Chapter 228: Examination, Judgment Trap
With the help of incense and down quilt, Zhu Lan slept particularly soundly that night.
When the morning light just illuminated the Imperial Examination Hall the next day, Zhu Lan had already gotten up, washed and dressed, and simply tied his hair up with a wooden hairpin. He sat upright in his cell in a blue shirt.
While waiting for the test papers to be distributed, you should start grinding the ink and making preparations.
When taking part in the Spring Examination, the selection and grinding of the ink block will test the students' skills. If the ink is too thick, it will clog the pen tip, and if it is too thin, the handwriting will be unclear.
The brushes and ink blocks that Zhu Lan brought were all carefully selected by the Pei family, and the inkstone was a good one that Du Lanfang asked someone to find for him. It felt extremely smooth when grinding ink.
…
The first exam was about the meaning of the Four Books and the Five Classics, which were set by the emperor himself. After the questions were selected, they were put into a small box, locked and handed over to the Minister of Rites, who then took it to the Imperial Academy and gave it to the chief examiner. The chief examiner opened the small box with a key obtained in advance, took out the questions, printed them, and distributed them when the exam started.
The test mainly examines the candidates' understanding of the contents of the Four Books and Five Classics, which was not difficult for Zhu Lan.
By lunch time on the ninth day, Zhu Lan had finished answering questions on the Four Books.
As for the meaning of the Five Classics, students had to choose one of them to answer, and Zhu Lan chose "Shangshu" without hesitation.
After all, she had been working part-time in the province's "Shangshu" cultural research group before she traveled through time, so she was already very familiar with it. In the years since she traveled through time, she had consciously made the best use of her strengths and avoided her weaknesses, and had put extra effort into the study of "Shangshu".
Of course, she has more considerations.
On the one hand, the imperial examination was intended to select people with both virtue and talent to serve the court. The Book of Documents mainly expounds on the way a benevolent monarch governs the people, which is consistent with the original intention of selecting officials through the imperial examination.
On the other hand, the writing style of "Shangshu" is simple and elegant. If you can flexibly use the allusions and rhetoric in "Shangshu" in your answer article, it can greatly enhance the texture and literary talent of the text and gain higher evaluation.
Of course, other people can think of these two reasons, so "Shangshu" has always been a popular track in the Spring Examination, with a large number of people choosing the answer and the competition is particularly fierce.
Zhu Lan smiled faintly. She has never been afraid of competition and just wants to make good use of her advantages.
She glanced through the questions in the Book of Documents, but was not in a hurry to answer them. Instead, she took out her self-heating pot and planned to fill her stomach first.
This time she made some improvements to the self-heating pot. It was early spring, the weather was still cold, and food was easy to preserve, so Pei Yue helped her boil some concentrated pork bone broth and brought it along.
A layer of solidified lard floated on the surface of the broth. When the lime met water and was heated, the lard in the upper food box gradually melted. The fragrance spread for miles, and I wonder how many nearby candidates were made to cry with envy.
Zhu Lan ate slowly and by the time he finished the last mouthful of soup, he had already formed a framework for the answer in his mind. He sketched it out on a piece of draft paper and immediately began to write.
…
In the second round, after Zhu Lan got the questions, he habitually browsed through them. The order from the beginning to the end was one discussion, five judgments, and one imperial edict, one imperial decree, one memorial, and one internal medicine.
Starting from the second exam, the chief examiner would set the questions himself, and after the questions were distributed, they would be presented to the emperor for his review.
After so many years, I was actually doing the questions given by my mentor again in the Imperial Examination Hall. With such a tricky and diversionary style of questions, I felt a little...
Zhu Lan tilted his head and thought about it, and four words inexplicably emerged in his mind -
Feel at home.
She smiled, calmly picked up the pen, and started drafting the answer to the last question.
Writing an imperial edict is nothing more than writing an official document. The format is more important than the content, so it is best to start with it. Zhu Lan wrote it almost without pause, and finished it in one go very quickly.
Then she continued to answer from back to front.
The five judgment questions are to judge and explain the legal issues in five cases.
For example, how should an official be convicted if he accepts bribes of a certain amount, what kind of punishment should a businessman receive for selling private salt, how should civil land disputes be mediated, and so on.
This type of question is intended to test the examinees' familiarity with Daliang law. It is easy to answer, but it is also quite difficult.
It is said to be simple because the law is dead. You just need to analyze and judge according to the law step by step and come to a verdict.
The reason why it is difficult is that there are thousands of laws in Daliang, which are complicated and have many details. If you want to memorize the whole text, it is as difficult as the Four Books and Five Classics. Moreover, since it is a test question, if you answer it assumingly, you will definitely fall into the trap set by the examiner.
His eyes fell on the question again, and Zhu Lan smiled knowingly. It was true that Old Chang either didn't take action, or when he did, his action was extraordinary.
The booklet that Chang Yunxiao brought compiled some major cases in Daliang in the past ten years. The aspects covered by this topic were all involved in the booklet, and the mysteries in the cases were pointed out.
For example, in one case, a cloth merchant in his 70s died suddenly without leaving a will, which caused many people in his family to fight for the inheritance. The cloth merchant's son was the legal heir and wanted to inherit all the inheritance, but the cloth merchant's nephew took out a private gift deed signed with the cloth merchant, and the agreement was stamped with the cloth merchant's handprint. So how should the inheritance be distributed?
According to Daliang law, since the cloth merchant signed a deed of bequest with his nephew, the priority of this deed is greater than his son's legal inheritance rights, so the distribution should be carried out according to the deed.
Zhu Lan smiled and shook his head.
My dear teacher, this trap you have dug is really... I wonder how many candidates in the Imperial Examination Hall today will fail because of this question.
This question seems to be testing the priority between a bequest deed and statutory inheritance rights, but it actually tests the candidates' attention to updates on court laws.
Just last year, the Ministry of Justice promulgated several new laws, one of which was a less-noticeable provision, which required that if an elderly person over 60 years old made or amended a will, the local county government must send someone to testify and a deed issued by the government must be drafted for the will to take effect.
The cloth merchant in the title is over 60 years old and may have many inconveniences in his daily life. It is difficult to judge whether the signing or modification of the deed is entirely out of his own will. A gift deed signed privately and stamped with a fingerprint is not effective.
Therefore, according to the improved Daliang law, all inheritance will still be inherited by his eldest son.
Zhu Lan paused lightly with his fingertips, completing a beautiful final stroke, and in the blink of an eye he had finished writing the verdict.
Her eyes finally fell on the first question - on how to consolidate border defense and foreign affairs.
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