The direction of Jiangning Mansion Academy is already buzzing with people.
If you can see at night, you will see that the north bank of the Qinhuai River is densely packed with sedans, carriages, even donkey carts, and ox carts. Even the river is filled with boats of all sizes.
There are ten counties under Jiangning Prefecture. In addition to Jiangning and Shangyuan in the city, there are eight counties: Dangtu, Jurong, Liuhe, Jiangpu, Gaochun, Youyang, Fanchang and Tongling.
The number of these candidates from all over the country is more than three times that of the Youyang County Examination. They gather here for the same purpose, which is——
House test!
In the darkness before dawn, more than 3,000 candidates were crowded in front of the examination room, in county units, waiting for the roll call to enter the government examination. Various shouts came and went in the square.
"If there are any candidates from Jiangpu County, come to me!"
"People from Pingshan Academy come here, come to the west of the examination room!"
"Candidates from Youyang County, come to Niutou Lantern!"
……
The bull-headed lanterns in Youyang County are carried on long bamboo poles and are very conspicuous in the dark night.
Wei Chen, Sheng Changbai, and Chen Jun searched for a while, then saw the bull's head in the air and squeezed past it with the test basket in hand.
The teacher of Youyang County is the leader of the candidates in Youyang County. At this time, he was maintaining order in the candidate team. When he saw Wei Chen and the others coming, he immediately said: "Wei Chen, Sheng Changbai, you two have received your seat number, you can go to the examination room
Wait alone in the northwest corner."
"Ah, do you want to squeeze in again?"
Wei Chen and Sheng Changbai stood on tiptoe and looked at the dark crowd, looked at each other helplessly, sighed and continued to squeeze towards the northwest corner.
After squeezing for a long time, Wei Chen suddenly felt a chill in his left foot. When he lowered his head, he saw that his shoe had disappeared at some point.
Wei Chen couldn't help but be speechless for a while, why am I so unlucky!
When Wei Chen and Sheng Changbai arrived at the place, a group of people were already standing here holding lanterns. These were the top ten in the county examination. Wei Chen saw several familiar faces inside, Tao Dazhi, Wang Yaochen, and You.
Several people of the same year in Yang County.
When Wei Chen saw Tao Dazhi, his first words were: "Do you have any extra shoes?"
When he understood what Wei Chen meant, Tao Dazhi smiled understandingly: "Brother Wei also had his shoes stepped on?"
The candidates next to me all felt the same way when they heard this, and they all came together and said:
"Me too just now."
"My hat has been knocked off my head!"
"My pen was also broken by stepping on it!"
What surprised Wei Chen was that Wang Yaochen, who had always been quite cold in his eyes, actually echoed: "My inkstone also broke."
Wei Chen looked at Wang Yaochen in surprise and asked, "Then what did you do?"
Wang Yaochen curled his lips and said: "I bought it now."
Wei Chen was surprised: "Is there a salesman here?"
Tao Dazhi said with a smile: "Brother Wei doesn't know. Every year there are so many people in the government examination. I don't know how many shoes and hats are squeezed out, and pens, inks, papers and inkstones are broken. The examination room has regulations that do not allow entry if you are not well-dressed. The guards saw that
It was profitable, so I purchased a batch of goods and sold them to the candidates at a high price."
"That's it."
Wei Chen suddenly realized.
After a while, a salesman wearing uniform and carrying a load passed by. Tao Dazhi stopped him and asked him to come closer.
Wei Chen took a look through the lantern and found that the load contained food, stationery, shoes and hats. When asked again, a pair of cloth shoes cost one tael of silver!
The price has increased dozens of times!
But no matter how expensive the other party sells it, Wei Chen has to buy it, otherwise he won't be able to enter the examination room.
So Wei Chen had no choice but to accept the slaughter, took out his money, bought a pair of cloth shoes, and put them on his feet.
At this time, there was a loud bang, the gantry slowly opened, and the candidates lined up in a line of fifty people to wait for the search to enter.
Wei Chen had experienced the inspection during the county examination and felt that it was not that strict, but it was only during the government examination that he saw how powerful the inspection was.
The candidates stood in front of the gantry one by one, took off their clothes and shoes, even loosened their hair buns, and then took out the items in the examination basket one by one to be searched.
There was an examinee in front of him. When the officer found him, he could not stop trembling all over.
The officer noticed something was wrong and saw that the examinee's legs were tightly clamped. He kicked him and cursed: "Open your legs!"
The examinee opened his legs tremblingly, and the guard reached into his crotch and pulled out a stack of paper.
The officer threw the paper on the ground and cursed: "You old bastard, you took everything with you into the valley! Someone came and took off his pants and took him to see the governor!"
Two officers came forward and pulled off the examinee's pants. The examinee struggled hard and shouted: "You can't do this, it's an insult to politeness!"
The officer scolded: "What are you talking about? Give it to me!"
When the candidate was taken away, Wei Chen saw his face clearly. He turned out to be the gray-haired old Confucian scholar he had seen when he registered.
The old Confucian scholar broke free from his restraints and fell to the ground, tears falling down: "You gentlemen, please forgive me this time. I passed the county examination at the age of seventeen, but the government examination came and went.
I have retaken the exam dozens of times. I just want to be a child!"
The officer said coldly: "If I take you, what will others do? It's useless to beg me. If you have anything to say, just go to the palace and say it!"
As soon as the words fell, the two officers carried the old Confucian scholar away, one on the left and the other on the right. The candidates watching on the side were talking about it, and Wei Chen was also sighing when he saw this.
After the inspection, Wei Chen and Sheng Changbai followed the flow of people into the examination room. After checking their identities and a series of other procedures, Wei Chen got the paper with his seat number written on it and a stamp with the word "Tang" on it.
Wei Chen greeted Sheng Changbai, and the two of them walked directly to the courtroom, where their examination room was.
When they arrived at the hall, they saw Magistrate Shen Du sitting on a high-backed chair, looking down the hall. Wei Chen and Sheng Changbai immediately lowered their heads and bowed to him.
Magistrate Shen's eyes stayed on the two of them for a moment, without any expression, and quickly looked at the other candidates.
When Magistrate Shen looked away, Wei Chen and Sheng Changbai secretly breathed a sigh of relief and took their seats according to their seat numbers.
As the candidates finished entering, Magistrate Shen said in a deep voice: "I have issued a total of nine sets of questions to ensure that each of you gets different questions from those before and after you.
So everyone, please concentrate on answering your own papers, don't whisper to each other, and don't look around, because even if you succeed in peeking, it will be of no use!"
After hearing this, the candidates in the hall were in an uproar.
Master Fu Zun did this extremely well. There were nine sets of questions in one exam, blocking all the ways to cheat!
As soon as the noise started, the soldiers guarding the examination room were heard shouting in unison.
"Quiet!"
Magistrate Shen's voice turned cold and said: "From now on, if there is any violation of discipline, you will be expelled from the examination room immediately!"
The candidates fell silent for a moment.
"Now issue the test questions and the exam begins!"