Chapter 61: CH 61

Cui Xie’s anshou[1] examination papers were indeed his own work.

The county examinations were to be held on February 13th and earlier in the month, he had already brought out his prepared 12 pieces of his own gridded examination papers and 12 pieces of draft papers. Upon arriving in the county examination room, he filled in the names of his family’s last three generations,  birthplace, place of ancestry, scriptures learned, and guarantors…..After filling it out, the registration forms were promptly handed over to the book office and the riding seal stamp method [2]was used to certify the documents. Then the ceremonial office received it for filing purposes.

The Zhao Residence next door knew that he was about to take the county examinations, so Grandma Zhao, based on her grandon’s experience in taking the examinations before, ordered someone to send over a basket in advance. Inside, there were rolled oil pouches, a small bamboo case with the Four Treasures of the Study, as well as other such small items such as arm rests, paperweights, and gridded stencils smelted out of copper. There was even a small foldable bench included, so he could rest outside the examination rooms while waiting for entry.

She also ordered someone to obtain several kinds of light refreshments and bring it over to Cui Xie to let him taste it to see which one suited his tastes. When the examination day came, the refreshments would be freshly made for him to bring: there were husked rice cakes made as exquisitely as cakes, round snow-white flat tuckahoe cakes that were crisp and thin, and thousand-layered flaky pastries with sweet bean and jujube paste filling. There were also soft, salty egg and meat patties from the vendor’s stall, which were delicious and easy to digest.

Cui Xie accepted the refreshments and tasted it a few times. He felt that the flavor and taste were exceptional and continuously praised it. Hearing this, Grandma Zhao was put into a cheerful mood and beamed. She said, with a smile, that she was planning to make these snacks for him on the day of the examinations. He hurriedly stopped the elderly lady and said, “On the day of the examinations, I am going to get up in the middle of the night, how can I trouble Grandma to follow after me and lose sleep as well? The newly hired cook in my residence is also quite capable. If Grandma Zhao doesn’t disdain it, I can ask someone to give him a few pointers and let him cook them for me instead.”

Grandma Zhao clicked her tongue and sighed, “What is the trouble with this, you little families love to be polite….Forget it, these are not any rare delicacies. Later on, I’ll send over the copper shears with rounded tips from home and teach your cook to make flying noodle flatcakes.”

For the sake of eating thin flat cakes, one still needed to use another family’s utensils? Cui Xie, as a grown manly man, didn’t like to eat desserts very much, so he persuaded Grandma Zhao not to bring her utensils over. Instead, she could just have someone instruct his cook to make some soft and flexible steamed cakes.

A few days before the examinations, Cui Xie shut himself in his room and wrote a few essays on all the possible prompts that could come up from the section where “Mencius, having taken his leave of Qi”. Cui Yuan and Pengyan, the father and son-duo, as well as the hired cooks and long-time workers helped him to prepare all that he needed for the examinations. The days passed by quickly and in the blink of an eye, it was already the first day of the county examinations.

On the day of the examinations, one had to enter the venue in wee hours of the morning, so Chef Niu got up in the middle of the night to steam some rice cakes, fry some round flat cakes and paired it with chopped steamed sausage and dried jerky, packing all of it into a food box. Cui Yuan and his son had stayed up the entire night, attentively listening for the watchman’s clapper. When the time came, they personally urged Cui Xie out of bed to rinse up and helped him to wear a six breathable layers of unlined garments and a  pair of thin, unpadded shoes. They then wrapped him in a thick sweater-like robe with no upper hood. 

This time, Teacher Lin personally took Cui Xie to the examination grounds. This was because Teacher Lin was a linsheng[3] an needed to act as a guarantor for the candidates. Without much extra effort, he helped find a few disciples of scholars he was familiar with so they could all mutually act as guarantors for each other. When time came for the examinations, he would also wait outside the Dragon Gate, and would act as a guarantor when the minor officials called out the students’ names.

The cold wind blowing early in the morning caused the candidates to shiver and tremble. Fortunately, there were human bodies acting as barriers in the front and rear of the group, which blocked out the biting wind, but one’s ears and nose were frozen to the point that it started to hurt.

After queuing for a while, a yamen runner patrolling the field recognized Cui Xie and pulled him aside, “Young Master Cui, don’t stay here, come with me to the examination rooms to warm up.”

It was truly a world of difference if you knew someone at the top. Cui Xie and several of the other candidates acting as each other’s guarantors were lumped together and enjoyed the preferential treatment of getting to be admitted faster than everyone else. The security guard treated him especially gently and only asked him to take off his clothes, shoes and socks and undo his hair. The guard then casually flipped through the test basket and Cui Xie was let in. This treatment was not at all like the others that were thoroughly and severely searched to the point that they hated they could not just check the anus too (TN: weirdddd). Teacher Lin stood to the side and helped to prove their identities. The Recordkeeper handed out some paper and instructed him to enter and find a seat according to the number printed on the paper.

A temporary shack had been constructed in the Confucian temple, but the shack was about 20 or thirty feet high and extremely open and wide. All four sides had been thatched and tightly sealed. At this time, the examinations had not started yet and the windows in the shack were closed. Upon entering the shack from the outside, one could immediately feel the warmth of spring. Inside the examination room, there were rows of tables and chairs connected and partitioned by bamboo. Once you went to your seat and sat in it, even if you wanted to move, you wouldn’t be able to. This was to prevent cheating.

Seat numbers were posted on the corner of the table in the order of “A, B, C, D” and “1, 2, 3, 4”. Cui Xie opened his paper scroll and found his assigned seat according to the label “A-4” written in red ink on the paper. After settling into his seat, he set up the Four Treasures of the Study, and then rested his head on the table to take a quick nap. After that, the rest of the candidates filed in one after another, and there were yamen runners who roamed the grounds, carrying hot water and fried flat cakes to sell to this group of candidates.

When they made their rounds all the way to his seat, Cui Xie was already well-rested and had taken out some refreshments to snack on. That yamen runner poured him a cup of tea, smiled and left. Cui Xie also returned a grateful smile, ate two steamed cakes and a few strips of pork jerky. He then took a few sips of hot water and wiped his hands clean to prepare for the examination. 

The color of the sky was just about to turn bright and there were workers who came in to open the windows of the examination shack. Sunshine and cold air poured in and everyone in the room shivered. The drowsy and tired feeling was blown away by the wind. County Magistrate Qi walked into the examination room illuminated by sunshine, solemnly glanced at the crowd of youths and instructed the yamen runners: “Take these test questions and let them copy the prompts.”

Several scribes walked back and forth between the rows of candidates, holding wooden boards and asked the youths to copy down the test questions on the boards.

On the first day of the county examinations, one question was about the Four Books and the other was on the Five Classics. 

Only one of the Four Books had been selected, and sure enough, it was the prompt “It would be for the happiness of the people of the whole kingdom” that he had practiced and re-formatted in different, tricky ways by himself; For the Five Classics, it was five questions on one question board and students should answer according to their own knowledge on the scriptures. The question posed on the Classic of Poetry was the phrase “To be rejoiced in are ye, noble men, parents of the people” from《Nan Shan You Tai》.

When Cui Xie had made his own mock questions, he had also ruthlessly taken the phrase “It would be for the happiness of the people of the whole kingdom” and made several versions by cutting out words near the first half and second half, formed connections to earlier content, disguised the question and even used different content from different chapters to answer it, ruthlessly attacking the prompt…He had been able to torment quite a few lesser theme prompts out. Who would have thought that County Magistrate Qi would simply give a one-sentence question? Compared to the test-taking world where the examinations were full of complicated lesser themes, this was a breath of fresh air. The extracted prompt on the Classic of Poetry was also an entire sentence and it was a verse that was commonly annotated from the 《Four Books》.

Even if the《Classic of Poetry》was not well studied, upon reciting the Four Books, one was certain to remember Zhu Xi’s explanation for how to match this couplet and it was not an obscure or tricky question.

If one were to examine closely, the Classic of Poetry, the Book of Changes, Book of Rites, and the Book of Sentences all had questions concerning familiar couplets from the Four Books, only the Spring and Autumn Annals had a phrase “Duke Wen was like Jin” from the Duke Wen section of the original work.

Cui Xie first transcribed the topic onto the draft paper and first wrote the article《“It would be for the happiness of the people of the whole kingdom》, that he was most familiar with.

As for the section where it talked about Mencius going to the Qi Kingdom, the core message of what Mencius meant was that he met the King in order to secure the state of Qi and its citizens. Even if the King of Qi was not a wise and clear ruler, Mencius still hoped that the king would repent and recall him. Therefore, he stayed behind in the Qi state of Western Zhou for three nights. And when he set off on a journey once the third morning arrived, this would give the King of Qi some leeway to repent and change his ways so that he may use Mencius’ counsel for the happiness of the people of the whole kingdom.

In Cui Xie’s mind, he tried to analyze the response the County Magistrate had given that day with “Only by occupying a position in the Imperial court, can this allow for the common people under the skies to live in peace and work in contentment”. Therefore, when writing his essay, Cui Xie unknowingly chose the point of view from the book itself in which Mencius wanted the King of Qi to make use of his counsel, rather than just starting with the meaning of “happiness of the whole kingdom” of the prompt itself.

If one wished to bring peace to the world, the most important thing was to have a worthy ruler and a wise master so that the ruler and his ministers could coexist harmoniously.  A sage (person of great moral responsibility and ability) cherishes the world in his heart, but he must necessarily be of use to the Emperor first so that the Imperial order can help people. If one has talent and virtue but cannot be used in the Imperial court, even if it is the Second Sage (Mencius) , such a worthy position, then one is powerless to help the common people.

Cui Xie neatly wrote on the draft paper, “The Great Sage plans to stabilize the land under heaven, and what he expects from the ruler is great!”

After successfully breaking the topic, the chengti[4] and qijiang [5]would stick closely to the phrase “peace of the entire world” mentioned in the prompt. He extended the idea of the safety and security of the common people and linked it to the section where “Mencius heads to Qi” in which Mencius looks forward and awaits the King of Qi’s actions.

“The King of Qi has simple talent, such as a love for bravery, materialism, lust and worldly pleasures” and does not have the aptitude for bringing peace to the land, but Mencius, for the sake of the common peoples’ livelihoods, he still wished to remain in the State of Qi, so he could restrain the King of Qi’s desires and cultivate a heart of benevolence and wisdom.

If the King of Qi does not use Mencius, he would become a mediocre ruler; if Mencius were not of use, then one would lose the Sage to the countryside and be unable to confer Imperial grace onto the common people. Only by having the King of Qi employ Mencius’ counsel, a ruler and his ministers will be able to interact harmoniously. By governing Qi using the Way of the King, talents from all over the world will want to enter Qi and all the people of the world will be content to be the citizens of the Qi Kingdom. If the Qi Kingdom’s doctrine is used by the rest of the world, the overwhelming tyrannical and ruthless ambitions of other countries will be suppressed and eventually become a question of how to govern “like the Qi Kingdom and bring peace and prosperity to one’s kingdom” instead.

Therefore, although Mencius was not called by the King of Qi, he still did not leave after staying for three nights. This was not because he was afraid of losing his power, but rather he was burdened with the heavy responsibility of caring after the livelihood of the common people. He had no choice but to lay down his vast, overflowing arrogance and hope for his King’s summons.

Because one’s focus was extremely concentrated while in the examination room, and one’s brain became doubly active under pressure, Cui Xie was able to add two more pairs of precise and appropriate octuplets in the body of his essay. After adding those two pairings to the original middle two-legs of his essay, he blended them together into two even longer pairings. After reading it up and down several times, he felt that after adding it, the literary tone of the essay was more free-flowing and the cohesion of several statements together was more harmonious. Only then were the questions and essays transcribed onto the final examination paper.

One essay on the Four Books was no more than 300 hundred words and it was also a familiar topic that he had written about before, it wasn’t a completely new topic. There were some slight additions and condensed parts in the middle, and Cui Xie checked it over and over again for typos, taboos and any empty spaces. Finally, when the transcription was completed, it had only taken about half an hour of time.

At this time, many students had barely written a few sentences onto the draft. Cui Xie took a quick glimpse to his left and right, taking a sip of tea with peace of mind. He then lowered his head and continued to answer the next question.

The second prompt was “To be rejoiced in are ye, noble men, parents of the people”.

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Annotations from the Classic of Poetry stated: “Love benefits the people and therefore, those who love the people are called parents of the people.” The line “To be rejoiced in are ye, noble men,” appeared repeatedly in the poem《Nan Shan You Tai》, and merely praised and admired noblemen. One didn’t need to pay attention to this motif. Rather, the crux of the question lay with the phrase “parents of the people”, these four words. As long as you determine how a “nobleman” must govern in order to become a “parent of the people”, there should be no fear that the article will be off-topic.

But as for the parents of the people….was he supposed to write “Love benefits the people?” Or “Protect what they love”? Or should the response be based on the phrase, “When a nobleman loves what the people love, and hates what the people hate”, which was from the《Four Books》.

His response needed to include these insights from the text, but at the same time, he needed to aim for a higher level and grasp onto the overall meaning from the entire poem in 《Nan Shan You Tai》. That is, a nobleman should not only be the parents of the common people, but it was also necessary to act as the pillar of one’s family. He could write blindly based on the perspectives of benevolence, forgiveness and an intention to protect the people, but rather, one needed to view the people from a higher position much like a nobleman’s perspective in the Imperial court.

Cui Xie pondered this over and over again and finally wrote down, “Those who are parents of the people, do not purely regard the people as the people.” In the first paragraph, he wrote about how a nobleman must treat the people’s hearts like their own, much like how parents raise their children by sacrificing their own interests. Furthermore, to love the people is to benefit the people. Cui Xie reaffirmed the principle that one must protect the common people and allow them to live and work in peace and contentment under one’s jurisdiction. From this, it is deduced that in order to allow the common people to live peacefully, a nobleman must possess “virtue and political acuity as well as conventional understanding of customs” in order to become a pillar of the court.

At this point, the essay had gone full circle through the prompt: from the discussion of a nobleman’s nurturing virtue compared to the respect and love the common people had for their rulers, these positive and negative analytical sentences paired well with each other. In the end, Cui Xie returned to the idea of treating the people’s hearts as one’s own heart and viewing the people as one’s own children, echoing the previous paragraphs and sticking closely to the topic.

Although this essay had been written on the spot, this kind of analysis on a main thematic message was originally Cui Xie’s specialty. In addition to the sentence County Magistrate Qi mentioned to him before, he had thought about this topic to the point that he had tossed and turned in his sleep. The meaning of the article was long embedded in his heart and as long as the layout was planned and the syntax was sophisticated, it did not take too much time to finish.

By the time the yamen  runner came over to deliver water and meals around noon, Cui Xie had already produced a rough draft and had revised it several times. After a short break at noon, he checked it over a few more times and once he had finished transcribing his essay, it was just a little past weishi (1-3 pm). Next to the Dragon Gate, there were already a few candidates who had handed in their examination papers first and were waiting for there to be enough people before they could exit the grounds.

Cui Xie verified that everything was correct and also collected his papers and handed them over to the Magistrate in the front of the hall. County Magistrate Qi didn’t even look up at him and just took the paper to read it once through. After reading through it once, his complexion gradually smoothed out and he picked up a brush and drew a circle on the scroll surface. He then lifted his gaze and glanced at Cui Xie approvingly.

County Magistrate Qi also knew that Cui Xie couldn’t compose poems, so he didn’t bother testing him with some poetry couplets like he did with some of the other candidates. He just waved his hand and said, “Go, you will still need to take the next two rounds of examinations, don’t think that you can just relax just because I have passed you this time around!”

Cui Xie’s heart which had been dangling on a string suddenly slackened and he let out a soft sigh. He dangled his arms by his side and listened to the County Magistrate’s admonishments before walking to the Dragon Gate to line up to go outside.

A day later, a circular list of examinees was pasted outside the yamen. The top 50 selected were arranged in two concentric circles, with 30 people in the outer circle and 20 people in the inner circle. Candidates who did not enter the circle were to be placed on a separate sheet of paper. Zhao Yinglin followed after Cui Xie to view the list and as soon as he looked up, he saw that the examinee “A-4” was located on the very top of the big circle. He hurriedly pulled on the hem of Cui Xie’s sleeve and exclaimed excitedly, “Look! Isn’t that your seat number at the very top?!”

Cui Xie looked up, and sure enough, he was the number one ranked examinee.

He didn’t know if it was because he was really skilled at writing or whether County Magistrate Qi had deliberately favored him. Cui Xie didn’t dare to be too high-profile so he pulled on Zhao Yinglin’s sleeve and said, “I have seen it. Let’s head home first, there are still two rounds left.”

Zhao Yinglin was so excited that he almost took Cui Xie over to another street for a meal and drink. Seeing that the other was addicted to studying and was not in the mood to celebrate, he only shook his head: “Then you must study hard and try to land the title of anshou. If you do, let’s head over to the Prefectural city and have a meal at the most renowned restaurant, Yunxiang Tavern!”

Cui Xie promised the other that he would be diligent in his examination and returned home to read up on《Laws of the Great Ming Dynasty》and《Memorials of Famous Ministers Throughout the Ages》。 

The county examinations lasted for three days. On the first day, the scriptures and their meanings were tested. The second day, candidates were challenged to compose discursive essays, critical judgements, announcements, edicts and memorials, these types of applied writings. For the third round, the candidates had to examine current affairs. A few days before the examinations, Teacher Lin had given him some strategies and topics on current affairs and he had already reviewed his history and current affairs. As for the edicts, announcements and memorials, they only needed to be written in the correct format, so there was no need to be nervous. Contrary to what one might expect, it was actually critical judgments that he had studied the least on and so these past two days, he crammed as much as he could with the remaining time left.

Two days passed in the blink of an eye and it was time for the second round.

The treatment given to students who were in the top ten of the examinations based on the first round was vastly different from that of ordinary candidates. The top ten were to take the exam in the temple hall and were seated inside the Confucian Temple ancestral hall. They were given cozier, comfortable single tables and single chairs for each individual. They were also given free hot tea to drink, but this treatment was not entirely for free. They had to take their exams under the eyes of the County Magistrate.

County Magistrate Qi’s expression was imposing and grave, and he first lectured them not to cheat and to be be arrogant because of their good performance in the previous round…the admonished students didn’t dare to lift their heads and it was only then that the freshly drawn topic decided this morning was handed out.

If it was in other counties,  the second or third round of examinations were more of a perfunctory matter, but under County Magistrate Qi, three jinshi had been produced and this year’s big audit had passed. It was estimated that he could stay for another term and it was the right timing to be aggressive and grand in refining the county’s academic atmosphere. As such, with special care and seriousness, prompts for a discursive essay and a critical judgment had been drafted up.

For the critical judgment prompt, the question was about the underpayment of tea and salt trade taxes. It was 40 canings for one-tenth of the tax owed, with the maximum penalty being 80 canings. The taxes and fines were to be paid off by the end of the year; if one failed their duty to pay respect to the sovereign, one’s salary would be forfeited for half a month. If the steward official is unable to discover underpayment, he will also be labeled guilty and face punishment.

As for the discursive essay, the discussion was about Empress Liu of the Song Dynasty, that is, Empress Zhenzong of Song. She was well noted for taking the leading role in the famous “The Wild Cat for the Crown Prince”[6]. The written accounts in the history books were not as interesting as those plotlines on TV and writing historical theories was even more tedious and dull. Basically, it was to write down the history of the Song Dynasty. First, he had to describe how she had come from a silversmith’s family, and despite her lowly status, she received great fortune. Ultimately, she ascended to become a regent and experienced the prestige of ruling the land under the heavens. Then, Cui Xie praised her compassion in nurturing Emperor Renzong, ruling the palace under her death and for listening to the advice and counsel of wise ministers. In the end, the only fault she was labeled was her conflict with Imperial Consort Li. 

This round of examinations was much easier than the first one and in the final round three days later, there was only one policy question. The prompt was about “Promoting Irrigation Works”.

Although it was not about disaster relief that Cui Xie had been preparing to write about these past few days, he was not that kind of scholar who had just started schooling and only learned the Four Books and Five Classics and besides the classics, didn’t understand anything else. When he watched TV, he often watched a lot of things related to water management. He did not dare to mention any modern technology, so he wrote about constructing water wheels, excavating canals to drain water, diverting water, planting rice paddies in saline soil and other such techniques that existed during the Song and Ming Dynasties. Using the collected works of the Six Masters as a frame of references, he contemplated and thought over the writing style he should employ. After writing it out, it could be regarded as clear writing and his words had substance.

After the three rounds were over, the yamen posted the list and from beginning to end, his examinee number was always placed at the very highest point of the circle. When the list was officially released, his name was written alone at the highest point outside the circle –it was actually indicated that he had ranked number one. 

The people in his residence were so moved that they weeped out of joy and his younger classmates also came up to congratulate him. Teacher Lin proudly took Cui Xie out for a few drinks and without trying to keep a low profile, bragged that he had personally taught a child prodigy. The newly promoted juren, Tang Ning and the other scholars all said that after knowing Cui Xie at the Chongyang Poetry Conference, they knew that he would have great prospects in the future.

Only Cui Xie felt somewhat terrified in his heart.

As a transmigrator, could he really write better essays than these students who were born in the Ming Dynasty and grew up reading the Four Books and the Five Classics? Or did County Magistrate Qi, based on his usual interactions with Cui Xie,  specially promote him for his sake?

After the county examination results came out and before he headed over to the Yongping Prefecture for the prefectural examinations, Cui Xie requested an individual audience with County Magistrate Qi and asked this same question. Nowadays, everything was going pleasantly for County Magistrate Qi and his expression was all smiles, his face radiant. Even without some real life retouching, his appearance somewhat resembled the portrait of that handsome man on the cover of the travel anthology. But after listening to Cui Xie’s question, the corners of his mouth suddenly drew into a taut line, and with a calm face, he said, “How could you have such an idea! This is the Imperial court’s grand ceremony for selecting talents, how could I, as a Magistrate, commit fraud for a little Confucian scholar like yourself!”

He was bold and confident with conviction and it seemed like he had completely forgotten about how he said to Cui Xie “Only by occupying a position in the Imperial court, can this allow for the common people under the skies to live in peace and work in contentment”.

However, Cui Xie disregarded the other’s attitude and even liked it very much. The hidden worries that had been weighing down in his chest for a few days dissipated at once and a smile revealed itself from the bottom of his heart. A bright radiance appeared all over his face.

He felt that he might have been disrespectful and quickly lowered his head to admit his mistake: “It is this student who thought wrong, and this student is aware of their low virtue and meager talent, one could not predict to be so loved by the da-ren….”

Although the County Magistrate was stern, he wasn’t truly angry and just snorted lightly and called Cui Xie to get up and lectured, “What I love is your academic essays produced at the examination, not your person itself.  Is there a need for you to be so modest here? Since ancient times, it is said, “I hope the article does not catch the world’s favor, but rather I hope the article is favored by the examiner.” If you have the ability to write an essay that suits an examiner’s mind, you naturally should be given the anshou title. I am not afraid of my superiors reviewing your examination papers in the future, just what are you afraid of?!”

Cui Xie listened and responded with a”yes yes”. Seeing that Cui Xie’s attitude was acceptable, County Magistrate Qi wrapped up his lecture and reminded him again, “What about those essays that were graded by the Prefectural Magistrate a few days ago? Take them out and try to carefully imitate his writing style. Unlike myself, Wang da-ren is not fond of the simple, unadorned style of the ancients, and favors a style that is strict, noble and dignified.”

Footnotes:

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