Time flies, autumn turns to winter, and winter turns to spring again, and time enters the 16th year of Chenghua.
Just after the first month of the year, Fang Yingwu was called by Shang Xianggong for special training again. This was probably because Shang Xianggong was worried that Fang Yingwu would be lazy after the Spring Festival.
It lasted for half a month before Fang Yingwu came out of Juanju Academy in Renshou Township. On his way home, he passed the Qingxi Ferry. There happened to be no boats at this time, so Fang Yingwu sat in a tea shed on the shore and waited slowly. .
There were other people sitting and chatting in the tea shed, and they were bored, so they just listened to others. However, they heard a small merchant say: "There is a big family in our village recently, and they want to invite a gentleman to sit in the tea shed. He has a very good family background. It attracted a lot of people to apply for the job.”
Fang Yingwu always felt awkward when hearing the word "siguan". In his previous life, this word was closely associated with the underworld, but in this era, "zaiguan" means that scholars go to other people's homes to teach.
The vendor continued: "An old man over fifty years old also came and asked for thirty taels of silver a year for repairs."
"Thirty taels per year!" everyone in the teahouse exclaimed. This is an unimaginably high salary for people who are struggling to make a living. Even Fang Yingwu became interested and listened carefully.
"The master then asked: Old sir, what ability do you have, dare to ask for thirty taels of bundles to repair? The old gentleman replied: I have been training children in Huaxi Club for more than ten years. Recently, it is said that the county is most likely to be successful in this subject. The great talent Fang Yingwu mentioned above was the one I spent ten years of hard work cultivating!"
Pfft! Fang Yingwu couldn't help but spit out the tea, turned his head and asked, "Is the old gentleman's surname Wang?"
The peddler responded in surprise: "How did my husband know?" Someone next to him urged the peddler: "Hurry up, what happens next?"
"The master was very touched by the old man's ten years of cultivating people!" the vendor said with joy, "and then he rejected him. Then the master said: Fang Yingwu is a talented man born in the village, which is good. But what are you, old man?" A fifty-year-old child?"
Everyone burst into laughter, and in a happy atmosphere, a boat arrived at the pier, and everyone got on the boat to cross the river.
Fang Yingwu also shook his head and smiled bitterly. The old Mr. Wang who dared to ask for thirty-two bunches of repairs was ninety-nine times the father of Sister Lan, the teacher of the private school in Huaxi Society. He had a very lively mind, and it seemed that he did not want to settle down. I have to make a living by studying in society, so I need to find a rich man to support me.
Thinking about his character, Fang Yingwu felt that his behavior was not strange, so he just turned a blind eye. If he was really unlucky and could find a blind rich man to support him, that would be fine. His life is good.
Returning to his home where he had been away for half a month, Fang Daxiucai took Concubine Lan for a talk. After the clouds and rain cleared, he held Concubine Lan in his arms and talked about common things.
Wang Lan remembered something and said, "My father came here the day before yesterday to look for you."
"What's the matter with him?" Fang Yingwu asked. He wondered in his mind, maybe he wanted to use him as a background to apply for a job?
"I heard that next month, the Grand Master will open a hospital in Linyan Prefecture to test children from all counties. My father has thought about it and wants to refer to it. If he can win a student and come back, he will be considered a glorious ancestor."
Is the Grand Master coming to Yanzhou Mansion again? Fang Yingwu was a little surprised. He has been immersed in studying recently. He doesn't ask about foreign affairs. He doesn't pay attention to some news. But except for the provincial examination, other examination news does not follow. It doesn't matter.
He then sighed with emotion, time flies so fast. In the past two or three years, he went to take the county examination and the government examination. The situation of finally passing the college examination presided over by the great master seemed to be still vivid in his mind.
As if in the blink of an eye, has this come to a new reincarnation? A new batch of rookie talents are about to emerge.
After thinking about it, Fang Yingwu couldn't help but laugh and said: "He is already over fifty years old. Why should he take the exam to become a scholar at this age? I am really crazy about being a teenager."
"I have been taking the exam for so many years and I have always failed, so I have given up. But in recent years, my father-in-law and you have successively won honors. His mind has become more active again, and he said that Huaxi's feng shui has been booming recently, so he cannot miss this exam.
"
Didn’t Master Wang ask for a high salary of thirty taels and became angry after being laughed at? Fang Yingwu thought in a very disrespectful manner.
At this point, Sister Lan revealed the true purpose of Master Wang's visit: "Father heard that you know the Grand Master and have a teacher-student relationship, so he wanted to ask you to ask the Grand Master for a favor and let him go.
try."
Master Wang turned out to have this intention. Fang Yingwu felt that the old man was just fooling around. Did he still want to drag him along to fool around with him?
He thought for a while and sighed, then politely declined: "The Grand Master proposed to study all over the province, and each of the hundreds of counties has students he selected. The total number is at least hundreds. And I am just one of these hundreds."
What is so special about a person that it can influence the selection of talents?"
Sister Lan remained silent, a little disappointed in her heart. She knew that failing to pass the exam had been her father's obsession for decades. Who would want to live with the name of an old boy for the rest of his life?
Fang Yingwu gently stroked Sister Lan's smooth back and explained patiently: "You also know that August this year is the provincial examination, and the Grand Master is the most important examiner. How valuable is the human relationship with the Grand Master at this time?
As the saying goes, good steel should be used on the blade. It would be a waste to ask for favors just for the sake of a scholar like your father. Then how can I talk about the provincial examination again? Wouldn't it be a slap in the face?
The great master and I really haven't understood each other to this extent. Do you think it is more important for your husband to be a scholar in the provincial examination, or for your father to be a scholar? What's more, he is already fifty, what future does he have even if he is a scholar? That's right.
When I’m preparing for the provincial examination, why don’t you drag me around and mess around?”
"Yes." Sister Lan nodded obediently and agreed: "My husband's provincial examination is a major event, and other things cannot affect this."
Fang Yingwu put aside Master Wang's affairs and thought of himself again, "But you reminded me that when the great master arrived in Fucheng, I really should go and visit him.
Relationships are all based on actions. If you don't try it, how can you know how much favor there is? At the very least, you should test the attitude of the great master. You can't just sit back and hope that pie will fall from the sky."
As soon as Fang Yingwu had this thought, the gears of fate began to turn again.
Among the imperial examinations of the Guo Dynasty, the rural examination was called Qiuwei, and the joint examination was called Chunwei. These are the only two exams with the word "闱" in their nicknames, and other examinations do not have this treatment.
The word "闱" has a closed meaning. This shows the status of the provincial examination and the general examination in the entire imperial examination. It is not an exaggeration to say that they are the two most critical examinations.
Take the rural examination as an example. The entire rural examination process can be said to be an extremely complex systematic project. There are strict and precise regulations from examiners, examination administrators, examination questions, judgments, and rankings. In front of this strict procedure, no one can
Before the exam, I dared to say that I would definitely win the exam.
For example, this year's Zhejiang Provincial Examination, the chief examiner is Li Shishi, the deputy chief examiner, but the deputy chief examiner is sent from the capital. The candidate is currently unknown, and you can't find anyone through the back door.
There are also examiners, and the governor, chief executive, and inspector must select ten people from among the instructors in the province, and they will be assigned to different rooms for marking when the time comes for the exam.
Don't think that the most famous examiner can cover everything. Each candidate's test papers are randomly assigned to each room first. The co-examiner is responsible for preliminary marking and screening out the candidate test papers. However, the co-examiner can only read the test papers of his or her own room.
, it is strictly forbidden to look at the test papers in other rooms. Who knows which room your test papers will be thrown into?
The examiner can only choose whether to succeed among the candidate papers submitted by ten fellow examiners. It can only be regarded as the second review and does not have the power to screen the papers on a large scale.
However, the chief examiner does not have no way to control his fellow examiners. The chief examiner can take the initiative to search papers in each room in order to check for omissions and fill in the gaps, or to pick out papers that look like his own, but this still requires luck.
As for the examination questions, they are decided by the examiner and the supervising officer by jointly reviewing the books at short notice. Who can get all the examination questions accurately?
As for the ranking of the provincial examination, after the paper marking is completed and the number of successful candidates is enough, the chief examiner will make a public decision in the lobby in front of the deputy examiner, the examiner, the promotion officer, and the supervisor. Under the watchful eyes of everyone, rely on
It is also very difficult to get a good ranking through the back door.
Needless to say, there is no need to go into details about the verification procedures such as anonymity, transcription, and reading. In short, the guiding ideology of the provincial examination is to take the trouble to treat everyone as a thief. It is definitely not the examination that Fang Yingwu has encountered in the past.
Comparable.
People who are not familiar with the provincial examination must be confused after reading all the examination regulations. But at least they should be able to see that in the provincial examination, the various examiners are restrained by each other, and there are many uncontrollable things mixed in.
random factors.
Therefore, it is difficult to achieve a 100% success rate through backdoor operation, and the specific success rate depends on how much the joints are opened.
If you want to be 100% certain that you will win the exam, there is only one way, and that is to get through the chief and deputy examiners, a dozen co-examiners, supervising and supervising officers, and improve the joints of all the examiners without leaking any news.
However, in reality, this is obviously impossible, and no one can do it. If you can be 50% sure, that is super strong.
After studying the procedures of the provincial examination, Fang Yingwu guessed in his mind that the original intention of designing the national and imperial examination system was probably that human factors could not be stopped at all, so the system was designed to be so complicated that no one could fully grasp it.
Even if you want to go through the back door, you still have to gamble on luck.
What he has to do now is not only to study, but also to think of ways to operate. It is the best way to cultivate both internal and external aspects.
The dragon follows the dragon's path, and the snake follows the snake's path. The high-end approach is to start directly from the examiners, supervisors, promotion officers and other joints to manipulate test questions and influence the judgment of papers. The low-end approach is nothing more than hijacking.
Bribery the handyman sergeant, etc.
After Fang Yingwu weighed his own strengths and weaknesses, he decided that it was better to take the high-end route. He couldn't afford to lose that person by taking the low-end route. (To be continued...)
ps: Everyone said that during the National Day, can we compete for the top three monthly votes in the historical category?