Chapter 44: Five Elements Heavenly Disaster Scenario Question

The exam location was at the county office, because the Agricultural Bureau didn't have that many desks and chairs.

The County Magistrate also oversaw civil governance, so whenever there was a theory exam, it was basically held in the examination rooms of the county office.

County Magistrate Li Wenzheng was nowhere to be seen; the chief examiner and proctors were still familiar faces from the Agricultural Bureau, but the county office sent fifty people to proctor, and added clerks to deliver meals and water.

This time endurance wasn't being tested, so during the exam people would bring food to the examination rooms.

The exam lasted two days, so naturally there would be no shortage of test papers.

After Zhao Xing found his assigned examination room and sat down, he waited for the papers to be distributed — when they came, there were forty sheets in total!

Of these, thirty were exam questions, and ten were blank.

Zhao Xing wasn't in a hurry to put brush to paper; he first skimmed the questions and requirements, and also checked for any errors or omissions.

The first fifteen were freebie questions — the kind you could score on by rote memorization.

For example: "The *Monthly Ordinances and the Seventy-Two Pentads*, from which ancient book does it come? Who compiled it, and when?"

Zhao Xing didn't even need to think; he wrote the answer straight down: "From the *Explanations of the Seasonal Teachings*, compiled by Grand Minister of Agriculture Wu Cheng in the ninth year of Kaiping."

Or a sentence excerpted from a work, with the preceding or following line to be filled in.

For example: Duckweed does not grow, the yin qi is in turmoil and overflowing. ________

Answer: When the cuckoo does not preen its feathers, the state will not govern its troops; when the hoopoe does not descend upon the mulberry, governance and instruction have gone astray.

This question is a "Yin-Yang Pentad Question" — it says that if the yin aspect of yin-yang qi grows excessive, then correspondingly certain abnormal "pentad" phenomena will appear; at such a time the state should best refrain from taking up arms or issuing new edicts, or the results will be poor.

Zhao Xing answered the freebie questions smoothly, and they were soon finished.

Then came the scenario-based Q&A that screened the candidates.

"To the south of the city there is wind, raging as it blows; spring and autumn are prone to drought. To the east of the city there is a river, with rainfall overload; summer and winter are prone to floods. The five grains can scarcely survive — how do you explain this?"

If it were a clerk with shaky basic theory, they would certainly answer straight off: "Use the Wind-Calling and Rain-Summoning spell to change it, and the five grains will flourish."

If answered this way, out of ten points you could only give two — you could even give zero.

Because there is only an answer, no process; for a theory exam that won't do.

Moreover, the answer doesn't even hit the point — this is a case of failing to read the question clearly, or of insufficient theoretical reserves in spell knowledge.

"The small city has southerly winds year-round, raging as they blow, carrying away the clouds and rain of spring and autumn, causing drought. But to the south of the city there is also the sea, where vapor rises, causing floods in summer and winter. So this is not a Heavenly-Timing question at all, but a Geographical-Advantage question. No matter what Heavenly-Timing Sect spell you use, it will be wrong." Having seen through the trap hidden in the question, Zhao Xing began to answer.

Actually it was quite simple — the way to solve it was something Lord Cao Xi had once done.

"Nurture the earth veins to the south; where the land is high, the winds will be tempered. Dig channels to the east, lead the water around the city. Choose a low-lying place east of the city to store water as a lake, then build Return-Origin water wheels, and the four seasons' rainfall will be balanced. Supplement this with seasonal ordinances, and within three years the winds and rains will be timely."

After Zhao Xing finished writing, he confirmed he could get full marks, and only then continued answering downward.

It wasn't until the very last question that he ran into real difficulty.

It was a scenario-based Q&A involving the taboos and proprieties of the Five Elements and the Four Seasons:

"The land is yin-cold; spring wood cannot be drawn upon; summer yang steams; locusts breed in abundance — how do you explain this?"

The fewer the words, the harder the question.

All the more so because it was a linked question.

Because it described seasonal disorder and signs of heavenly disaster, linking the two together, the answer had to link them as well — they could not be separated.

The standard answer had to proceed from the direction of the Five Elements and Four Seasons theory, and ideally find its basis in a classic work; otherwise, using the candidate's own words would lack authority and be unconvincing.

Without persuasiveness, even if you hit the point, points would be deducted.

Having thought this through, Zhao Xing began to ponder, and to comb through various works, striving to find a perfect answer.

A quarter of an hour later, Zhao Xing lifted his brush to answer.

"When spring carries lingering cold, the land is yin, and the hundred trees do not grow. One must draw upon the Bing Fire of the earth veins to adjust the climate. If the land has no Bing Fire, then take Ding; if both Bing and Ding are absent, then defer to the heavenly timing."

"When summer yang steams excessively, it is because spring was short. To quell the locust plague, one must act directly: restore heavenly timing to spring, with the earth's fire as Ding; restore one pentad of time, then return to summer; let summer be short by one pentad, and submit to the proper order of the four seasons."

The standard answer referenced the contents of the Geographical-Advantage and Heavenly-Timing chapters of the work *Treatise on the Five Elements of the Four Seasons*.

This question asks: if within the jurisdiction of a Revenue Commissioner there arises a situation where spring timber cannot be drawn upon, the land is cold and damp, summer brings scorching heat, and locust plagues occur as a natural disaster — how should it be resolved?

The question involves the Five Elements, the Four Seasons, and heavenly disasters.

The answer must be given in terms of the Five Elements, Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, and a relatively perfect solution must be provided.

First, using the Dili Sect's method, regulate the power of the earth veins. The earth veins have different attributes; Bing Fire is the strongest and can be used to adjust the yin-cold phenomenon; Ding Fire is next, but can also barely serve.

If the local environment is truly too harsh to channel Bing or Ding Fire, then one can only alter the heavenly timing, making spring pass quickly and moving on to the next season — this is "deferring to the heavenly timing."

Excessive summer yang causes sweltering heat and gives rise to all manner of insect plagues; this is because spring was too short. Picking up from the previous line, this is cause and effect.

At this point, don't overthink it — directly alter the heavenly timing. Because the insect plague has already appeared, and summer is the season most suited to insect plagues, staying in summer won't solve it.

So one must "restore heavenly timing to spring" — but could it be changed to autumn or winter instead?

No, because earlier spring used the "earth-vein Bing Fire" to solve the yin-cold problem, which caused spring to be shortened by a stretch. Now one needs to make up one pentad's worth of spring.

The earth vein is Ding Fire, which is gentler; it won't cause the yin-cold to return, nor will it stray too far from summer, because once the insect disaster is resolved, one must still return to summer — this is called "submitting to the proper positions of the four seasons."

When answering, Zhao Xing considered the possibility of the insect plague recurring, so when submitting to the proper order, he wrote that summer should be shortened by one pentad.

Because the heat of summer and autumn isn't all that different, shortening summer by one pentad and adding one pentad to autumn is no big deal and won't have much impact. It's shortening spring by one pentad and adding one pentad to summer that causes big problems.

"Unless the examiner is blind, I've got to get full marks on this one." Zhao Xing checked it over, turned the page, and continued answering.

Time passed slowly. By evening, many candidates had already stopped writing, because most clerks did not have the ability of bright-eyed night vision.

Zhao Xing didn't want to waste time sitting around in the dark either, so he planned to finish as early as possible and hand in his paper ahead of time.

So even as the light dimmed, he didn't put down his brush.

After finishing all the preceding categories of questions, he began to review them again, looking for better answers and any places where he might lose points.

Only after checking several times like this would he move on to the next category.

By the time it was fully dark, Zhao Xing had only one category left:

This category had only one sheet, and it was the hardest — a school-of-thought question.

"Please match the Five Elements, the Heavenly Stems, the Earthly Branches, and the Four Seasons, and explain the matching rationale."