It was the tenth day of the second lunar month in the tenth year of Chongzhen.
The catastrophe has arrived!
The second month of the lunar calendar is equivalent to the third month of the Western calendar. It is supposed to be the beginning of spring. It should be the time when the spring rains continue and everything revives. But in the spring of the tenth year of Chongzhen's reign, the climate in Shuntian Mansion, Beijing, under the emperor's feet, was unusually dry and cold. The average temperature is still hovering below freezing, and the moat surrounding Beijing is still covered with a thick layer of ice.
However, the sandstorm that comes to Beijing every spring has arrived as scheduled. In the city of Beijing, every now and then there is a haze!
However, the severe cold and wind and sand cannot stop people from pursuing fame and wealth, no, it should be the pursuit of truth!
Therefore, this spring, the vitality of Beijing city is more abundant than in the two years before the disaster. On the streets, from time to time you can see the imperial examination candidates Xiaolian wearing Confucian uniforms. They all came to participate in the imperial examination competition held by Chongzhen for ten years.
On the tenth day of the second lunar month in the tenth year of Chongzhen, it was a good day for scholars from all over the world, full of economic knowledge and full of principles in their hearts, to enter the examination room and try to pry open the door of officialdom with a few articles.
Before dawn, Gongyuan East Street and Gongyuan West Street in Beijing were already crowded with people. If you look down from a high altitude, you will see that there are densely packed Confucian scarves below. Eight or nine thousand candidates, all carrying dreams, rations... and maybe cheat sheets, are standing outside the tall and formidable walls of Beijing Gongyuan.
The soldiers in front of the palace armed with sabers were guarding outside the main entrance of the examination room. They all looked gloomy, as if they were facing a formidable enemy. This Spring Festival Competition was no different than before. Not only did they have to guard against cheating, but they also had to guard against assassins. Because Emperor Zhu Youjian of the Ming Dynasty has arrived at Gongyuan in Beijing and will give a speech before the exam begins to encourage him to work hard for the exam.
There are currently eight or nine thousand people with "unclear origins". What if there is a remnant of thieves among them? Therefore, the newly appointed deputy general of the Dianqian Army, Li Zicheng (the commander-in-chief of the Dianqian Army is concurrently served by the right minister of the Ministry of War, so the status of the deputy general is equivalent to the general commander-in-chief), is now standing in person at the main gate of Beijing Gongyuan, with blazing eyes. Looking at the crowd of candidates outside, they seemed to want to find Gao Yidao, Gao Guiying and others who were fleeing.
Although Gao Yingxiang, the number one rebel in Tianzi, had already been consecrated, his nephew Gao Yidao and niece Gao Guiying managed to escape and got into Liupan Mountain, but have not been caught so far.
In addition, as natural disasters have become more and more serious in the past two years, the situation in northwest, Zhongzhou and other places has become unstable again. Many victims who were living hard lives were incited to cause rebellion by some people with ulterior motives. Some people simply used the banner of King Chuang Gao Yingxiang and claimed that King Chuang was not dead!
Under such circumstances, Li Zicheng, who is responsible for the security of the capital, must of course be more vigilant... He cannot let intruders cause trouble in the capital!
"The auspicious time has come, open the courtyard gate!"
With a shout, the soldiers guarding the gate of Gongyuan immediately moved away several fences that sealed the gate, forming several entrances that could only be passed by one person. There are soldiers from the front army guarding the entrance. Their task is to search and inspect the candidates - the officials sent by the Yamen of the Ministry of Justice are guarding the side. Anyone who is found to have cheat sheets will be handed over to the ministry for strict action immediately!
Those who come to Beijing to take the exam have already queued up, then pass through the entrances one by one, and undergo the strictest inspection in the temporary body-checking fences set up one after another.
After the inspection, no cheat sheets were found, and no signs of carrying sharp blades were found. After checking that the certificates issued by the Gongyuan of each province were correct, you could enter the Gongyuan. After entering the Gongyuan, first go to pay homage to the Holy Master, and then go to gather in front of Mingyuan Tower.
Mingyuan Building is the commanding heights of Gongyuan and where the examiner sits. The imperial examination questions will also be published here. The examiners will post the questions on the wooden board and hang them high for the examinees to copy by themselves.
In order to prevent the candidates from being blinded and unable to see the questions clearly, a question singer with a loud voice was specially arranged to read the questions to the candidates over and over again.
But today, the front of Mingyuan Tower was heavily guarded. Imperial guards in flying fish uniforms stood in a circle, surrounding Mingyuan Tower. Upstairs in Mingyuan, the test questions have been hung up.
Juzi, who was relatively close to Mingyuan Tower, had already stretched his neck to read the questions, and some people even read them out loud.
"When discussing any of the thirty-eight articles in the first chapter of "Confucius' Posthumous Chapter", the number of words must not exceed 2,000..."
"The Legacy of Confucius" has a total of fifteen chapters and three to four hundred items. The first chapter is called "Confucius", which is the essence of the entire "Confucius Posthumous Chapter". The twenty-eight articles are all important philosophical tools for studying things and gaining knowledge. For example, on rationality, on nature (science), on experience, on empirical evidence, on speculation, etc. Any one of them can be used to write a philosophical book and be passed down to future generations.
Some of the "candidate great scholars" who participated in this imperial examination have already begun to compile their works based on the suggestions in "Zi Lun". Now that I see this test question, of course I am overjoyed!
They have all studied "Zi Lun" for a year or two, and they dare not say that it is completely thorough. However, it is a piece of cake to take out one of the articles for in-depth analysis and write a good and well-founded article... .You will definitely succeed in this subject!
Of course, there are only a very small number of "candidate great scholars". Most of the scholars have only read the "Posthumous Works of Confucius" and have not studied it carefully at all - the questions in the imperial examination are all on the Four Books and Five Classics. Who would study the "Posthumous Works of Confucius" "ah? If you have this time, you might as well write better stereotyped articles!
So opposition voices immediately arose.
"The Imperial Examination has never tested "Confucius' Legacy". We have never studied "Confucius' Legacy", so how can we take the exam?"
"How many years has "The Posthumous Chapters of Confucius" been published? Not many people in the world have read it well, so how can it be used for the imperial examination?"
"That's right, every article in "The Legacy of Confucius" is extremely profound. How can we, the disciples, have any moral conduct to try to discuss it?"
"Yes, what is tested in the imperial examination is determined by our ancestors! Emperor Taizu Gao wanted to establish the imperial examination law in the third year of Hongwu, so he stipulated that the essays to be tested should imitate the classics and meanings of the Song Dynasty, which is the eight-legged essay of our Ming Dynasty..."
The test of eight-part essays was set by Zhu Yuanzhang, and he also stipulated that the title of the eight-part essay must be an original text excerpted from the Four Books and Five Classics.
The reason for this determination is that it is easier to evaluate the quality of articles - Zhu Yuanzhang took matters such as imperial examinations and official administration very seriously, and he sincerely wanted to select a few good officials in a fair and just way.
However, Zhu Youjian's attitude towards the imperial examination was completely different. He wanted to select not good officials through this imperial examination, but scholars... scholars who could support a modern university.
At this moment, he was sitting on the second floor of Mingyuan Building. Standing next to him were the two examiners appointed by him, the second assistant, Wen Tiren, and Yan Shenggong, Kong Zhenyuan.
Hearing the noise outside, Zhu Youjian smiled and said to the two of them: "It's a great blessing that a Confucian scholar is born in this world! It's so sad that the scholars outside don't know about it!"
After saying that, he stood up and strode towards the second-floor balcony of Mingyuan Building.
"The Holy One is here, and everyone in the world is waiting to welcome you!"
The announcer outside Mingyuan Building shouted.
As soon as they heard the arrival of the Long Live Lord, no one dared to yell anymore, they all bowed and bowed.
Zhu Youjian had already stood on the balcony, looking at the dark crowd of scholars below, and began to lecture: "Everyone Xiaolian, listen, the appearance of "Confucius' Posthumous Chapter" in this dynasty is a flourishing period for Confucianism that has not been seen in 2000 years. How can any disciple of Confucius fail to read this posthumous chapter familiarly? You guys who are filial and honest are all talented people in every state. How can you not have any experience in reading this posthumous chapter? I just want to see what you think. Take out 50 talented people who have the potential to become great Confucians and select them as Hanlin. They will follow me and study the posthumous works together, so as to leave something more for future generations of students. You can freely express yourself and write whatever you want... Don’t worry if you can’t write well. You still need to write the eight-part essay. After you finish writing the essay, you can write the eight-legged essay again. You don’t have to worry about how many places will be taken away by the candidates. Jinke will take 50 more people. "
