In the Imperial Palace.
Su Pan’er also learned of the tricky questions posed in this Spring Imperial Civil Service Examination.
When she got to see the contents of the examination dossiers, she couldn’t help but smile, "The few Lords who set the questions for this examination have put in a great deal of effort, creating distinctive and flexible questions without being constrained by form. The content is varied and broad, truly rare! His Majesty should reward them generously."
Qingwen covered her mouth, laughing, "Empress says she wants to reward these Lords, but those students outside wish they could flay and debone the Lords, causing such a commotion. Fortunately, at this mont they are all in the examination hall; otherwise, who knows what trouble might arise."
Su Pan’er was astonished!
"Is it that serious?"
"It is indeed that serious. Consider, Your Majesty, these scholars have toiled for three years just waiting for such an opportunity. If they fail this ti, they must wait another three years. Right now, His Majesty is in great need of officials, and missing such an excellent opportunity ans they would have to wait another three years, isn’t this like taking their lives?"
Qingwen shook the painting of a spring landscape that Su Pan’er had just finished, intending to send it out of the palace to show respect and then hang it in the Side Hall.
With His Majesty’s regard for the Empress, he is bound to lavish praise on her again and again.
Su Pan’er looked at her intently and couldn’t help laughing, "I never thought you would understand these matters, too."
"Your servant couldn’t possibly understand these matters."
Qingwen shrank her neck, "Your servant is just repeating what I heard from Lord Wu, who ca to report to His Majesty at noon, and used it conveniently."
After staying in the examination hall for several days, His Majesty had only just returned to the Imperial Harem’s Palace for a short rest after the morning court session when Lord Wu arrived. Soon after, His Majesty went back to the examination hall with Lord Wu, and hasn’t co back yet.
"From now on, when it cos to matters of court affairs, you should speak less and observe more, and not speak out lightly. Do you understand?"
Su Pan’er instructed.
His Majesty and the civil and military officials of the court all disapprove of the Imperial Harem involving itself in politics. Even she must be cautious in what she says. If Qingwen offends in front of His Majesty, even her plea may not save her.
"Your servant understands," Qingwen quickly replied.
In the examination hall.
Actually, the Review Officers had already begun the process of marking the papers during the second session of the students’ examinations.
The reviewing took place in the "Zhigong Hall" of the examination hall. The Zhigong Hall is located behind the Mingyuan Building where the examinations took place, with outer curtains on the east and west sides and inner curtains behind the hall for the Review Officers to stay.
Of course, that’s also where the marking happened.
As soon as the first session’s dossiers were anonymized and delivered here, they were handed over to clerical staff to transcribe uniformly in regular script. Only after that were they passed to the Review Officers, and then the tedious and bland work of marking began.
This ti, the Spring Imperial Civil Service Examination was overseen by Chief Examiner Lord Gao, along with Inspector Lord Wang, together with two Deputy Examiners, and eight Review Officers, who had already been busy for several days. Each one of them had bags under their eyes, their eyes rounded with fear of missing a good essay.
However, there were fewer Review Officers than dossiers, with over thirty thousand dossiers requiring these ten individuals to produce results within twenty days, which ant each person had to review one hundred and fifty dossiers a day.
But the problem was this was only the preliminary review!
In reality, they only had twelve days for the preliminary review of the dossiers, with each of them examining about three hundred dossiers daily. In such a hasty ti fra, it was nearly impossible to read each dossier in detail.
Consequently, a rule gradually ford.
That is, after receiving a dossier, the Review Officers would first scan the breaking of the topic, setting of the question, and the thesis statent, which is to say, as if marking a composition, the Review Officers hurriedly cast their eyes over the initial two or three paragraphs of the text. If it managed to capture the Review Officer’s attention, they would continue reading; otherwise, they would directly mark "read" on the dossier, noting reasons for not recomnding it, and casually discard it among the piles of the unsuccessful, commonly known as "dropped papers."
On the contrary, if they continued reading and found a piece that dazzled, they would circle it and recomnd the dossier to the Deputy Examiners, which was colloquially referred to as a "recomnded paper," commonly abbreviated as "passed." anwhile, those particularly exceptional essays that received special recomndations were terd "highly recomnded."
There were only a few essays that managed to be highly recomnded. If the Deputy Examiner also liked what he read and marked it with a "chosen," and then passed it to another Deputy Examiner who also favored it, receiving another "chosen," then that dossier had overco nurous obstacles, with the likelihood of High School increasing to eight or nine out of ten. At that point, the dossier was sent to the Chief Examiner, and if it managed to receive another red "chosen" mark from him, congratulations were due for having passed the examination after going through a complex process.
However, even if one’s na appeared on the "Apricot List" as a Tribute Scholar, the first being called the Yuan, there was still another step to take. In March, these successful Tribute Scholars would once again undergo the Emperor’s personal examination in the palace, selecting the best to beco Jinshi Scholars, with the top ten being personally ordered by His Majesty. The palace examination consisted of only one question, focused on policy, lasting for one day. The list of those who passed was known as the "First Class List," also called the "Golden List"; it was divided into three classes: the first class had only three people, the Top Scholar in first place, followed by the second place and the third. They were awarded the title "Jinshi, passed the examination." There were more people in the second class, awarded the title "Jinshi, conferred." The third class was given the title "conferred along with Jinshi." The first in the second and third classes was generally called "first outside the first class scholars." The palace examination determined the final ranking, and those Tribute Scholars allowed to participate would generally beco Jinshi Scholars without the chance of failing.
Once a person had beco a Jinshi Scholar, that was the end of their scholarly achievents; there was no opportunity to retake the examination for a higher ranking. To be soone who had obtained the titles of Huiyuan, Zhuangyuan, and Yuanyuan was to have "three successive examinations."
Of course, all these were matters for later.
At that mont, each Review Officer was imrsed in the task of reviewing papers, and fortunately, by the end of the third examination, they had almost finished reviewing the first batch of dossiers.
Even so, such intense reading still left the Review Officers utterly exhausted.
When Chief Examiner Lord Gao ca out to urge everyone to submit their recomndations, everyone was so absorbed in the piles of dossiers that almost no one got up promptly.
"Gentlen, even without my saying so, you all should understand the significance of this Spring Examination. His Majesty places exceptional importance on this examination, and I trust you have all noted this and taken it to heart. As such, when reviewing papers, everyone must be thorough and not betray the Saint’s Grace..."
As he spoke, he scanned the faces of the Review Officers one by one.
It was as if he wanted to strip a layer off everyone’s face.
Lord Gao, who was usually known as a good man, now wore an unusually serious expression: "Otherwise, be very careful; not only might your wealth and life be at stake, but bringing trouble upon others, upon your families, would be sin heaped upon sin! His Majesty watches as if through a clear mirror, and cannot tolerate even the smallest speck of dust! I trust that each one of you is just and incorruptible, knowing what should be done and what should not be done. Co on now, don’t stand around dithering, get on with recomnding papers."
After saying this, he waved his hand.
Note: So of the content of this Chapter derives from research materials.
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