When I woke up, it was already afternoon and the sun was setting.
As soon as Zhu Ping'an opened his eyes, he saw the test papers of this exam. They were placed on the simple wooden table and pressed down by his own inkstone. It should be that the person who issued the papers saw that he was sleeping too soundly and did not wake him up, so he placed them on the table and pressed them down with the inkstone.
The examiners were supposed to be the ones who set the questions for this exam. Once the examiners were confirmed in the Ming Dynasty, they would go straight to the Imperial Examination Hall, which would be immediately sealed off and heavily guarded, with no birds or birds allowed to leave or ants allowed to enter! These examiners would not be released until the exam was over, the papers were corrected, and the rankings were determined.
This is to maintain confidentiality, to ensure fairness in the imperial examination, and to avoid leaking questions due to personal reasons.
According to convention, the number of questions in the first round of the metropolitan examination was similar to that of the provincial examination, with a total of seven questions, including three on the meaning of the Four Books and four on the meaning of the Five Classics. This was the most important examination in the eight-legged essay selection process.
I heard that the chief examiner this time was the famous Xu Jie in history, who was the one who defeated Yan Song. Therefore, Zhu Ping'an was very interested in the questions set by him. He wanted to see what kind of questions this examiner had come up with after racking his brains.
Zhu Ping'an could not help but gently push away the rabbit fur blanket covering his body, stood up, washed and dried his hands, then tidied up the table, put away the pens, ink, paper and inkstone, and officially began his journey to the imperial examination.
When I opened the test paper, the questions of this examination appeared before me.
If the first exam is the most important exam of this joint examination, then the first question is the most important question of this joint examination. The writing level of the eight-part essay on this first question almost determines your success or failure in this joint examination.
"There was a man named Feng Fu in Jin. Feng Fu got off the car with her arms raised."
This is the first question of this examination. For the vast majority of candidates, this question is slightly different from usual ones.
Generally, the topic of eight-part essay is selected from one sentence or several sentences or one section or several sections in the Four Books. The meaning is relatively complete, and "all the topics are extracted from the great principles and systems in the classics, which are related to human relations and governance." However, there are very few such topics in the Four Books. In order to avoid guessing and plagiarism, this kind of topic appeared. The so-called topic is to connect or disconnect the text in the scriptures, and to cut it into eight-part essay topics.
Before this Enke exam, a similar question had only appeared once, but although it was unfamiliar, this question was also very simple. It was a kind of emotional question, which means that the meaning of the preface and the postscript can be connected, and everyone can understand the meaning.
Therefore, the candidates were only slightly surprised by this question.
This title comes from "Mencius. The Doctrine of the Mean, Part 2". "In Jin there was a woman called Feng Fu, who was good at fighting tigers and eventually became a good scholar. She went to a field and saw a crowd chasing a tiger. The tiger was on its back and no one dared to attack it. They saw Feng Fu and ran to meet her. Feng Fu got off her car with her arms raised, and the crowd was pleased, but the scholars laughed at her."
Seeing this title, Zhu Pingan thought about it for a while.
Combined with the context in which Mencius said these words, Qi was hit by a famine at the time, and Chen Zhen said to Mencius: "People in the country think that you will once again persuade the King of Qi to open the granary in Tangdi to provide relief to the victims. I guess you can't do that anymore." Mencius replied that if he did that again, he would be Feng Fu, and then he told the story of Feng Fu again.
Why did the scholars ridicule Feng Fu
Zhu Ping'an thought about it carefully, and felt from the tone of Mencius' words that he was not completely denying Feng Fu's actions, because "being Feng Fu again" was actually supported by everyone, and it was just the scholars who were ridiculing him.
Could it be that Mencius would stop persuading the King of Qi to open the granaries and save the people because he was afraid of being ridiculed by the scholars
Combined with the fact that the Ming Dynasty is now plagued by the barbarians in the north and the Japanese in the south, and that there are also occasional disasters in the country, Zhu Ping'an then understood the meaning of the questioner.
So, he ground ink and spread paper, then started writing the eight-legged essay on the draft paper.
"The people of Jin first changed their ways to pursue goodness. In the end, they became inferior to others and lost themselves."
This is the first sentence Zhu Ping'an wrote, and it is the opening sentence of this eight-part essay. The meaning of this sentence is this: Feng Fu, a man in the Jin Dynasty, was able to change his brave and tough behavior at first and became a good and kind person. Later, for the safety of others, he lost his existing behavior style and became tough again.
This introduction not only highly summarizes the main point of Mencius' original words, but also can trigger the discussion below.
Then Zhu Ping'an continued to write, and in the part that followed the title, Zhu Ping'an went on to say that Feng Fu had become a kind person, so why did she still go to kill the tiger? Mencius probably knew this story, so he used the matter of asking him to persuade the King of Qi to open the granary to help the victims as a metaphor.
After finishing the title part, Zhu Ping'an stopped writing, put his hands on his head, rubbed his forehead, and began to think.
The first eight-part essay almost determines the success or failure of this joint examination. It is not easy to stand out among the best candidates in the country. The candidates who can pass the Tongsheng examination and the provincial examination are all of high standard, and they all have solid basic skills in eight-part essays.
If you want to stand out, attract the examiner's attention among more than 5,000 eight-part essays, and get a good ranking, the mediocre eight-part essay is not enough, you need innovation.
You have to impress the examiner.
After thinking for a moment, Zhu Ping'an suddenly curled his lips slightly, and there seemed to be a flash of shooting stars in his eyes.
Haha, got it. Then I dipped the brush in ink and continued writing.
In the middle and last parts of this eight-part essay, Zhu Ping'an changed his previous argumentative style and used a descriptive approach to vividly depict the crisis situation of the people before Feng Fu fought the tiger, and also vividly portrayed Feng Fu's action of fighting the tiger.
Of course, it also uses two parallel sentences, but it uses description rather than argument. In this way, this eight-part essay is enough to stand out among the more than 5,000 eight-part essays.
It was getting dark. Zhu Pingan lit a candle, turned on the light, and wrote the last paragraph of this eight-part essay in Mencius's tone of emotion:
"Alas, like Feng Fu, when she first fought a tiger, she didn't know that she would become a good person in the end; after she became a good person, she didn't know that she would fight a tiger again. Then people hope that I will be a good person again. How is it different from Feng Fu's getting off the car with her arms raised!"
The soldier who was in charge of supervising Zhu Ping'an's cell was stunned for a moment when he saw Zhu Ping'an writing furiously under the candlelight.
The candidate in the stinky room in the other direction had vomited seven or eight times, but our candidate didn't feel like he was taking the exam in a stinky room at all. He ate well and slept well, which would have been fine, but this guy could even do the questions so smoothly, not affected at all by the toilet next door.
After finishing writing, Zhu Ping'an put down his brush, read the eight-part essay he had written, and nodded with satisfaction.
In this way, this examination will definitely not return empty-handed. (To be continued.)