Do you know: I, a commoner prime minister

The Trap in the Title of Chapter 52

The imperial examination required poems to be in regulated verse, mainly five-character regulated verse, requiring six rhymes and twelve lines, totaling sixty characters. It emphasized tonal patterns, parallelism, and rhyme, and prohibited the repetition of words.

Poems written for the imperial examinations, also known as test poems, emphasized the restrictions on the topics and the norms of the form, which were different from ordinary poems that expressed free feelings.

Because of its strict regulations, it is also known as the official examination writing style.

Those poems that have been passed down through the ages would almost certainly fail in the imperial examinations.

Because the examination environment is closed and the questions are mostly fictional or based on real-life situations, poets find it difficult to immerse themselves in real experiences. As a result, their poems tend to be merely a collection of techniques and lack the power to move people.

This is also one of the few poems written during the imperial examinations that have been passed down to later generations.

However, this strict restriction was quite friendly to someone like Zhou An, because it was difficult for everyone to write outstanding poems.

Zhou An spent the afternoon writing and revising the poem, and finished it by evening.

Seeing that it was getting dark, he hung up a sign for the outhouse. Soon after, a patrolling constable saw him and led him to the latrine.

After he finished using the latrine, they took him back to his cell, and there was no communication between them throughout the entire process.

Zhou An returned to his cell and lay down to rest, fully clothed.

The poetry and prose questions weren't too difficult, so you should conserve your energy to prepare for the later exams.

If you expend too much energy, it will be difficult to recover during the rest period.

When Zhou An woke up, it was still dark. He didn't know the exact time. He hung up the sign and waited for a while. Then the water-delivering yamen runner came and filled his bamboo tube with water.

Zhou An poured water, wet his handkerchief, wiped his face, rinsed his mouth briefly, and then relieved himself before beginning to write his poem.

Like poetry, few of the best works from the imperial examinations have been passed down to later generations.

Zhou An spent a day completing it, revised it several times, and went back to sleep that night.

After waking up, I checked the poem again, made some minor revisions, and finally copied it.

"Phew~"

Having accomplished this, Zhou An let out a heavy sigh of relief.

He stopped thinking about optimizing the poems after that. There wasn't much time left, and even if he wasn't satisfied, revising and recopying them would take a lot of time.

Over the years, Zhou An has also gained some experience: spend more time brainstorming before writing, and revise some words and sentences after writing.

Once it's finished, you absolutely must not dwell on it, because the more you think about it, the more you'll realize there are many things that need to be changed.

But as you keep making changes, you'll find that no matter how you change it, it's hard to be satisfied.

The imperial examinations were time-limited. Once you got caught up in this cycle, rushing to copy the text when time was running out would only lead to more mistakes.

On the third day of the provincial examination, as evening approached, the minor official led the yamen runners to collect the examination papers in various areas.

After handing in his exam paper, Zhou An began packing his things. About half an hour later, the yamen runners rang a gong to announce that everyone was leaving.

The candidates then left their assigned booths and proceeded to their respective areas to queue.

Zhou An hadn't noticed it when he was alone, but now that so many examinees were gathered together, and they hadn't washed or cleaned for three days and two nights, and hadn't even taken off their clothes to sleep, one can only imagine the smell.

After waiting for about two incense sticks' time, it was finally their turn. The yamen runners opened the door, and the candidates left the examination hall in a line.

Outside the examination hall, a large number of relatives, friends, and servants gathered to welcome them.

Tongzhou City, as the prefectural capital, had the largest number of candidates. The imperial examination was a major event, related to the future of a family, so it was no exaggeration to attach great importance to it.

As Zhou An walked out of the examination hall, listening to the hustle and bustle outside, he felt as if he had been transported to another world.

It took me a while to get used to it. Carrying my things, I squeezed through the crowd and walked out to the place I had agreed to meet with Shi Tou.

"Young Master!"

When Shi Tou saw Zhou An, he quickly pushed through the crowd and took the things from his hands.

"Let's go back to the inn first!"

Zhou An just wanted to go back to the inn, take a good bath, and have a big meal.

However, I still want to take a bath, but I can only have a big meal after the provincial examination is over.

For the previous three days and two nights, we ate only dry food. If we had eaten anything too oily, it would have been easy to have problems, which would have affected our exams later.

The inn and restaurant have a special set meal called "Juren Meal". It has a good meaning, and it also means that if you want to pass the provincial examination smoothly, you have to eat Juren Meal.

It's not anything mysterious, just some light and simple food.

Back at the inn, Zhou An asked the waiter to prepare hot water for a bath, while Shi Tou took apart the bedding and sent it to the women who specialized in washing clothes for others.

After taking a bath, Zhou An had a waiter bring him a meal for a scholar who had passed the imperial examinations. After eating it, he felt like he had come back to life.

After resting for a while and moving around a bit indoors, I went to bed.

Although I slept quite a bit inside the examination hall, I didn't sleep soundly, and the cramped space was also a mental torment, so I couldn't get proper rest at all.

Zhou An slept soundly until dawn the next day.

After a day of rest and mental adjustment, the second exam began.

The second exam focused on scriptural interpretation, with two additional questions related to the law at the end.

The questions rely on the understanding of Confucian classics, and the questions are all selected from them, requiring candidates to explain their meaning.

This thing can be difficult in some ways, but it can also be easy in others.

The easy part is that you only need to memorize the answers and conform to current mainstream ideas when answering questions.

What's remarkable is that the ancients valued profound meaning in concise words, and one shouldn't simply look at the surface meaning of a sentence, but rather lean towards a deeper meaning when answering.

The simplest way is to use historical events as evidence.

This, in turn, requires test takers to have a sufficient understanding of history.

These were not difficult for Zhou An, but one of the last two questions about the law was particularly interesting to him.

The core of this question is to explore the conflict between public order and good morals and the law.

The case used is from the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. It tells the story of Zhang Huang and Zhang Xiu, whose father was wrongfully killed. After growing up, they killed their father's enemy to avenge their father and then turned themselves in to plead their case.

Zhang Jiuling, the Grand Chancellor at the time, praised them as "filial and virtuous" and said they should be spared death. However, Emperor Xuanzong executed the two men on the grounds that "the law of the land does not allow revenge to be tolerated," emphasizing that "stopping killing" was the foundation of governing the country.

Finally, the question was asked: If you were the chief judge, how would you rule on such a case?

There is an old saying that the hatred of killing one's father is irreconcilable. According to the ancient people's concept of public order and good customs, avenging one's father is not only not wrong, but is also an expression of filial piety.

In reality, since the Qin Dynasty, killing for personal revenge among blood relatives has been discouraged and explicitly prohibited by law.

The laws of the Great Zhou Dynasty were rather vague in this regard. Zhou An remembered that the judicial interpretation of this situation in the Great Zhou Law was that under certain circumstances, one could be exempted from the death penalty.

However, it did not specify what constitutes a "specific situation".

From a legal perspective, it is certainly not permissible to advocate killing for personal revenge.

As I said before, once permission is granted, corresponding vulnerabilities will emerge.

This is where many people feel the law is heartless.

In some cases, even though many people sympathize with the defendants, they still have to be punished in the judgment, at most only slightly less severely, rather than being exempted from punishment.

The law needs to consider not only fairness and justice, but also potential subsequent consequences and impacts.

But this is unacceptable to the general public.

In the end, when answering this question, Zhou An focused on "specific circumstances" that were not explicitly stated in the law.

Simply put, before seeking revenge for one's father, one must consider whether one has appealed for justice. If one has appealed multiple times but the government has not accepted the case, then choosing to take matters into one's own hands to avenge a blood relative may result in a lighter punishment.

However, it also depends on whether the evidence is sufficient to prove that the person killed is the murderer who killed their blood relative.

Zhou An was fairly satisfied with his answer, but then he suddenly discovered a trap in the question.