Chapter 51 51 County Examination

After returning from Pengze County, Wei Guangde began a busy study life.

In order to cope with the exam, even though Master Sun did not think much of Wei Guangde, he just wanted him to study and gain more knowledge, but he still had to practice.

Although Wei Guangde studied like those seniors who took the exam before, he had not been exposed to many things, just like the eight-part essay he was holding at the moment.

I don’t know what channel it was through, anyway, Wei Guangde knew it must not be easy, that was the paper that Tang Yong and Tang Jixian, the current Pengze County Master, did in the provincial and metropolitan examinations.

Tang Yong is from Guangdong, and he is not tall. It can be said that he was still dark and thin when he first came, and he really didn’t look like a Jinshi.

However, he was directly sent to the county level below, and in fact, it can be known that his palace examination results should not be very good.

After all, those who rank high in the exam will generally stay in Beijing to serve as officials. The top ones will definitely enter the Hanlin Academy, and the lower ones will also observe politics in the six ministries, and then enter the central ministries and commissions.

Although it is said that being with the emperor is like being with a tiger, staying with the leader will increase the possibility of promotion.

So, for these Jinshi, who doesn't want to stay in the capital?

But this Tang County Master obviously can't do that, and was assigned to Jiangxi.

However, Wei Guangde would not look down on him. It doesn't matter if he goes to the old, young, border and poor. Jiangxi is a good place, which means that he should still have someone in the court, otherwise he would not come here to serve as a county magistrate.

For such a Jinshi with a low reputation and low ranking, it is naturally not easy to find his examination papers.

From this, Wei Guangde also saw the character of his teacher Sun Fuzi, who seemed to be a master of exam-oriented education. Perhaps this is the method he summarized from the county examination to the academy examination.

Collect the examiner's articles, understand his preferences, and adjust your writing style according to his preferences.

Many people may think that the county examination, as the lowest level of the ancient imperial examination, should not be difficult and easy to pass. In fact, this understanding is wrong.

Strictly speaking, the county examination is not actually an imperial examination recognized by the court.

In the eyes of the imperial court, the provincial examination was actually the examination conducted by the imperial court, and the academy examination and the following examinations were only conducted by local officials, so they were not taken seriously.

However, in fact, in the six examinations of the imperial examination, there were also many students who were eliminated in the county examination, the prefectural examination, and the academy examination.

Take the case of Master Sun introducing the county examination of Pengze County to Wei Guangde and other students who participated in the county examination for the first time. He mentioned that the county examination was held twice every three years, and only in the year of the big examination, there was no county examination, that is, there was no county examination in the year of the joint examination.

And every time the county examination in Pengze County was held, nearly a thousand students from the whole county participated in the examination, including not only eager students like Wei Guangde, but also old candidates with white hair.

And how many people passed each county examination?

Fifty.

There were only fifty places for them to pass in the county examination.

And the subsequent prefectural examination was similar, with thousands of people competing for those dozens of places.

The competition for the academy exams was even more intense. Although after multiple rounds of selection, the remaining candidates were all Tongsheng, and the number of candidates seemed to be small, the competition for the quotas was even more intense.

In the Ming Dynasty, counties were divided into large and small counties based on their fiscal revenue. The number of scholars in counties of different levels was also uncertain, but basically, the number of scholars in large counties was more than that in small counties.

Under the quota limit, the number of scholars in the county determined the number of candidates who passed the academy exams.

Well, let's just talk about Pengze County. According to the number of academy exams in the past, there were only about ten people each time, the least was nine, and the most was twelve or thirteen.

For those who failed, even if you are very talented and can crush the students of other prefectures and counties, I'm sorry, you have no chance to get the title of Xiucai.

You can only compete for a few quotas in your county, defeat the local Tongsheng, and win the title.

This year, according to the news heard by Master Sun, there are about 800 to 900 students taking the exam, and 50 quotas. This pressure is not small, basically exceeding the elimination rate of the provincial exams.

Wei Guangde has not thought too much about the prefectural examination yet, just take it step by step.

In the past few days, the homework assigned by Master Sun has also increased suddenly, two eight-part essays and one scripture every day, but there are no requirements for test poems.

In fact, it is okay for Wei Guangde to write a test poem now, after all, they can all write eight-part essays, and many things are also connected.

Moreover, for the county examination, the eight-part essay, that is, the Four Books and the Five Classics, is more important, and the others are just OK.

Only when it comes to the provincial examination and the imperial examination, the policy essay will have a little effect, and the palace examination is purely a comparison of policy essays.

However, because the ranking of the imperial examination has a great influence on the palace examination, it is still very slim to rely on the palace examination to come up with an outstanding policy essay to get into the first and second class.

Wei Guangde has been thinking about Tang Xianzun's article these days, and then tried to modify the style of what he wrote before, trying to get closer to Tang Xianzun, hoping to gain favor.

As for the calligraphy, it was too late to cram for the exam now.

Fortunately, Master Sun felt that Wei Guangde's calligraphy had improved a lot and was good enough to be seen by others, so the probability of being eliminated in the first round was not high.

Five days before the exam, Wei Guangde and his mother went to Pengze County and moved directly into the Wu family's house in the county town.

Wei Wu brought an old maid with her, and the Wu family arranged two servants to serve her.

After all, she was a young lady who had married out of the Wu family, and Uncle Wu Zhankui had found someone Wei Wu knew. Although they were older, they were more appropriate and less likely to make mistakes.

The maid who had served my mother when she was a child was also called here. The maid who was supposed to accompany her when she got married was still left because my mother was kind and knew that she had a lover in the Wu family. This time, she was sent to serve Wei's mother.

Adhering to the habit of playing big in big exams and playing small in small exams in the last two days, Wei Guangde threw all the books aside, did not read the model essays, and did not revise his own essays.

God knows what questions Tang Xianzun will ask.

If he is lucky, maybe he will be asked questions that he is familiar with and can write a good essay, which will be great.

Every day, he eats and sleeps, and Wei Wu was very worried when she saw her son like this at first, but Wei Guangde fooled her, saying that he had read poetry and books and was full of knowledge, so it was useless to continue reading.

It is better to take a bath and change clothes before the exam and pray to the gods before reading.

Wei Guangde's performance was naturally noticed by his uncle Wu Zhankui and aunt.

Wu Dong didn't seem to be in the mood to read before the exam, but often ran out of the house to find people to drink and chat.

Later, they learned from their son that it was because of nervousness that he couldn't read at all.

After learning from the eldest brother that Wei Guangde's abnormality might be due to nervousness before the exam, Wei Wushi didn't dare to ask Wei Guangde to read anymore, and let him decide by himself, reading if he wanted to, and not reading if he didn't.

Time quietly came to February 17th, and the first county exam was about to begin.