This day.
Guo Xuexiu informed Zhang Yue and Guo Lin that Miao Sanniang would not come to the private school for a while.
Zhang Yue and Guo Lin were stunned.
Only then did Guo Xuexiu explain the reason clearly. It turned out that Miao Sanniang's father was a wealthy family in the county, and his family had purchased many acres of land. But this person has a big shortcoming, which is picking.
This person treats his family and servants as sparingly as possible, even for himself. He lives a simple life, wears out his clothes for several years, and only has one wife and no concubines.
Miao's father didn't love anything other than food, clothing, housing, and the only thing he loved were his two sons from his first wife. He doted on them to the point of being lawless, but he was as stingy as an outsider to his own daughter Miao Sanniang.
He could have hired a female teacher to teach his daughter how to read at home, but Miao's father was unwilling to let her go out and study in a rural school like Guo Xuexu. If Miao Sanniang hadn't insisted on learning, Miao's father would have stopped even studying for her.
Now that Miao Sanniang has been studying for two months, Miao's father feels that Miao Sanniang's study is a waste of money, so he sends her home. Miao Sanniang cried all night to no avail, and in the end she didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to Zhang Yue and Guo Lin.
Zhang Yue felt sad when he heard the news. After all, there would be no place to eat in the future, but when he turned around, he saw that Guo Lin's expression was indeed secretly sad.
This was also the case in ancient times. There were relatively few interactions between men and women. It was possible for a man and a woman to develop feelings for each other after being together for so long.
As for Zhang Yue, he also felt sad for a while. It seemed that he would have nowhere to make ends meet in the future. Since there was no such channel, Zhang Yue had no choice but to focus on his studies.
The Book of Changes is the first of the Five Classics.
Guo Xuexiu didn't understand the explanation very well, but asked Zhang Yue to memorize it first. Zhang Yue did not blame Guo Xuexue. The Book of Changes is so difficult that no Confucian scholar from ancient times to the present dared to claim that he could truly understand it.
There is no special effort involved in reading the Bible. Memorize every word and sentence, and know it by heart. One day in the future, you will understand everything. The more you talk, the easier it will come naturally.
No wonder Confucianism in this era is called elite education for good reason. This is like uncooked rice, which cannot be digested without a good stomach. Most impatient people get stuck halfway through this process, memorizing a lot of books but not studying hard every day, making it impossible to understand it.
In the following days, Zhang Yue continued to discuss with his senior brother. If he didn't understand anything, he asked senior brother Guo.
Zhang Yue was still afraid of disturbing his study, but Brother Guo said, "Although I have learned the Book of Changes a long time ago, I am afraid that I will forget it. If you ask me again, I can review the past and learn the new."
Zhang Yue put down his psychological burden after hearing this.
"But junior brother, why do you memorize the Yi Jing so fast? Yesterday I saw you were still reading Meng Gua, and today you have read Kan Gua and Li Gua. Are you sleeping during the day, but got up in the middle of the night and secretly lit a lamp to read at night? ?”
Zhang Yue couldn't laugh or cry and said: "Brother, how can you make such assumptions about me? Am I the kind of person who steals some lamp oil to study?"
Guo Lin said: "Then why can you memorize the sutra so fast? It takes me three to five days to memorize it, but you can memorize it in one day."
Zhang Yue thought for a while and said: "There is no other way. I don't know why I memorized it after reading it once. Maybe this is the so-called photographic memory!"
Guo Lin doubted: "Are you really such a genius? But I see that your diary is not very good. Yesterday I asked you where you put the candlestick. You said you had forgotten it. It took you a long time to find it. If it is true that you have no photographic memory, Forget, it won’t be like this.”
Zhang Yue smiled and said, "I only do this when it comes to studying."
"Then I'll give you the book and you can recite a paragraph to me on the spot!" Guo Lin insisted.
Zhang Yue laughed...
Fortunately, Guo Lin is not a serious person: "With your talent, if you work hard, you will definitely be able to study in the county. Then you can go back to the city. I remember that last year, the county study organized a collection of scriptures, and there were fifty chapters each of the scriptures and their meanings. As long as you can answer six of the ten questions correctly."
"It's different when you enter the county school. In addition to the clan school of the Zhang family in this county, the county school is a place where outstanding people gather. After you enter the county school, you can learn from classmates Xuezheng, and even your Majesty will teach in person. In this way It might be possible to issue a solution test in two or three years."
Zhang Yue nodded after hearing this, it was a bit like getting into a good high school in order to get into a good university. These things are all too familiar to Zhang Yue, who experienced the torture of Wenshan Tihai in his previous life.
For a student like him who relied entirely on rote memorization of the Nine Classics, the teacher was actually less important. The most important thing was that the county school had a collection of Nine Classics. This set of Nine Classics given by Qingshi after the founding of the school is the engraving of the Imperial College.
The supervised engraving is not only exquisite, but also has absolutely no typos after proofreading.
What is written in folk bookstores is equivalent to a dB book, full of typos. It's fine if there are other misspellings in the whole article, but if one word is wrong in the Nine Classics, and this question happens to be tested in the future Posted Scriptures, then it will be a shame.
There was a joke among scholars in the Song Dynasty. There was a scholar who wrote the question "Kun is a cauldron" in the Yi and wrote it in gold. The following students asked Xuezheng for advice, and Xuezheng gave a clear explanation, and was able to justify himself.
The next day the students asked for advice. After the truth came to light, the student said slowly: "I'm afraid what you are reading is the Jian version, and the Jian version is the word "铓".
This Jianben is the Jianyang Ben.
Therefore, Guo Xuexu also spent a lot of effort to borrow the Book of Changes from the county school Xuezhengli to Zhang Yue. Rather than teaching children, recite it yourself or lend them the copy copied by Guo Lin.
The purpose is to maintain the accuracy of the original text. You still have to take responsibility for yourself when it comes to studying.
In the Song Dynasty, many ministers from poor backgrounds left behind stories of borrowing books and copying them when they were studying in county schools. For example, the famous official Liu Zhi, who studied in the state school, "went to Guliang's "Spring and Autumn Annals" and Fan Weizong's "Han Shu" and read them in handwriting."
Having said this, Guo Lin paused and said: "Sir, I have taught a total of twelve disciples, including you and me, and none of them has ever been able to pass the county school. Senior Brother Han could have tried before, but he gave up halfway. ."
"What if I don't go to county school?" Zhang Yue asked.
Guo Lindao: "Since the establishment of the county school in this county, there has never been a scholar outside the Zhang clan school or the county school who has been able to pass the Fajie examination. You may have heard of Zhang Xu from the county school. He entered the county at the age of twelve. He is one of the best in the county in terms of writing, poetry, and poetry, but no one dares to guarantee that he will pass the examination."
"With your qualifications, if you work hard, you can enter the county school in the future. As for me, I have to work hard, maybe have a little bit of knowledge. In the future, you will be required to pass the exam, but I didn't pass the exam, senior brother. That will mean I lose all face."
"If you are admitted to the county school and fail the exam, then you are not average!" Zhang Yue said again.
Guo Lindao: "It's different. Not only can you save tuition fees by enrolling in the county school, but I heard that grain and rice are also subsidized recently. From now on, everyone in the county will respect you and call you a talented person."
Guo Lin made a long speech to ask Zhang Yue to strengthen his determination to take the county school examination and to stimulate his potential.
"Let's give it a try!" Zhang Yue replied.
After Guo Lin said these words to Zhang Yue, he did not want to promote the biggest person, not Zhang Yue but himself.
Guo Lin used to study only when the lights were on and the chicken was on the fifth watch, but now he looks even more diligent. Sometimes when he was tired from reading at night, he would prick his knees with bamboo sticks.
This is all due to the hanging beam and stabbing the stock.
This is self-abuse.
When Zhang Yue saw his senior brother like this, he didn't dare to idle away. He even reduced his nap during the day, from two hours to one hour.
At night, I read for an hour after dark, then go to bed and sleep until midnight.
But for Zhang Yue, how comfortable is it to read for ten hours during the day and then read for another ten hours after going to bed? So when Zhang Yue woke up from his sleep, his eyes were filled with the words of the Nine Classics.
Although these few months of studying were difficult, it reminded Zhang Yue of when he was in his third year of junior high school or senior year of high school. I don't know why, but now that I think about it, Zhang Yue particularly likes those years.
It's not that he worked hard to get into a good school, but that he likes the self who works so hard. He thinks of the self who chased the moon and was illuminated by the moon. He has never encountered that kind of self again.
Later in life, he only learned how to 'fish'.
But one day Zhang Yue got up at night and went to Guolin to hide in a pine alone and cry.
Guo Lin cried and hit the tree with his fist: "I have studied so hard, but why am I still not familiar with the Nine Classics? I am so stupid, I am not even as good as my junior brother who is lazy every day, I am really useless, I failed my father’s intentions.”
"Sanniang! Sanniang! I miss you so much, you know."
Zhang Yue heard this... Senior brother is really boring and doesn't even mention it to me on weekdays.
Now that he is studying like this, Zhang Yue is really worried that Guo Lin's body will not be able to bear it. If he gets sick, he will lose his life, let alone study. However, what Zhang Yue did not expect was that it was Guo Xuexu who fell ill first.
Summer passes and autumn comes, time flies like an arrow.
After autumn, Zhang Yue had memorized both the Yi Jing and Er Ya. When he was about to read other scriptures, Guo Xuexu fell ill.
Guo Xuexiu had a cough at first, and then a high fever. Later, he asked the local doctor in the village to diagnose him as typhoid fever. Typhoid fever was a very serious disease in ancient times.
Knowing this, Guo Xuexuan could not teach, and the children stopped coming. His wife boiled some herbs grown in the mountains for him to take every day.
Guo Lin was a very filial person. Seeing that Guo Xuexue had no money to buy medicine for treatment, he was very worried.
Forced by desperation, Guo Lin decided to find a way to make a living to treat Guo Xuexue... This way of making a living was as a servant.
Being a book servant means copying books for others. This is a livelihood specially provided for scholars.
Many celebrities have had this experience.
For example, Ban Gu, Han Dynasty records record that Ban Gu's family was poor and he often wrote letters to official servants to support him. After working hard for a long time, he quit his job and started writing. He sighed and said: "A man has no other ambitions. He should just imitate Fu Jiezi and Zhang Qian and make achievements in foreign lands in order to win the title of marquis. How can he be idle for a long time while writing and studying?"
There is also Kan Ze, a famous minister of the Eastern Wu Dynasty during the Three Kingdoms period. The Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms records that "the family was a farmer, he was eager to learn, but he lived in poverty and had no resources. He often worked as a servant to provide paper and pen for others. After he finished what he wrote, he also recited it many times."
In the Song Dynasty, there was Cai Ding, whose family background was small and poor. My father, Ge, made a living by relying on the letters written by the county and jail officials. He was qualified to study as an envoy, and he traveled to rural schools and became slightly famous.
It can be seen that many poor scholars started out as servants.
As for the place that provided Guo Lin with this livelihood, it was Zhang clan school a few miles away.
