from taxes.

If their entire family could really be exempted from land tax, my father-in-law would definitely be extremely happy.

Otherwise, he was so stingy that he wouldn't have paid for his children to go to private school.

Mrs. An figured out the benefits of reading, so she naturally treated Ji Yuan better and even gave him an extra egg this morning.

An Dahai has been following the recitation this month and it is really good. He always feels that it is very different when Ji Yuan is reciting. It is really a lot easier when he follows the work and understands the meaning at the same time.

Ji Yuan naturally understood that children like An Dahai, who were only eleven years old, would still be elementary school or junior high school students in modern times.

If you don't understand the meaning of a sentence and just try to memorize it, not to mention whether you can remember it, the boredom alone is enough to discourage many people.

In different eras, he could understand the meaning while reciting, and could also deepen his memory by combining it with actual situations, so it was much easier.

When talking to An Dahai, it can also strengthen my memory.

Ji Yuan himself didn't even notice that he was now able to do two things at once and speak fluently.

Although it is not yet obvious, there is already such a trend.

Mrs. An happily sent them both to private school, and happened to meet the sister-in-law from the third room who was sending her child to school.

When the two met, both looked unhappy.

Madam An Er said to An Xiaohe, "Take the exam seriously today. You have read the letter your uncle wrote to you. You will definitely do well."

When it comes to An Xiaohe's uncle, Ji Yuan is also a little curious.

When they were almost at the private school, Ji Yuan asked, "Who is his uncle?"

"He is a scholar." An Dahai whispered, "He studied in our official school in the prefecture. I heard he is very good."

Does this mean that he found his uncle who had passed the imperial examination to tutor him in his studies?

That’s awesome.

Ji Yuan cast an envious look.

Their Master Zhao was also a scholar with extensive knowledge, but he was too old to take the higher examination.

I think An Xiaohe's uncle is probably in his thirties at most and is still studying in the provincial capital. Maybe he still has hope of moving up.

But these are too far away.

The private school exam in March is what he should focus on.

An Xiaohe looked at them and raised his chin.

It’s just the meaning of the Four Books, he has already learned it.

I will definitely not make any mistakes when I take the test again this time.

His uncle also sent him a lot of collected annotations and current affairs, which he memorized for a long time. He will definitely be able to write well on the Four Books this time.

Collected annotations are the writings of Confucian scholars who expressed their own understanding beyond the original scriptures.

Current affairs essays are the most popular articles in the imperial examinations today.

What An Xiaohe's uncle found for him were several contemporary essays circulated in the Jianmeng Mansion, as well as classic annotations by famous scholars.

These things are hard for ordinary people to have.

In modern terms, it is extracurricular tutoring material, the ancient version of the Huanggang Secret Scroll.

However, An Dahai and An Xiaohe are cousins, and they don’t know that he has these good things, let alone Ji Yuan.

I went to the private school in the morning, first I memorized the lessons, then I took the exam.

It’s different from before, when exams in private schools lasted no more than an hour.

But the examination papers for the March exam are full.

Master Zhao said, "Ji Yuan and the others, the examination time is two hours. You are not allowed to move around or look around during the examination."

Ji Yuan, An Dahai, An Xiaohe and other five people felt a heaviness in their hands when they got the March test papers.

What a thick paper!

sky!

How long will this take to answer?

Two hours is four hours.

This is too exaggerated.

Master Zhao couldn't help laughing when he saw Ji Yuan's expression: "When the real imperial examination comes, it will only take longer than this."

Everyone in the private school was sad.

The students who are still in elementary school just feel awe in their hearts.

horrible!

These five people are so miserable!

The exam will take two hours!

Until the Mongolian students finished school, Ji Yuan and the other five were still writing furiously.

However, the other students did not leave. They were outside watching the five of them taking the exam, looking very curious.

The Jiyuan people were just outside the window, and there was a lot of noise all around. Master Zhao asked them to be quiet, and that was when things got better.

But I don’t worry about tricking students into thinking the answers are correct, after all, they really don’t know the answers.

The content of the exam was similar to what Ji Yuan had guessed.

In March, their learning progress accelerated, so the amount of silent practice had to be increased. Master Zhao attached great importance to whether their basic knowledge was solid.

All the questions in the imperial examination are based on the Four Books and Five Classics.

These books are the foundation of a house. If the foundation is unstable, everything else will be useless.

Although Master Zhao is an old-fashioned person, his teaching is very strict and he uses the old-fashioned teaching method, it must be said that this is the safest method for students who are laying the foundation.

If you want a tree to grow into a towering tree, its roots must be firmly planted.

Silent pasting means writing from memory.

It not only tests one's daily recitation, but also tests whether one can write characters and how well they are written, which is also the basic skill.

There was another question where you only had to write the first sentence and were asked to write as long as you could.

Master Zhao!

Too cruel!

By the time these laborious rote memorization tests were finished, some students were already wiping the sweat from their foreheads.

An Dahai was so anxious that he scratched his ears and cheeks.

This is not the end yet, there are three more questions on the meaning of the Four Books.

Select one sentence each from The Analects of Confucius, Mencius, and The Doctrine of the Mean, and ask them to write an article.

Each article should be no less than 300 words.

Ji Yuan wrote furiously.

By the end of writing, the ink was almost used up, so I had to add some water before using it again.

It was a really exciting exam!

Ji Yuan pinched his sore wrist and let out a long sigh.

Seeing that there was still some time left, he turned back to check.

Just looking at this, I couldn't help but hold my forehead.

There were too many ink spots on the paper and he couldn't bear to look at it. If he wanted to copy it again, he couldn't afford the ink and paper, and he didn't have enough time.

"Time's up." Master Zhao spoke and stood up.

Under the gaze of a crowd of onlookers, Master Zhao collected the thick papers.

The test papers of these five candidates are thicker than the test papers of the remaining ten candidates combined!

Scientific expedition.

That's too scary.

An Dahai was already lying on the table, unable to get up: "I never dreamed that I would have to write so many words."

Others are not much better.

Ji Yuan simply lay on the grass.

The imperial examination is still a physical job!