"Can you guess the county exam questions?" Shen Liangcai felt that Song Chi was a little too ambitious, or he was under too much pressure.
"What's this?"
Song Chi asked, "The county magistrate sets the questions for the county exam, right?"
"Yeah, how could you possibly guess what questions County Magistrate Bai would ask?" Shen Liangcai felt that this was simply impossible. How could he possibly guess the imperial examination questions?
He also advised: "Although there are only three days left until the county exam, you should remain calm and not rush to seek medical treatment."
Song Chi knew that Shen Liangcai wouldn't believe anything he said, so he said directly: "Just find the exam paper I want. It's always right for me to study hard."
"I'll go find some for you. Some are already in your house, but some require you to go out and buy them. Just wait."
If outsiders saw it, they would think Song Chi was the master and Shen Liang was the servant.
This master-servant relationship is really abstract.
Song Chi first picked up the four books on the table and read through them. He had the ability to remember everything he saw, and the original owner also had some basic knowledge, so it could be considered as a way to strengthen his memory.
Memorizing is also one of his skills. I still remember that during the college entrance examination, he had to do ten sets of mock papers a day and worked hard without any sleep. His classmates hated him to death and called him the King of Big Papers.
Song Chi didn't think there was anything wrong with this. Smart people tend to work harder. He didn't like to do exercises, he liked to acquire knowledge.
The county examination is the first step in the imperial examination. The test questions will only be taken from the Four Books and will not involve the Five Classics.
When he told Shen Liangcai that he wanted to guess the imperial examination questions, he was not just talking.
As a scholar, Song Chi believed that everything in the world has its own rules. As long as the rules are found, many problems can be solved easily, and the imperial examination is no exception.
The chief examiner of the county examination was the magistrate Bai Yong, who was also the person who set the questions.
The imperial examination system was a system for selecting officials through examinations, and the questions in the Four Books were intended to assess the scholars' understanding and mastery of Confucian principles.
However, the examiners who set the questions were not solely responsible for teaching affairs. They were court officials, or even cabinet ministers. Their act of setting questions itself was a "focal event" that easily attracted attention.
From the emperor to the common people, everyone will be affected by this "focus". When setting questions, they will not only consider the imperial examination, but also personal considerations or the purpose of achieving something.
Therefore, the metaphorical meaning of the propositions in the Four Books is extremely great. Some of them allude to the mission of protecting the country, some use the propositions to frame political enemies, some use the propositions to impeach treacherous officials, and some use the propositions to curry favor with superiors.
In Song Chi's opinion, Bai Yong, the magistrate of Ji County, was using the proposition to curry favor with his superiors.
If you want to guess the exam questions, you must first understand the chief examiner, that is, the county magistrate Bai Yong. In the words of Secretary Dakang, this comrade got promoted by flattery.
Bai Yong was just a juren who passed the examination at the age of 40. His results were not very good, but he was admitted as an exception just because he wrote a flattering article in the provincial examination.
The person he flattered was the Prime Minister of the time, Song Shiwen.
Anyone who reads this article will get goosebumps. It is written in gorgeous words and beautiful sentences, and it describes how great the Prime Minister is. It is a 360-degree flattery from multiple angles and dimensions.
The chief examiner at that time was also a member of the "Wen Party", so he handed the article to Song Shiwen. After reading it, Song Shiwen immediately instructed that Bai Yong be admitted as an exception.
Thus, Bai Yong, who was originally an ordinary scholar, climbed up the ladder of the Prime Minister. Passing the imperial examination was equivalent to having the power to become an official.
But he is only a reserve official and has to wait for a vacant position to be filled. With the current prosperity of the imperial examination system, there are many people who cannot wait for a position, not to mention the Juren, even the Jinshi.
Bai Yong only waited for one year before he was directly transferred to Ji County as a seventh-rank magistrate, becoming the local official in the hometown of the Prime Minister. This shows how much Song Shiwen valued him.
These things are known to everyone, but Bai Yong is not ashamed of them. Instead, he is proud of them and often talks about them and publicizes them from time to time.
Everything he said and did was always about how to praise Song Shiwen, and the imperial examination questions were no exception.
In Bai Yong's first year as magistrate of Ji County, he held a county examination. The topic was selected from the Analects of Confucius: "A gentleman should focus on the basics. Once the basics are established, the Way will emerge." Filial piety and brotherly love are the foundation of benevolence.
The idea is that a gentleman is committed to the fundamentals, and once these fundamentals are established, benevolence emerges. Being filial to one's parents and respecting one's elder brothers are the foundations of benevolence.
Song Shiwen often regards himself as a gentleman who practices benevolence and loves the people as an official. This is the character he has created. Bai Yong uses this proposition to flatter Song Shiwen.
It is ridiculous that a man who abandons his wife and children calls himself a gentleman and becomes a role model for scholars. This person is really hypocritical and he just falls for it.
Because he favored Bai Yong, he brought about a corrupt trend in the officialdom, which led many people to stop doing their jobs and just think about getting promoted by currying favor with their superiors.
Among them, County Magistrate Bai was the best. He was particularly good at taking advantage of loopholes and would not miss any opportunity to flatter Song Shiwen, even in the imperial examination questions.
This was precisely his brilliance. The imperial examination questions were set and students wrote their essays accordingly. This was a disguised way of promoting Song Shiwen's fame and recruiting scholars from all over the world. How could Song Shiwen not be happy? How could he not appreciate it?
From this, Song Chi concluded that the county examination three days later would still be on the topic of "Gentleman", and he would not miss this opportunity to flatter him.
Because Song Shiwen was in Ning'an Prefecture, he might even preside over the county examination in person.
This is a rare opportunity to flatter someone in person.
Song Chi could conclude that Bai Yong's questions would still focus on "gentleman". He only needed to find sentences that mentioned gentleman from the Four Books and learn to interpret them.
In fact, the scope can be further narrowed.
When talking about a gentleman, the first thing that comes to mind is virtue. Song Shiwen was the prime minister of the time. For him, just talking about virtue was a bit low. It should be extended from virtue to benevolence and righteousness, and then to serving the people.
Officials should serve the people.
If you say you love the people, that would be a big taboo. Only the emperor can say he loves the people like his own children, and court officials can only say they serve the people.
Judging from this, there are even fewer possible propositions... But is it that simple?
Song Chi doesn't think so.
It was originally just a normal county examination, but it became complicated because of a bet between him and Han Yuanzheng.
Not only that, he made Song Ming lose face at the female general's homecoming banquet. As the county magistrate, Bai Yong would definitely find ways to make up for it.
The difficulty of this county exam will increase as a result, and the questions will definitely be very difficult.
The only type of question Song Chi could think of was one that was extremely difficult, and that was the cutting and connecting question. In fact, this was not new.
The exam questions had to be chosen from the Four Books and Five Classics, a total of seven books, and the number of words was also fixed. Over the years, the imperial examinations, county examinations, prefectural examinations, academy examinations, provincial examinations, and metropolitan examinations...
There are so many questions in every exam, and some of them are done by students themselves. It is very likely that the questions you encounter in the exam are the ones you have memorized in the past, which makes it difficult for the question setter.
So, someone invented the "piece-to-piece" question, which was to put two sentences together as a test question to avoid repetition, resulting in irrelevant propositions.
Song Chi guessed that County Magistrate Bai would definitely ask such a question, and they would try their best to make him fail.
But... Song Chi's eyes flashed coldly, your plan is likely to fail, I will give you a big surprise!
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