Kyoto Dagong-in is located in the northeast of Kyoto City, close to the Imperial City and adjacent to Taiping County Government. It was specially built for the provincial examination. It covers an area no less than the Prince's Palace in the city. It is very wide and is subdivided into three major areas. The eastern main courtyard
, the northern main courtyard and the southern main courtyard are enough to accommodate three to four thousand people taking exams at the same time.
At this time, the invigilators in each area had already distributed the examination papers, and some highly motivated candidates had already started writing furiously.
Tang Ji led a group of forbidden troops and walked leisurely on the path in the Gongyuan, stroking his chin and thinking about something.
At this moment, Su Qing, who was wearing armor, caught up with him and reached out to pat Tang Ji on the shoulder: "Brother Tang, the provincial examination has begun. If you don't lead troops on patrol, what are you thinking about here?"
Tang Ji turned to look at him and asked: "Su Lieutenant, weren't you patrolling the perimeter of Gongyuan? Why did you run in?"
"I'm in charge of the inside and outside. I've already completed a circle outside the Gongyuan, so I wanted to come in and have a look." Su Qing explained.
Tang Ji nodded slightly, and then asked: "Old Su, what do you think is the best way for a candidate to cheat without being discovered?"
Hearing this, Su Qing smiled lightly. Unexpectedly, he was actually thinking about this. After thinking carefully, he said: "There are only two ways for candidates to cheat. One is to cheat during the exam, and the second is to bribe the judge.
They manipulated the examination papers, but four years after Dingwu, the method of anonymity and multiple people were used to judge the papers. As for the examination process, there was a student who asked someone to take the examination for him in the provincial examination.
But it was eventually discovered that since then, before the results are released, the officials in charge of the examination will check the handwriting of the candidates. If any discrepancies are found in the handwriting, they will be notified to the court for further processing. Therefore, unless there are officials in the examination room to help, the answers to the examination papers will be
There is no better way to give it to candidates. The risk of fraud is serious, and ordinary students would not dare to risk their own future or even their lives."
Tang Ji didn't expect that he knew so much, and was also surprised by Ning Guo's series of methods to prevent cheating. He didn't think about it any more and said, "I know, thank you, Brother Su."
After saying this, he led a group of people towards the Southern Gongyuan.
Su Qing looked at his back, shook her head helplessly, then lowered her face, waved her hand and said, "Let's go!"
...
By noon, Tang Ji had already finished visiting the southern main courtyard. Based on the memory in his mind, he found a total of six officials' children who he met in the restaurant that day. After a brief lunch, he entered the northern Gongyuan.
He walked around the northern main courtyard for a while and found Shen Yunchu sitting in the dormitory. He couldn't help but wonder: "The man named Zhang didn't put him in the eastern main courtyard?"
Although Tang Ji had doubts in his heart, he didn't think much about it. He slowly approached and stood there and glanced at the other party's paper.
As expected, this guy didn’t even write down the basic questions in front of him!
Tang Ji didn't know much about the imperial examination, but after wandering around just now, he could see that the test paper is roughly divided into four or five parts. The first paper is full of Ming Jing questions, which is an endorsement test. Most of them are fill-in-the-blanks and judgments.
For basic questions on translation, etc., randomly intercept a paragraph from the Four Books and Five Classics, complete the sentences before and after, and then pick a sentence at random and ask the examinee to explain its meaning, or to judge whether the explanation is correct or not. The remaining parts are
Poetry, arithmetic, law, political commentary, etc.
Most of the candidates followed the order and chose to answer the Ming Jing questions first. Some very confident candidates almost wrote sparks with their pens. However, Shen Yunchu was taking the poetry exam like the six officials and officials before. What if Even if you say there is no ghost, you don’t even believe it!
Shen Yunchu also noticed that Tang Ji was standing in front of him. He raised his eyes and met his deep eyes. He clenched his fists nervously, swallowed a mouthful of saliva, smoothed the papers on the table and put them by his elbows.
Seeing this, Tang Ji snorted disdainfully and continued to walk forward.
He still doesn't know what method the other party uses to cheat, so there's no need to alert the enemy. He plans to wait and see again.
Soon, Tang Ji visited the entire northern courtyard. Including Shen Yunchu, he found a total of eight people he had seen in the building that day. He was about to lead his troops to the eastern main courtyard, but... Was stopped by someone.
"Are you Tang Ji?"
Tang Ji raised his eyes slightly, and saw that the old man in front of him was wearing a red official uniform. He was not very tall, old-looking, with a slender white beard, and his face was full of wrinkles, but he gave people a very kind feeling. He also knew that the other person was There was no ink mark on his identity. He raised his hands and saluted: "I have met Prime Minister Shen."
Shen Di waved his hand, stroked his beard and said with a smile: "I didn't expect that the person who caused such a fuss in Kyoto these days would be so young. I have wanted to meet you for a long time. Your agricultural reform policies have many aspects. What I thought before is similar, but not as comprehensive and thorough as yours. But I still can't figure it out. You are obviously so young..."
Halfway through the words, he shook his head: "That's all, being young is a good thing, but I don't know how far you can go!"
Tang Ji pursed his lips and suddenly didn't know how to reply. If he had known it, he would have deliberately written wrong or omitted two items in the agricultural reform strategy. Now this old man is doubting his life!
When Shen Di saw that he was silent, he turned around and took the examination paper from a table not far behind him: "Master Tang, outsiders say that you are just a scholar, why don't you try to take the provincial examination?" ?”
"Prime Minister Shen, I still need to lead troops on patrol." Tang Ji reminded softly.
Shen Di stroked his beard and laughed twice, then waved to the Imperial Guards standing behind him: "You continue to inspect."
For this provincial examination, Prime Minister Shen was the supervisor, and the entire Gongyuan Forbidden Army had to listen to his orders. Naturally, the leading Forbidden Army soldier did not dare to disobey his order. After saluting, he led his men to the eastern main courtyard.
Seeing this, the corner of Tang Ji's mouth twitched. Could it be that Shen Di already knew that his grandson was going to cheat and deliberately left him here to delay?
Shen Di didn't know what he was thinking. He turned around and walked a few steps, only to find that he was still staying where he was. He turned sideways and said, "Master Tang, please!"
"Don't dare! Don't dare!" Tang Ji had learned a lot of etiquette in Wenyuan Pavilion during these days. Naturally, he knew that a low-ranking sixth-rank official could not afford the gift of a second-rank prime minister, so he quickly followed him.
There is a small resting area in each main courtyard. There is no decoration at all, only a few tables and chairs.
Shen Di walked to a table with pens, inks, paper and inkstones and stopped. He put the test papers on it, turned around and said with a smile: "Master Tang, just try your best. If you don't want to answer, you can leave at will."
Hearing this, Tang Ji immediately breathed a sigh of relief. This provincial examination would take four days and three nights. He thought Shen Di planned to let him write papers here all the time. Anyway, it was only the first day and he didn't find Shen Yunchu. The way a group of people cheated was to spend half a day here. Without thinking about it, I walked to the table and sat down, picked up the test paper and studied the questions.