My father complained like this: "Dad has misjudged the wrong person. If he had sent me to school, I would have become an official a long time ago. But my father wants my younger brother to go to school. Look at him. He can't study well and can't do farm work. He just suffers." I want to raise him!"
The Song Dynasty valued scholars very much. In order to encourage reading, Song Zhenzong wrote a poem called "Encouraging Learning":
Rich families don’t need to buy fertile land, they have thousands of grains of millet in their books;
You don’t need to build a tall building to live peacefully, there is a golden house in the book;
When marrying a wife, don’t hate an unscrupulous matchmaker. There is beauty in the book;
When you go out, don’t regret having no one to follow you; in the book, there are so many carriages and horses;
The man wants to fulfill his life ambitions and reads the Five Classics diligently in front of the window.
It means that as long as you study hard, you will have whatever you want in the future. If you want to be rich and proud in life, you can only study.
Scholars spent so much time weaving their dreams. After ten years of hard work, their hair turned gray and they accomplished nothing.
Luo Wenkui's uncle is a role model.
One spring, when everyone was busy with farm work, drums and music came from outside the village, making this quiet village very lively!
Among a group of crazy musicians, there was a man dressed in red and riding a horse. He was supported in the middle with a bright face.
This strange procession crossed the edge of the field, causing the farmers to put down their hoes and crane their necks to see what was going on.
"Li Datou is in high school!" someone shouted.
The man ran away while shouting, and went to Li's house to ask for money.
Luo Wenkui, who was helping with the farming, couldn't bear his curiosity, left his work and sneaked into the team.
He followed the team and looked up at the guy on the high horse. He couldn't help but smile on his face, as if he had encountered something great. Even though he was paralyzed by laughter, he rubbed his face with his hands. Just keep laughing.
Not knowing what happened to this guy, Luo Wenkui asked someone.
"Brother, this person took the exam in Beijing and was on the list."
Luo Wenkui didn't understand.
"Li Datou... uh no, it should be called Li Jinshi. He is a Jinshi now. He went to the capital to take the exam and passed the Jinshi." A Jinshi is a passing grade.
Although I still don’t understand it, it must be something extremely beautiful.
When I followed them to Li's house, I saw the old Li Datou dismounting his horse and paying homage to his parents. The villagers all bowed to him and smiled diligently, as if he had become a king in an instant.
Not long after Li Datou got off his horse, someone carried a large plaque, and someone exclaimed: "It's from the county magistrate!" Even the county magistrate came to congratulate him. No one in the village had ever been so proud!
At such a young age, Luo Wenkui opened his mouth wide with envy.
"I want to be a scholar."
His father thought about it for a long time.
There are three or four sons in the family. One goes to seek fame and the others stay to work in the fields. This is a good investment.
So Luo Wenkui joined a small school in the village and began to study the classics. He also changed the name "Wenkui" used in this story.
The village school was opened by an old Juren who lived here, and Li Datou came from his family. After Li Datou passed the Jinshi examination, the old scholar became famous and gained a few more students. Others saw that Li Datou was taught by him and was promising, so they also wanted him to teach his son to become a Jinshi.
I once said that Luo Wenkui was born at the wrong time.
Just a few years after he started studying the classics, the imperial court stopped the "tribute examination" and promoted the "three houses".
The "tribute examination method" is that scholars study by themselves and then take exams to obtain fame.
The "Three Scholars" method is different. Scholars must first enter the public school "Tai Xue" and become a "Tai Xue student". Tai students will rise through the ranks in Tai Xue before they have the opportunity to become an official.
This was good. Luo Wenkui had no choice but to change his study direction. After many years of examination experience, he finally qualified and became a Taipei student.
After becoming a Taisheng, you have to immerse yourself in studying hard, because the "Jinshi" is still far away.
The so-called three houses refer to the outer house, the inner house, and the upper house.
Luo Wenkui took part in "private examinations" every month in the "outside house" and took part in the "public examination" every year. He kept accumulating results. After many years, he finally ranked second in the "outside house". Only then could he be promoted to the "inside house". Nearly forty.
The goal is to "go to the top".
Only when you are in Shangshe can you take the examination of the Ministry of Etiquette and have the chance to pass the Jinshi examination.
So he concentrated on his studies, striving to advance from the inner chamber to the upper chamber.
His brothers are all married and have a group of children. They all work hard to support him so that he can study peacefully.
I have invested so much of my youth. If I don't pass the Jinshi exam, I will not only be sorry for myself, but also sorry for my family.
He studied crazily, because there was no possibility of turning back, so he had no choice but to keep going.
But time was like a ferocious monster, quietly passing away bit by bit. When Luo Wenkui found that white hair had crawled on his head, he panicked.
He suddenly felt at a loss, because his life seemed to be coming to an end, and he was of no help to himself, his family, or the world. It would not be an exaggeration to say that he was a waste.
As a bolt from the blue, in the first year of Xuanhe (1119), the imperial examination was resumed and the Sanshe method was abolished. The days of studying at night in Taixue were suddenly interrupted. Everything had to be repeated, and he returned to his hometown in despair.
He had not worked for many years, and he could no longer hold a hoe and plow. He was used to studying in Taixue, and studying in the village seemed to have lost its meaning. The brother he had not seen for many years had raised a bunch of children, and he looked at him with blank eyes every day and muttered something. Counting grain and rice.
He couldn't stand it.
He was going to take the exam again and compete with a group of young scholars.
Others lived in poverty for ten years, but he was two or three times as hard as others. This was not in vain. Xuanhe passed the autumn examination in the third year of his reign and rushed to the capital in winter to prepare for the spring examination.
His brother saw that he was quite capable and that taking the autumn examination seemed to come easily, so he raised a large sum of money to urge him to go to Beijing. They couldn't help but say a few words of sympathy when they parted, implying that he must pass the examination.
In the third year of Xuanhe's reign, Xin Chou Ke was released, but Luo Wenkui was not listed.
He read the article from beginning to end, back to the end, and read it hundreds of times. It was not until the sun went down and it was dark that he couldn't see the article clearly, and he sat down lonely.
He sat next to the list all night.
That night, the sounds of wedding banquets could be heard from time to time throughout the capital, and the sounds of cups and plates piercing his heart like needles.
He looked up at the stars until the stars had faded into the morning light, and then he walked to the tavern to have a drink.
This was the rare time in many years that he had indulged himself and bought a full jug of wine to drink.
He packed his bags and got ready to go home.
He didn't want to go home quickly, and the money wasn't enough to take a boat, so he took the land route, stopping and running, maybe finding a village to stay and become a teacher instead of returning to his hometown.
Along the way, many struggles were fighting in his chest. He remembered that he had spent his whole life pursuing an unattainable goal. He spent more than thirty years studying, never traveled around, and never touched a woman. Speaking of which, it was really boring. What a life!
When passing through a village and town, there happened to be a market. He had a change of heart and used the remaining money to buy a bundle of fine hemp rope.
After he left the market, he staggered around in a daze until he reached a deserted place. He turned into a quiet forest, found a branch that could carry a load, climbed up the tree, and tied one end of the thin hemp rope to the tree. One end of the branch was wrapped around his neck, and then he jumped from the tree.
As a result, the main character of this story, Luo Wenkui, died.
※※※
In the first year of Jingkang, the Jin soldiers captured Kaifeng, the capital. The following year, the two emperors were deposed as civilians, and the Song Dynasty was considered subjugated.
After the two emperors were deposed, "Kang Wang" Zhao Gou proclaimed himself emperor in Nanjing. The second year of Jingkang was changed to the first year of Jianyan, which was called the "Southern Song Dynasty" in history.
It’s not easy to be the new emperor.
Before the throne was settled, the Jin people heard that there was another emperor and immediately came to fight. Zhao Gou had to flee south. This escape lasted three years.
At the same time, Yun Kong was also running away.
He boarded a boat from Kaifeng Mansion to Hangzhou, but failed to reach his destination.
The boat encountered robbers on the way. When the boat in front sounded the alarm, Yun Kong was sitting on the boat behind and someone was escaping. Fortunately, the river was in a shallow place. Yun Kong stepped on the water to the shore and hid in the woods. He witnessed the bodyguards guarding the canal fighting with the robbers. In the end, the robbers stole some goods and fled, and the canal also sped off.
Yun Kong didn't get on the boat, so he had to walk instead.
Most of the many inns along the official road have been closed, and many of them were looted by Song soldiers or bandits. Only some bold ones still stayed and opened shops.
This journey was more difficult than the journey from Taiyuan to Kaifeng. After more than two months of walking, all the prefectures and counties we passed were noisy. It was even harder to find inns along the way. Occasionally, we found empty buildings, broken buildings, or dead bodies. The smell is so bad that no one can live there.
