The court examination took place in the east and west-wing of Imperial Palace Hall. Zhao Su was stunned when he heard the three words Imperial Palace Hall, before he realized that it was the Hall of Supreme Harmony1 in modern times, the name was just different.
All the scholars across the country had spent their entire lives just to have one chance to come here. Among them, there was no lack of sons from literary families, as well as students from functionary families, but there were also many of them who, like Zhao Su, were born of humble background, and relied on their own efforts step by step to be able to come here today. Itâs just that Zhao Su was much luckier than them. He was still under twenty years old, and had already reached the stage of the Court Examination, which was already incredibly rare. What was even more rare was when most people received the title of jinshi, they were already well into their thirties.
In any case, when everyone was standing here, looking up towards the lofty and majestic Forbidden City, looking at the imposing Imperial Palace Hall, they all shared the same mood. Even Zhao Su, who had seen the Forbidden City hundreds of years later, felt a surge of emotion.
Just after maoshi, the moon passed the culmination.
For the fairness of the exam, all the candidates were not sorted according to their ranking in the metropolitan exam, but instead the order had been mixed up before they entered the Imperial Palace Hall one after the other. The two wings were connected to the Imperial Palace Hall, where desks and soft cushion mats had already been densely placed out. There were also the four scholarly treasures on each desk.
Zhao Su and the others followed the officials of the Ministry of Rites who led them into the plaza, only to find that the civil and military officials were already lined up in two rows in front. All of them looked down, standing in silence, in the empty and quiet square only the echo of the footsteps of the candidates could be heard, making the solemn and respectful atmosphere even more obvious.
Before the Qing dynasty, the venue of the court examination was here. Rain or snow, it would not change. The cold in March had not subsided. There was only a roof covering the top of their heads, with the cold wind on both sides blowing in. It was highly possible that on this day of examination many people would not be able to withstand it. In the eighteenth year of Kangxi, there was a fire here and the Imperial Palace Hall was completely destroyed. Following that, the court examination was held in the open-air square outside the Hall of Supreme Harmony. It was not until Emperor Qianlong who wanted to show that the country valued the selection of talent moved the court examination venue back indoors. After Zhao Su came here, he learned that many Qing dynasty palace and court films and television dramas where the court examination took place in the Imperial Palace Hall were unreliable.
The candidates were standing in their respective positions, but they could not sit down yet because the Emperor had not yet appeared.
There was complete silence, the drum sounded suddenly. The civil and military officials who were waiting outside the hall before filed into the hall one by one. At this time, the Emperor ascended into the hall and took his seat on the throne, but due to its location, it was impossible for Zhao Su and the others to see him.
After the arrival of the Emperor, the firecrackers that had been prepared sounded in unison, and everything was carried out in accordance with etiquette. The imperial examination was the countryâs top priority in selecting talents, and it was also a major project that the Ministry of Rites prepared every three years.
After a while, the sound of firecrackers gradually stopped, and everyone still felt the buzzing in their ears. The Court Officials had already started walking over with the exam paper and put a copy on everyoneâs desk.
Everyone stood upright, waiting until the exam paper had been fully distributed, and then they did their five bows and three kowtows2Â before they could sit down to answer the questions.
It is said that it was possible to cheat during the provincial and metropolitan exam, but when you get to the stage of the court examination, it was not as easy.
First of all, the question was drafted by the Emperor himself, or if the Emperor was feeling lazy, he would have a few his trusted officials draft up a few questions and he would choose one of them. Unfortunately, for this yearâs court examination, due to the previous cheating scandal in the metropolitan examination, Emperor Jiajing was more invested in this court examination and had personally set the exam question.
Secondly, when the Secretariat Drafters were making copies of the examination papers they had to be supervised by eunuchs. Of course, if the two people wanted to disclose the exam questions, it was possible to collude together, but before the court examination, whether it was copier or supervisor, they were restricted in their freedom, and they were not able to come out until the court examination began. Besides, a person who has reached the stage of being able to take the court examination could even become an official even if he ranked in the third rank3, so why would he risk the danger of being beheaded just to cheat, it was simply not worth the loss.
And there was a crucial point here: the court examination was not like the previous stages where one had to write an eight-legged essay, but it was testing the candidates ability to come up with policies on current affairs.
The so-called policies on current affairs was about some hot topics that were affecting society at that time and even some military affairs. Candidates used this to write an argumentative essay, the number of words must not exceed one thousand, which was a bit like the essay composition portion of the modern Gaokao.
But for the Gaokao essay, as long as you did not digress too much on the topic, you could get a good score, but the current policy essay for the court examination was not that simple.
Because this kind of topic was about current affairs, it could really test the candidatesâ skill. It was important to remember that many of these candidates had studied arduously, but were solely focusing their attention on the Four Books and Five Classics, which took up most of their energy that they rarely bothered with current affairs.
At that time, travel was underdeveloped and the transmission of information was slow. The Emperor would not know what happened in the South until at least a month later, not to mention those candidates who had their heads down in a book. Although there was only one question in the court examination, but the scope of the question was extremely wide, it could cover aspects such as military affairs, weapons, land taxation, style of governing of minor officials, water conservation, etc. and it was for this reason that many people were able to force their way through the Provincial and Metropolitan Examinations but fell short at the final hurdle.
Of course, gold will always shine no matter where it is.
For example, officials such as Zhang Juzheng and Gao Gong had not only mastered the basic skills of eight-part essays solidly, but could also stand out even in the court examination. They were what was called true talents.
The examination took place on one day and ended in the evening. The candidates of this session were lucky. It just so happened that it was a fine sunny day, there was no rain or snow. Because of the large number of people, they were able to huddle together to resist the cold and light breeze.
Everyone held their breath and opened their papers.
Use the system of clothing to govern4, resist invaders and restore tranquility.
Zhao Su was stunned.
He thought that Emperor Jiajing was so short on funds, he would definitely set an exam question related to revenue.
âUsing the system of clothing to governâ comes from theăBook of Changesă. The original intent was to praise achievements of Emperor Yao and Emperor Shun, saying that they took up the responsibility, followed the heavens5, and stabilised the world, allowing the world to achieve the Great Unity6.
As for âresisting invaders and restoring tranquilityâ, this was easier to interpret. It was nothing more than to get rid of the Wukou and solve the troubles that had been plaguing the borders for decades.
But herein lies the problem.
âUsing the system of clothing to governâ reached the realm of ideological thinking, and even closer to Daoism and the Daoist doctrine of inaction to govern, meaning that a ruler should not take the initiative to disrupt the work and rest of the people.
However, to resist invaders and restore tranquility, the solution was to send troops in large numbers, but this was also a waste of resources and manpower.
These two sentences appeared in the same question, which meant the candidates were required to connect them into one solution and write a new policy.
He raised his head and looked around, he discovered that many people were frowning or thinking hard, and they were obviously stumped by this contradictory proposition.
It seemed like it wasnât a problem with his own understanding, Zhao Su felt a little more balanced, he looked down at the test question and began to calm down and think.
Emperor Jiajing liked cultivating for immortality, and he was incredibly superstitious and believed in the power of the Daoist Masters. The first part of the question â expressed precisely his deepest desire: he wanted to be in a position of power, firmly control the country and the hearts of people, but also live forever. The best thing would be that you people donât make trouble and let him cultivate immortality in peace.
But at the same time, he had to face the state of the empire: there were wars in the North and South, and peasant uprisings cropping up from time to time everywhere. In March last year, there was an uprising of refugees in the two provinces of Fujian and Guangdong, and almost all the Provincial Capitals had been attacked. In the end, the disaster was quelled by the Governor-General of Zhejiang Province, Hu Zongxian.
Not only that, last year there were also natural disasters such as the Shaanxi Earthquake, floods and warnings of other disasters. Even if such things would have happened several hundreds of years in the future, there would still be much loss and suffering. Whatâs more, was that now, there were countless casualties, and the government had to provide disaster relief to aid the people. It is another large sum of money. In some regions, the relief money and food had been swallowed up by corrupt officials. The people cannot survive like this, and that will inevitably lead to rebellion and civilian unrest and uprising. Such a vicious cycle was almost endless.
So these two seemingly contradictory sentences, in fact, the former was Emperor Jiajingâs ideal, whilst the latter was the cruel reality.
He didnât want to start governing the country, but hoped to change everything by praying to Gods, hoping that the gods would bless the Great Ming. Of course, instead the entire empire just became worse and worse.
After realising this, Zhao Su broke through the darkness to see the light, everything became clear at once.
Since he had a breakthrough, it was time to put pen to paper.
First of all, the emperorâs idea of âUsing the system of clothing to governâ should of course not be refuted, but it must be greatly appreciated and supported, and it is said that governance by doing nothing is in line with the highest realm akin to the heavens.
Of course, just praise was not enough. Emperor Jiajing was not such a good Emperor. He has been in power for decades and had a clear understanding of the current situation and situation of his country. Therefore, to impress him, Zhao Su must come up with a practical policy and strategy reflected in the second half of the question.
With time going on, more and more people seemed to understand the meaning of the exam question. Everyone enthusiastically began to write their praises, interpreting the first half of the question to praise the Emperor to the extreme, but once they reached the second half of the question âresist invaders and restore tranquilityâ, they were all stuck.
But these were all things that came later. Zhao Su had been brewing over the exam paper before his eyes for a long time. He had some ideas and began to write a draft with his brush pen.
Since he arrived in the Ming Dynasty, he had to relearn everything from the beginning, the so-called knowledge of later generations was not very practical. In some occasions such as the court examination, he was able to add some of his own views into the ideals from this era to achieve the effect of icing on the cake. But if he wanted to answer the paper well, he still needed to have some basic fundamental skills in policy writing.
âYour Subject, I respond: Jiajing has reigned prosperously for more than forty years now, governing all that is under heaven, laying down the guiding principles and ensuring the prosperity and well-being of all his people, under the benevolent guidance of the Divine Sage8.
âAlthough the world is safe, forgetting to fight will be dangerous9âŠ.. Former methods have stressed the importance of agriculture to enrich the peopleâs lives10. To continue to keep the peace, it is necessary to also train the soldiers to equip them to protect and defend our land against harsh invaders, and to transform them to reach new dignified heights.
The two items are sincerely a priority for the nation, and can neither be given unequal standing, nor be delayed. If the two items can be achieved in coherence with one another, Your Majestyâs meritorious deeds will not be inferior to Emperor Shun and Emperor Yao. Use the system of clothing to govern, and all four oceans are peacefulâŠâŠ11.
ââŠIt is not possible to completely rely on our armies, but it is not possible to get rid of our armies. However, soldiers who have not been used for a millenia cannot be prepared overnightâŠ.. Therefore, those who deal with civil affairs must not forget to prepare for military affairs.â
After completing his draft, he continued to revise and change it. Finally he counted the number of words, it was exactly nine hundred and fifty, no more than one thousand, so there was no need to remove any more passages. Zhao Su copied the final paper out stroke by stroke.
His right hand was injured, and it would take a long time to fully recover. Every time he wrote a character, he felt a slight pain in his hand. Handwriting was very important for the examinations, even if he couldnât reproduce the level of a calligraphy master, the characters must still at least be neat and proper, otherwise it would affect the impression made on the Marking Officials. Because it wasnât possible to fail the court examination, the names were mixed, there was no need to have a special person to copy out the papers again such as the custom in the previous exams.
He had wasted quite a lot of time previously thinking about the question and then writing his draft. Zhao Su reluctantly copied the entire paper again, suffering through the pain in his hand. When he looked up again, he realised that the entire sky was rose-tinted from the sunset. The entire day had passed just like that, he concentrated on answering the paper, whilst his stomach was rumbling from hunger, the surrounding candidates turned in their papers one after another and then left the hall. There were four or five other people sitting in front of him who were still there.
Just as he was about to hand his paper, he saw someone else stand up not far away, their eyes met, and they couldnât help smiling at each other. It turned out to be Xu Shixing12. The two handed in their papers at the same time, and walked out of the examination hall almost in time, walking side by side.
âLooking at Shao Yongâs facial expression, I think you must have had a card up your sleeve?â
âI can only be regarded as performing normally. To speak of amazing literary talent, I canât compare to Ru Mo-xiong13.â Zhao Su smiled. He had a good impression of this person, and his temperament was calm. Although a little weak, he was not without his own opinion. He complemented the anxious Wang Xijue well, one soft and one strong-willed.
Xu Shixing said with much seriousness: âYou are too modest, Chen Zhu speaks of you as if you are heavenâs gift to the world, one of a kind. When I was your age, I did not have your concentration nor your determination.â
If this person was mocking him that was fine but he was speaking very sincerely, no matter how thick-skinned Zhao Su was, he still felt a little embarrassed and hastened to change the subject: âSpeaking of which, several of us have participated in this court examination. Why donât we all get together after the examination is over?â
Xu Shixing was a little pleased: âThatâs what I was thinking, IâŠâ
âZhao gongzi!â
Before he could finish speaking, he was interrupted. At this time, the two had already left the palace under the guidance of a eunuch. The entrance was crowded and bustling with people, compared to the solemn and calm Forbidden City, the inside and the outside were like two different worlds.
Someone from afar stood there waving desperately when they saw Zhao Su, and a horse and carriage was stationed nearby.
Translator Note:
LOOL â that comment about Chen Zhu really made me laugh. Poor boyâs got it bad.
This chapterâŠ.I had to look up A LOT of stuff and had to do some extra reading but some of it might not be accurate to history as the author mentions below but MXS is a real history nut ~
Take the Confucius ancient text stuff with a pinch of salt â this is fully my interpretation of MXSâs interpretation of the Book of Changes â you can read the TL of the Book of Changes here if youâre into that kind of thing.
Waaaaah.. only five chapters left of this giant arc!