During the special training in the academy before, Wei Xi's questions were of the interception and connection type, while Mei Ruochu's questions were deliberately designed to lead people to think in the wrong way.
Mu Erpang felt that this question was quite similar to the way his elder brother Mei asked questions.
Then we must first rule out the option of Yan Pingzhong. Pingzhong cannot be considered a human being.
It is difficult to break the inertial thinking. Mu Erpang closed his eyes and began to recall the poems and essays he had read that had nothing to do with people.
After racking my brains for a while, there was suddenly a loud thunder outside.
During the college entrance examination last year, Qingzhou Prefecture had several heavy rains, and this year it is raining even more heavily.
After the thunder, there was no wind or rain outside, but it was completely gloomy.
The examination room suddenly became as dark as night. A group of soldiers immediately stepped forward to maintain order and lit candles everywhere in the examination room.
When the candlelight was lit, it became even more stuffy and hot inside, just like a steamer.
The literati are weak, and the topic of the poem is too difficult, so many people have not recovered until now. In the current situation, they are somewhat unwell.
Mu Erpang, who had a physique stronger than that of a strong man, soon felt very tight in his chest. He quickly unbuttoned his collar and rolled up his sleeves to his elbows.
Although there are still two or three hours before the exam, people's perception of time will be confused under such weather.
Not long after, candidates who wrote quickly but were not feeling well handed in their papers one after another.
Once people start handing in their papers frequently, it invisibly adds a lot of pressure on other candidates in the same exam.
As a result, more and more people handed in their papers, but Mu Erpang remained motionless in his examination seat, forcing himself to calm down and then trying hard to search his memory.
Finally, he really thought of a sentence - 'As for the pine trees of Gudu, Pingzhong and Junqian, their dense branches cover hundreds of acres and their branches have been there for thousands of years.'
This sentence comes from "Fu on the Dead Tree" by Yu Xin of the Northern and Southern Dynasties.
That’s right, the source this time is not even a poem, but an essay.
So the story of Ping Zhongjun moving was not about Yan Zi moving, but about two kinds of trees!
Even if Liu Xuezheng added a punctuation mark between these two words, or even left some space, it wouldn't be so difficult to imagine!
Moreover, would Liu Xuezheng himself not know that the relocation of Pingzhong Jun would likely cause ambiguity?
No, he must have known and done it on purpose!
This question just writes the names of two trees. As long as you have read the relevant poems and can remember them, you will naturally remember them.
No matter what, this question is "easier" than the previous one!
There was still a little time left in the exam, so Mu Erpang stopped complaining and just accepted his fate and started writing poetry.
When writing poems and essays about trees, one naturally has to use the method of using objects to express one's aspirations, personifying the trees to express one's ambition to be an upright and honest person.
Because it took a lot of time to abandon habitual thinking and think of new sources, Mu Erpang still only finished the paper a quarter of an hour before the end of the exam, and waited for the clerk and the sergeant to come and collect them.
At this time, the examination room was so stuffy that it seemed as if one could not breathe. Mu Erpang's clothes were all wet. Before he left the dragon gate, he ran into Ren Shun and Zhao Xiuwen.
This time it was not a coincidence, because not many people stayed in this "steamer" until the end of the exam, so it was natural for us to meet.
Ren Shun was also sweating profusely, while Zhao Xiuwen was putting on his clothes while walking - it was too hot in front, so he took off half of his clothes and wrote with his bare chest.
When the three met, they just greeted each other without saying much, and exchanged looks that were hard to describe.
It was just from this look that everyone knew what was going on - they had finally found the trap in Liu Xuezheng's poem title.
After all, they had established a rapport and were now friends. They were also happy for each other for not making mistakes and smiled at each other at the same time.
They walked side by side for a while, and Shen Aoshuang passed by them.
She still treated them as if they were air, but she didn't even button up her clothes and walked out in dishevel.
The three of them wanted to remind him, but finally kept their mouths shut - Chen Aoshuang was so arrogant, they should not embarrass themselves.
After leaving the dragon gate, although the weather outside was still hot and humid, it was much more comfortable than inside the examination room. They took a few deep breaths, and when they recovered, they said goodbye and went to find their families.
Chen Cui came to pick people up in a carriage, but the sky turned completely overcast and it was too stuffy to sit in the carriage, so she just took two umbrellas and sat at a tea stand outside the examination room.
By this time, she was sweating all over, so after the mother and son met, they didn't say much and immediately walked back to the academy.
Just as they entered the academy, the rain that had been brewing in the clouds for an hour finally fell down with a crackling sound.
In fact, it started raining heavily when I got home, so it seems like I was lucky.
But according to Chen Cui, it would have been better to do it earlier so as not to affect Mu Erpang's physique and reduce it by 2 points.
After that, Mu Erpang went to take a shower and rest. In the evening, when Qian Weishu and the others came back from the prefectural school, everyone gathered together again, eating watermelon and discussing questions.
It was still an oral presentation. Mu Erpang talked about the essay topic first. It was a standard question, and he gave a meaningful answer with quotations from classics, so Lao Buyu and the others didn't pay much attention to it.
When he talked about the title of the poem later, he first said the two words "Ping Zhong" and then paused deliberately.
Lao Buyu raised his face from the watermelon slices and asked sideways: "The poem topic is to test Yan Pingzhong? That's not difficult."
Mu Erpang looked at Wei Shu, Wei Xi, Mei Ruochu and Cui Fei again. Except for Mei Ruochu who did not express his opinion, the others also nodded slightly to show their agreement.
You see, when scholars mention Pingzhong, the first thing they think of is Yan Zi!
Mu Erpang then said the last two words with tears in his eyes, "Jun Qian."
Except for Cui Fei and Shen Cui, everyone else in the academy thought about it for a while after listening to it, and their expressions became indescribable.
There were many things that Shen Cui didn't understand here, but she got used to it after listening for a while, and just considered herself an illiterate. Anyway, someone would patiently explain it to her later, so she was not in a hurry to ask questions.
Cui Fei naturally wanted to ask, he asked curiously: "The story of Yan Zi moving? I have never heard of it."
Mei Ruochu sighed helplessly and said, "It's Yu Xin's "Fu on the Dead Tree". Songzi, Gudu, Pingzhong, and Junqian are all names of trees. And Zuo Si's "Fu on Wudu" also has 'Pingzhong, 桾櫏, pine and cypress, Gudu. Nanliu wood, acacia tree'."
Mu Erpang smiled bitterly and said, "If the title of the poem used the word '桾櫏' from the Wudu Fu, I probably wouldn't have spent so much time trying to recall the source."
After all, these two characters have the character "木" (wood) in their characters, which easily makes people think that the title of the poem is about trees!
Liu Xuezheng chose the two words "Jun Qian".
Cui Fei took a deep breath immediately. Although it was quite embarrassing for him, a man who already had the title of scholar, to be misled by the questions in the college examination, but after all, it was only in his own academy and there were no outsiders present.
He suddenly thought because he was afraid - the annual examination at the end of last year was set by Liu Xuezheng, and the question "士先器识" with the second half of the sentence cut off had stumped many people.
But at least the question is unambiguous. As long as you read the books on the syllabus carefully, you can definitely handle it!
Now that I think about it, Liu Xuezheng was definitely showing mercy to us back then. We will have to make a living under his rule for another two years. What should we do? !
But since Mu Erpang had just finished his college entrance examination and there was still half a year before the next annual examination, Chen Cui asked everyone not to think too much about it for now.
…………
After the re-examination, it is still time for Liu Xuezheng and a group of principals and assistants to mark and grade the papers.
There is still no need to pay too much attention to the title of the article. What the mountain masters and friends are anxious to see is the title of the poem.
Although Liu Xuezheng had assured them solemnly beforehand that there would be no tricks and the questions were all very simple.
But before they saw the questions in person, they were still a little worried.
Now I finally see it.
They are all over 40 years old and have studied all their lives, so their level is naturally much higher than that of the students taking the exam.
So they quickly figured out the source, and the principals who had been teaching for a lifetime could immediately think of the ambiguity that might be implied by the title of the poem!
"I'm right, isn't it? This question is very simple?" Liu Xuezheng said with a smile, "As long as the students have read "Ode to Wudu" or "Ode to the Dead Tree", they will not write it wrong."
This was not the first time that everyone was choked by him. After digesting for a while, someone asked, "Then why didn't you use the word '桾櫏'..."
The two characters '桾櫏' are not common, so it is not so easy to extend the meaning to ambiguity.
Liu Xuezheng remained calm and said, "Oh, it just happened. Anyway, there are two ways to write the name of this tree. I just picked one at random."
All the mountain masters and friends: ...
exactly? Just randomly choose? You are fooling the devil!
But the questions on the left and right sides were indeed much more normal than those in the main test. They tested the amount of reading and how careful one was, so they didn't keep harping on it.
The result was that among the remaining candidates in the re-examination, 30 to 40 percent actually wrote poems about "Yan Zi's Move."
There is no need to examine these papers carefully, they can just be dismissed directly, which greatly reduces their workload.
Marking papers is hard work during this scorching summer, and all the principals and their colleagues felt more relieved.
Finally, the ranking is determined. This is Liu Xuezheng's home court.
However, he did not do anything weird about this, and carefully adopted the opinions of many school principals and colleagues.
On the day before the announcement of the examination results, the rankings of all the scholars had already been determined.
Only the first and second places have yet to be decided.
Because there were two papers, the one with the eight-part essay was better written, and a deep foundation in the classics could be seen between the lines.
The other poem is better written, it is unrestrained and free, making people unable to stop reading it.
Of course, what made everyone so confused was that the other question written by these two people was slightly inferior, but it had already surpassed the majority of students in the same test.
In the end, everyone expressed their opinions, and there was exactly one more person supporting the former than the latter.
Only Liu Xuezheng had not expressed his opinion yet, but after all, he had the most power, and Liu Xuezheng was good at poetry and prose, so everyone thought that the first place must be the student who wrote more exquisite poetry and prose.
The levels of the two papers on the left and right are almost the same, so it would be very convincing whoever gets the first place.
But what is incredible is that in the end Liu Xuezheng chose the former as the first place!
Everyone couldn't help but sigh that although Liu Xuezheng liked to make weird questions, he was really a wise man who was open to communication and could accept other people's opinions instead of just making decisions based on his own likes and dislikes!
The author has something to say:
Baozi has already written the source in the comments, so I'll mark it here -
From Zhihu: According to Lu Yitian's "Lenglu Miscellaneous Notes", Peng Yuanrui of the Qing Dynasty was well versed in allusions and once served as the provincial education commissioner in Jiangsu. He set a topic: "Pingzhong Junqian". Many students have not read Yu Xin's "Fu on the Dead Tree": As for the pine seeds, Gudu, Pingzhong, and Junqian, the dense branches cover hundreds of acres, and the branches have been growing for thousands of years.
Or Zuo Si’s “Fu on Wudu”: Pingzhong, 桾櫏, pine and cypress, and Gudu. The tree of nanmu and acacia.
Therefore, they did not know that "Ping Zhong" and "Jun Qian (桾櫏)" were actually the names of two trees. As a result, they wrote poems about Yan Zi moving house (Yan Ying's courtesy name was Zhong, and his posthumous title was Ping, so he was known as "Ping Zhong" in the world), which became a laughing stock for a while.
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