CH 36

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. It’s 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 country’s 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 everyone’s desk.

Everyone stood upright, waiting until the exam paper had been fully distributed, and then they did their five bows and three kowtows2 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.

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.

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. What’s 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 Jiajing’s ideal, whilst the latter was the cruel reality.

He didn’t 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.

“Although the world is safe, forgetting to fight will be dangerous9….. Former methods have stressed the importance of agriculture to enrich the people’s 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 Majesty’s meritorious deeds will not be inferior to Emperor Shun and Emperor Yao. Use the system of clothing to govern, and all four oceans are peaceful……11.

“…It 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 overnight….. Therefore, those who deal with civil affairs must not forget to prepare for military affairs.”

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 couldn’t 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 wasn’t 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.

Xu Shixing said with much seriousness: “You are too modest, Chen Zhu speaks of you as if you are heaven’s gift to the world, one of a kind. When I was your age, I did not have your concentration nor your determination.”

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: “Speaking of which, several of us have participated in this court examination. Why don’t we all get together after the examination is over?”

Xu Shixing was a little pleased: “That’s what I was thinking, I…”

“Zhao gongzi!”

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 – that comment about Chen Zhu really made me laugh. Poor boy’s got it bad.

This chapter….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 – this is fully my interpretation of MXS’s interpretation of the Book of Changes – you can read the TL of the Book of Changes here if you’re into that kind of thing.

Waaaaah.. only five chapters left of this giant arc!