As a fellow examiner of this provincial examination, Wang Yangming has lived in Gongyuan for several days.
The moment he is confirmed as an examiner, he must go to the Gongyuan immediately and is not allowed to go home or visit in the middle. As for the promotion officer, the supervisor must also padlock the officer and only allow entry and no exit. This is the "locked courtyard".
This is to prevent examiners from colluding with candidates to cheat.
Wang Yangming could not leave Gongyuan until the Jinshi list was confirmed. He would probably live here for more than half a month.
Wang Yangming has been bored to death these days because there are too many banquets.
After the chief examiner and the examiners have arrived, the Gongyuan will hold a banquet. When the questions are given, a banquet will also be held. After the first exam, a banquet will be held.
Historically, Yan Song served as a co-examiner for the Zhengde examination for the twelfth year. He described it in "Records of the Southern Province" as follows: "There is a banquet out of the curtain and a banquet for the title, one big banquet every five days, and a small banquet every three days."
Originally, we were pressed for time when the questions were being asked and marked, and the examiners were actually drunk.
Wang Yangming only had one drink at the banquet where he presented the title, and then he kept coughing (pretend). His old friends knew that he had lung disease, but did not dare to persuade him, and finally escaped the drudgery of drinking.
After the first exam, the red papers will be copied and sent for review.
Wang Yangming and Wen Renhe were examiners in the "Book of Rites" room, and they were all correcting exam papers written in the "Book of Rites".
Wen Renhe, whose courtesy name was Minhuai, was from Huayang, Sichuan. He was an editor at the Hanlin Academy at this time. He was a few years younger than Wang Yangming, was a Jinshi after Wang Yangming, and his official position was not as high as Wang Yangming's, so Wang Yangming naturally belonged to this room.
host.
Wang Yangming and Wen Renhe each submitted half of the red paper. After reviewing it, they handed it over to the other party for repeated marking.
The comments given by the two people are very interesting. Take the examination paper of scholar Mao Xian as an example——
Wang Yangming's evaluation is: "The meaning of classics is more important than fairness. Although this work is not very unique, I just chose the simplicity and recorded it."
Wen Renhe's evaluation is: "It is written in two words, it is clear and concise, and it is enough to arouse people's benevolence and filial piety."
It seems that no article can meet Wang Yangming's discernment. Every time he evaluates it as "quite smooth" and "just", and occasionally adds "not very strange" or "not very brilliant". He also has no requirements for Jinshi articles.
If you are high, you can write smoothly and explain the truth clearly.
However, Wen Renhe could always find the highlights of the article and praise them, which was exactly the opposite of Wang Yangming's reviewing style.
About the afternoon after the first exam, Wang Yangming finally got to mark Wang Yuan's paper.
When Wang Yangming saw only the first Four Books essay, he thought of his disciples in Guizhou. The styles were so similar.
However, he was not sure, because the imperial court had regulations on examination articles, which required them to be written plainly and concisely, without using uncommon words or being fancy, so what everyone wrote was similar.
However, Wang Yuan's writing style is precise in argumentation, seamless in transference, and does not use redundant words. The characteristics are still very strong, so Wang Yangming felt familiar at first glance.
"Although the purport of this work is not very unique, it is superior because of its well-founded linguistic theory and smooth tone, so I recorded it." This is Wang Yangming's comment on Wang Yuan's first four-book essay.
Wen Renhe's comment is: "The truth is true but the wording is informal and not general, the arguments are detailed and the main theme is consistent with the annotations, the writing is careful and the sequence is seamless. The author of this topic must be a profound Taoist."
Just looking at Wen Renhe's comments, it seems that Wang Yuan has become a master of Confucianism. In fact, this is not the case at all. As long as Wen Renhe likes the papers and all the comments praise him like this, he can always find the subtleties of the articles.
Until Wang Yangming read the third question from Wang Yuan's "Book of Rites", a strange smile suddenly appeared on his face.
He was finally able to confirm that this was his student's paper!
Because when the article was discussing, it appeared that "the way to build heaven and earth is to be born by transformation first, and then by form. Those who are born by transformation are heaven and earth, that is, parents; those who are born by form are parents, that is, heaven and earth."
This passage is not included in the annotations of the "Book of Rites" and has not been recorded by predecessors. It comes from Wang Yangming's in-depth understanding of the "Book of Rites" combined with "Zhu Zi Yu Lei", and has not been taught to other disciples, only in
Wang Yuan mentioned it casually when asking for advice.
Wang Yangming shook his head and smiled, then picked up his pen and wrote a comment: "Things are related to family and heaven, and they are thoroughly displayed. This composition has a calm and upright style and should be recorded."
Wen Renhe's comments were as praising as ever: "Serving relatives and heaven is nothing more than love and respect. The purpose of this composition is the same as before, but the parents of heaven and earth have new ideas, which coincide with Zhu Xi's words. It is thought-provoking and makes me enlightened. Looking at all the scholars
There is no other work by Zi than this one. It should be ranked first in the "Book of Rites" this time!"
The essays in the general examination should be fair, honest, simple and concise, but if you can write new ideas that are consistent with Zhu Xi's theory, you can definitely make the marking officer excited - this is more difficult than writing a colorful and majestic essay.
Wen Renhe was shocked by Wang Yuan's article. To be precise, he was shocked by Wang Yangming's understanding. Wang Yuan just copied Wang Yangming's lecture content to the answer sheet.
For the examination paper, the two room officers can finish correcting some of it and send it to the deputy examiner immediately. The deputy examiner will then send it to the chief examiner after finishing the correction. Or they can finish all corrections and then pass it on to the deputy examiner, but the deputy examiner must be careful
I was caught off guard because the marking time was very tight.
Fortunately, the number of candidates for "Book of Rites" was very small, so Wang Yangming and Wen Renhe had the least grading work.
The graders in the "Book of Songs" room only graded a quarter of the test paper. Wang Yangming and Wen Renhe had already finished correcting the "Book of Rites" paper. Moreover, they graded it very carefully, and they had to read the wonderful articles several times, but just
The work was completed so quickly. Who allowed the number of candidates for "Book of Rites" to be so small?
The situation in the "Spring and Autumn" room is similar.
The content of the remaining two exams is not taken seriously. Doing well in the exam is the icing on the cake. It doesn't matter if you do poorly in the exam, as long as you don't write the document format wrong and don't make common sense mistakes.
The main reason is that the grading work is too tight and there is no time to read the answer sheets of the remaining two games carefully. Moreover, it is difficult to distinguish the good ones from the official documents and policy papers.
On February 25th, each department presented all the approved ink scrolls, and the promotion officer also sent the candidates' ink scrolls.
The house officials are required to give the ink scrolls and ink scrolls with matching numbers, and those that do not match the numbers will not be taken.
There are more than 7,000 ink and red scrolls in total, and there was no computer search in the Ming Dynasty. It was necessary to find the ones with the same serial number among the piles of scrolls for comparison.
If the number is correct, you also need to compare the contents of the red scroll and the ink scroll. Once you find that the content is different, then discard it as cheating - if the copying officer copied it wrong, the examinee can only consider himself unlucky. In this case
It rarely happens because the copying stage requires repeated comparisons, but occasionally candidates are shot while lying down.
The chief examiner and deputy examiner did not have time to carefully review the papers, and spent most of their time on the relevant procedures for ratifying the papers sent by the room official. Their duty is not to take the best papers, but to make sure that the papers they take are correct, and if they make mistakes, they will
The future is ruined.
"Brother Bo'an, why don't you recommend this paper? In this life, he will probably be judged by the examiner as the leader in the Book of Rites." Wen Renhe asked, pointing to Wang Yuan's paper.
Wang Yangming had a good relationship with Wen Renhe. He knew that the other person was upright and did not deliberately hide it. He just smiled bitterly and said: "It's not that I don't recommend him, but I want to avoid suspicion."
"Avoid suspicion?" Wen Renhe asked confused.
Wang Yangming explained: "The candidate for this paper is most likely a student I accepted in Guizhou. His writing style is very distinctive and can be seen at a glance, so I cannot be his tutor."
Wen Renhe was surprised: "Brother Bo'an has only lived in Guizhou for more than a year, but he actually taught such outstanding students!"
"This boy is only sixteen years old this year. To be precise, he will not turn sixteen until more than a month later," Wang Yangming smiled happily, "and when I taught him, he had just finished studying the Four Books. I
When he left Guizhou, he could only pass the "Book of Rites" roughly, but he didn't expect that he would make great progress at this time. I thought he would be able to take the national examination in three years."
"What a child prodigy!" Wen Renhe praised and said with a smile, "Since Brother Bo'an doesn't recommend him, it's an advantage for me. I should be the room master for this competition!"
Just like the provincial examination, the Hui Yuan examination also selects the leader of the five classics. Hui Yuan is the leader of the five classics. Therefore, the top five must have different classics.
Wang Yuan's answer sheet can only be regarded as excellent. Logically speaking, it would be good to be ranked in the top 100. If he is selected as the leader of the Li Jingjing, it will all be based on transferring the content of Wang Yangming's lectures to his answer sheet.
Those few sentences are related to psychology, but they do not break away from the scope of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism. They were originally created by Wang Yangming on the basis of Neo-Confucianism. Wen Renhe's comment was directly: "I was enlightened!"
It can make the marking officer suddenly enlightened. If he cannot be selected as the exam chief, which candidate will have this qualification?