Chapter 165: Three Years of Imperial Examinations and Five Years of Simulations

"It sounds like the Capital Weekly is really a good thing!
It can let the people know what happened in the city in the shortest possible time, hiss...

This Princess Saint Ann is indeed extraordinary!"

"yes……"

"..."

"Congratulations, Your Highness."

Seeing the scholar named Zhou in the courtyard frightening the other scholars around him, Ye Qingan couldn't help but chuckle:
"Your Highness is now famous and renowned."

"It's not as if he's famous yet."

Yun Shu's expression was calm, and he did not show any emotion at all because of the praise from these scholars:
"Master Ye invited me here just to see these?"

"of course not."

A hint of surprise and admiration flashed across his eyes, and Ye Qingan whispered:

"Your Highness, please wait patiently for a moment."

……

The most important part of the imperial examination is the policy essay.

These scholars gathered together and chatted, and the topic naturally shifted to policy essays.

The question was proposed by one of the scholars, and it was said to be the test paper from his hometown last autumn:

"The sage once said, 'Only when the people are prosperous can we teach them, and only when the people are alive can we govern them.

Should we govern the people first or educate them first? "

For just this one question, the seven or eight scholars in the room argued out five or six different answers.
The most important thing is that they used a lot of classical Chinese when they quarreled, which made Yun Shu see stars!

But Ye Qingan chose this moment to speak again:

"Your Highness, who do you think makes the most sense among these scholars?"

Yun Shu: “…”

Good question!

What's the difference between this and asking a poor English and physics major which of the quantum physics questions debated in English between two senior American professors is more correct?
If this had happened in the past, she would have simply said "I can't".

But now, as someone who still wants to be the emperor, isn’t it a bit too much for her to not even understand an argument between intellectuals?
No wonder it is said that the ancients studied the Four Books and Five Classics just to understand the questions in the imperial examinations.

It seems that she still needs to learn all these in the future. The requirements are not high, as long as she can understand what people say.

But before that...

Yun Shu looked serious:
"What does Master Ye think?"

"I think that they are all wrong."

Yun Shu: “?”

So this is still a big pit, right?

Luckily she was smart and didn’t jump in!

Yun Shu raised his eyebrows slightly, but his expression remained unchanged:
"Why?"

"Because the scholar who asked the question said before that he was from Connecticut, which means this question was also from Connecticut."

Ye Qingan didn't know whether he had noticed that Yun Shu didn't understand the scholars' arguments at all. Anyway, he didn't mention it, but explained to Yun Shu in a gentle voice:
“There is no so-called correct answer to the policy discussion itself.

The key is whether the content of your answer meets the examiner's expectations.

The reason why the previous governor of Connecticut was demoted was that when he was in office, he tried to understand the emperor's intentions and knew that the current emperor attached great importance to students from poor families. So in order to please the emperor, he built academies in Connecticut and recruited students from poor families, wanting to use this as his own educational achievement.

He spent all his money on building the academy, but turned a blind eye to the victims affected by the drought in Connecticut that year. Later, the disaster became serious and His Majesty was furious, which led to the current Governor of Connecticut.

The question of whether to govern the people first or to educate them first can, to a certain extent, actually be said to be... whether to support the previous governor or the new governor.

Your Highness, do you think that this new governor prefers candidates who support him or candidates who support his predecessor?"

"Of course I like to support him!"

Yun Shu suddenly understood.

It’s much clearer when put this way!
The scholars inside were arguing with each other in an incomprehensible manner, and no one knew what they were arguing about!

"Your Highness, do you find it strange that these scholars are still arguing about what direction the examiner prefers?"

At this moment, Ye Qing'an seemed to have some kind of mind-reading ability. He didn't even need Yun Shu to speak, as he could always accurately hit the point she wanted to ask -

"Of course, it's because they don't actually know about the Governor of Connecticut."

“It is said that poor students cannot compare to scholars from wealthy and prestigious families, and this is indeed true.

But they don’t necessarily lose out because of studying itself. Often, they lose out because of the way they get information.”

Ye Qing'an stood with his hands behind his back, looking through the tiny crack in the door at the scholars who were still arguing in the yard, as if through them he saw the miniatures of poor students who were as isolated from information as they were.

"Children of wealthy and prestigious families have many ways to help them understand certain experiences, preferences, political views, etc. of a certain adult, or even the current emperor, and then use this to write essays that better suit the examiner's preferences.

Such advantages are undoubtedly huge.”

"Master, what you mean is that if poor students can also get this information, perhaps the gap between poor students and the children of wealthy and prestigious families can be narrowed a lot?"

"good."

Seeing that Yun Shu understood what he meant, Ye Qingan sighed:

"But it's so difficult, I..."

“It’s not difficult!”

"……what?"

Although Ye Qing'an brought Yunshu here today and specifically told her all this, his purpose was indeed to hope that Yunshu could find a way to solve this problem.

But he really didn't expect Yun Shu to say so lightly that this matter was not difficult to solve!

Ye Qingan almost didn't react for a moment, and his eyes suddenly became extremely hot:
"Your Highness, have you already thought of a solution?"

"I got it."

Yun Shu nodded innocently:
"Just produce a few more copies of 'Three Years of Imperial Examinations, Five Years of Simulations'."

"Three... five... what simulation?"

Ye Qingan was stunned when he heard this:
"This is... a book?"

"Yes, books."

It is rare to see Master Ye look so bewildered when talking about the imperial examination.

Yun Shu imitated the way he had just taught, with his hands behind his back, and took two steps in a serious manner:

"The imperial examination is held every three years, so we can collect all the provincial examination questions from the prefectures during these three years, and then put in the typical examination papers corresponding to these questions.
And write notes next to it to indicate why this answer sheet ranks high and why the other answer sheet is not on the list.

In this way, after reading it, the candidates will be able to roughly understand what major events have happened in Tiansheng in the past three years.
And what attitude did the court convey?

This is the three-year imperial examination."

"As for the five-year simulation, that's even simpler. That is... we can come up with some mock test questions based on what happened in the past five years. In other words, we can predict the test questions."