Chapter 165: Gold Foil Paper at the Bottom of the Inkstone
With a red silk inkstone and ox tongue ink, he was grinding the ink and thinking. Zhang Yuan decided to copy Junior Sister Yingzi's article "A Gentleman's Yu Qianwen". Zhang Yuan is not the kind of upright person. He knows how to use tricks without harming others.
It's self-interested, so why not do it? Now he only needs to think about the "Zhao Meng's place". As a parallel art, "Zhao Meng's place" is of course more important. He must concentrate on making this article as talented as possible.
Impeccable…
County officials may not necessarily be able to take care of health workers, but government officials must be able to take care of them. During the two hundred years of the Ming Dynasty, there were thousands of government officials. Except for those who died or broke the law during the period, there was no one who could not take care of people. Moreover, this
The reputation of the head of the government examination case is very different from that of ordinary students who pass the government examination. In two months, Fan Wenruo from Fushui Shanfang Society in Suzhou and Yang Shixiang from Qingpu Society will come to Shanyin to visit Zhang Yuan and ask Zhang Yuan to choose him.
When commenting on eight-part essays, it is very important whether Zhang Yuan is the first person in the imperial examination. The first person in Shanyin County and the first in Shaoxing Prefecture are printed on the title page of the selected edition. They are absolutely comparable to the candidates, and even the selected editions of the top three Jinshi.
There will be more sales, and Zhang Yuan’s reputation will make it easier to make friends and associates, so he must win the title of this trial case, so he must do his best to make this "Zhao Meng's Place" the best——
The sun is rising, the examination room is bright, and most of the candidates are drafting. Some write a few words and then bite the pen and think hard, some look here and there for inspiration, and some flirt with their neighbors or whisper.
Whisper, as long as there is no plagiarism, usually the clerks in the prison will not be too strict. At most, they will scold you with a few words of "no whispering" and so on.
Zhang Yuan was not in a hurry to start writing, nor was he in the habit of drafting his compositions. He always drafted from the beginning. He propped his elbows on the table and his forehead with his palms, and began to write questions on the examination paper in his mind. The grizzled old student sitting next to Zhang Yuan took the question.
Like Zhang Yuan, Tong Ye did not write, but his eyes looked here and there. When he saw the prison clerk walking around to the back yard, he picked up the heavy inkstone with one hand and touched the bottom of the inkstone with the other hand. The golden light shone brightly.
There is a piece of gold foil paper slightly smaller than the palm of my hand. The gold foil paper is densely covered with small regular script. Although the gold foil paper is small, with the front and back of such small regular script written on both sides, a three- to four-hundred-word eight-legged essay is about the same.
Can I finish writing——
This white-haired old scholar has some old eyes, so he cannot hold the gold foil paper close to him. He puts his hands on his crotch, sits up straight, and stretches his neck to keep his eyes away from the gold foil paper.
Then he stuffed this piece of gold foil paper into his shoe and the bottom of his stocking. Then he rubbed the bottom of an inkstone. There was another piece of gold foil paper, also densely written with small characters. He looked at it twice and stuffed it into his shoe again. On the right side of the old scholar was a piece of gold foil paper.
It turned out that there was a young scholar on the left. The young scholar soon discovered that the old scholar was cheating, and said softly, "Hey". The old scholar immediately bowed to the scholar, and pointed to his own white hair, indicating that
Young scholar, please have mercy and don't expose me.
The young scholar shook his head, turned slightly sideways, and focused on drafting without looking at the old scholar.
The old scholar didn't know how many pieces of gold foil paper he had prepared, and one by one he magically pulled them out of the bottom of the inkstone. He looked at them twice and realized that the question must be wrong, so he put them into his shoes again. When the invigilator came to the front, he
He turned around without moving, then took another look and stuffed it into his shoe. By the time Zhang Yuan discovered it, the old scholar had at least thirty or forty pieces of gold foil paper stuffed into the sole of his shoe, but he still hadn't found it.
Eight-legged essay on the topic——
Seeing Zhang Yuan looking over, the old scholar nodded quickly and bowed with a smile. Zhang Yuan smiled and continued to think about "Zhao Meng's Place". After about half an hour, the old scholar beside him stopped picking up the bottom of the inkstone and started writing furiously.
I think I must have found the right eight-part essay, but this elderly person is also poor at cheating and clumsy. His eyesight is not good, and his memory is not good. He can only remember two words at a glance.
Three words, an eight-part essay needs to be read more than a hundred times to copy. It would be unreasonable for such frequent actions not to be discovered by the prison staff——
There was a sudden sound of footsteps, and the prison clerk appeared in the aisle to the left of the long table, pointing at the old scholar and saying: "Come out!"
The old scholar's face suddenly turned pale, but he pretended to be calm and said: "What's the matter?" He quickly dropped the gold foil paper in his hand on the ground, put his foot on it and slowly crushed the scribe with force and shouted: "You are so golden!"
Do you think we are all blind? There is a lot hidden in the soles of our shoes and inkstones. Come out and see the master." The old scholar stood up and bowed repeatedly: "I was confused for a moment. I will never do it again. I will never do it again.
Please ask the officer to spare me this time...
"
The clerk sneered and said: "If such plagiarism can be tolerated, then the other candidates should not cause a quarrel and ask the invigilator to do anything - come out and don't affect other people's compositions." He motioned to the people on the left side of the row.
One of the candidates stood up to let the old scholar out.
The old scholar couldn't get up from his seat. He was mourning so hard that the scribe was not willing to spare him. He came over with a guard, grabbed the old scholar and dragged him out of his seat. Another guard came over and picked up the heavy inkstone.
After pouring the ink on the ground, he turned it over and saw that there was a half-inch-thick stack of gold foil paper on the bottom of the inkstone.
The clerk twisted the gold foil paper and sneered: "The gold foil paper is very thin. There must be three or four hundred sheets in this half-inch-thick stack. You are really good at copying and you are willing to spend money - go out again and see the government."
Please go."
The old scholar knelt down and begged, and said with tears in his eyes: "I am fifty-seven this year. I have been taking the exam for forty years. I just want to be a boy student. Please do me a good job and spare me this time. Let me take the exam."
After finishing these two eight-part essays, I am deeply moved."
The clerk was not willing to listen, so he ordered two guards to carry the old scholar to the outside of the examination room. The old scholar shouted hoarsely, as if he wanted to behead his head, and stretched out his hand to hook a pillar, and it was firmly
After holding on tightly, the two guards pulled the other apart, finally tore them apart and dragged her to the central lobby.
The candidates in the Zhentang examination booth were silent. This farce was sad and ridiculous. This old boy is almost sixty years old. After taking the exam for forty years, he is not even a boy. He has wasted his whole life on this career, and he will still have to do it when he is old.
The young candidates present did not feel sad after such a big scandal, but those in their forties and fifties felt extremely sad. They were distracted and lost their mood in writing.
After Zhang Yuan saw the old scholar being dragged out, he lowered his head to look for the gold foil paper that the old scholar had trampled on the ground. He wanted to remind the officer to take the gold foil paper away to avoid misunderstandings later, but he looked to his left.
Looking to the right, I didn't see the gold foil paper. I don't know if it was stuck on the sole of the old scholar's shoe and was taken out, or if it was quietly picked up by other candidates. The eight-part essay on this gold foil paper is not "Zhao Meng's Place"
It's "A gentleman is a metaphor for righteousness." The old scholar has been copying it for a while, and now it is very likely that he has benefited others. This is fate. Everything has luck -
There was no invigilator in the Zhentang examination room for a short time, and the candidates quickly became active, whispering to each other, and there was a buzz. When the clerk and the servant came back, it was like a strong wind blowing, and countless big-headed flies disappeared without a trace.
Zhang Yuan was disturbed by what happened just now, and the examination paper in his mind was confused. He ate two pieces of sumi pancakes, drank some water, and took a while to straighten out his thoughts. He continued to hold his head and meditate. This was his composition.
It was his habit to draft a complete draft of this kind of article of less than a thousand words and then write it out in one go——
Every other hour, a police officer would knock on the rock to announce the time, reminding the candidates to hurry up and hand in their papers as soon as it gets dark. There are talented people in this government examination. It was only the time of Si Mao, and some people had handed in their papers. Zhang Yuan had it this time.
From experience, don’t be in a hurry to hand in the paper. If you hand in the paper too early and show up as the top player, you will be sent home by the trumpeter to ask for reward. Last time I went to the county exam, I was asked for reward twice. It’s not that I am stingy. I just feel that it is too much to have to report twice in one exam.
ridiculous.
At noon time, Zhang Yuan printed the eight-part essay "Zhao Meng's Place" from beginning to end on his manuscript. He also checked it over in his mind. There were no mistakes or omissions, and there were no prohibited or taboo words. Only then did he have time to write down the few words.
I ate all the sumi cakes, drank water to moisten my throat, and saw that the ground ink was half dry, so I added a few drops of water, adjusted it slightly with a brush, and wrote down the two craftsmanship articles on the draft paper.
, this is what County Magistrate Hou reminded him. Zhang Yuan did not draft a draft during the last county examination, and when submitting papers for scientific examinations, draft paper must be submitted together. Although a blank draft paper is not a violation, it is always an exception.
It is better not to look too strange. Some examiners may suspect that this is plagiarism. Zhang Yuan accepted it humbly, so he drafted a draft first and deliberately changed it a few times to make it look like a draft——
The old scholar was taken away, and the table was quite empty. He could write with his elbows sideways without worrying about being bumped into his elbows by his neighbor and staining the examination papers.
Before taking the test, Zhang Yuan copied the two articles on craftsmanship on the test paper in regular regular script. This is called copying. After reading it, he felt that the two articles on craftsmanship were even simpler than the two articles on the last county examination.
Even better, this was the result of the full cooperation between him and Junior Sister Yingzi, and just looking at this word on the ink scroll, it was much better than two months ago. He immediately took off the seal on the test paper and stood up to hand in the paper.
Originally, only the top ten candidates who turned in their papers would be reviewed by the examiner on the spot. By this time, dozens of people had already turned in their papers. The papers were no longer sent directly to Magistrate Xu in the central lobby by the candidates, but were instead collected by the invigilator.
When the invigilator in Zhentang's examination booth saw Zhang Yuan handing in the paper, he smiled and whispered: "Master Zhang, please hand it over directly to the master. The master specifically told him to do so."
Zhang Yuan bowed slightly, put the test paper in the examination basket, and took the examination basket to see Xu Shijin, the prefect of Shaoxing. He was not worried that Prefect Xu would make things difficult for him. Prefect Xu was not a reckless fool, and he was tactful and steady to achieve his current status.
, and there is no direct conflict of interest between him and Magistrate Xu. Magistrate Xu is also his teacher. He will never be so stupid as to suppress him because of Yao Fu's affairs, just because you are afraid of your own incompetence. As long as you have the ability,
You can gain respect from others, and even minor grievances and conflicts can be resolved. If you are incompetent, people who used to have no grudges or grudges may step on you.