Chapter 47: Wanting to Read Ancient Prose but Unable to Find It

After two days in Shitang Town, they passed through the county seat and made a brief stop; the next day they would be able to see the child exam results posted.

The delay of so many days was not because Magistrate Feng graded too slowly, but because there were too many young students taking the exam. The examination shed simply could not seat them all, so the county exam was administered in two batches, with different questions for each batch.

Yanshan County, with a registered population of under twenty thousand, had over four thousand young students sitting for this county exam.

Doesn't that seem very strange?

There are two views in historical scholarship: one holds that the Ming Yellow Registers counted only adult males; the other holds that the Ming Yellow Registers counted only adult men and women.

Whichever the case, children were not counted, even if their household was registered.

But it still doesn't add up — the ratio of young students to registered population still doesn't match.

Heh.

The population registered with the government offices was for the central court to see, and it might not have changed in a hundred years; here in Yanshan County it had even been steadily declining.

This was simply because if the population increased, the total tax quota had to increase too. For one, the county magistrate would find it hard to collect the full tax amount; for another, the magistrate's own cut would shrink. Only a local official with water on the brain would ever update the Yellow Registers.

When it came to actually collecting taxes, an entirely different system was used.

In the past it relied on the grain chief, now it relied on the ward chief. There was no need for any household register — everyone in the village and countryside knew each other; if you had no powerful clan shielding you, you had to pay taxes.

"Make way, make way!"

Though young, Fei Ruhe was fairly sturdy, and he shoved aside the other students watching for the results all the way.

He walked up beneath the posted list and looked up —

First place, Fei Ruyu.

Second place, Hu Zongru.

Third place, Fei Kai.

Fourth place: Fei Han.

He kept looking, kept reading, and then — his own name was there, prominently passed.

One hundred and seventeenth place: Xu Ying.

Three hundred and ninety-eighth place: Fei Ruhe.

The Yanshan County exam results list had admitted a total of four hundred young students, roughly one-tenth of those who took the exam!

Under normal circumstances, a county exam only admitted a few dozen, but that only applied to ordinary counties and departments.

The northern record was Ruyang in Henan, where over eight thousand people once sat for a single county exam, and around eight hundred were admitted.

The southern record was Linchuan in Jiangxi, where over ten thousand people once sat for a single county exam, and over a thousand were admitted.

The young students taking the county exam were heavily diluted; many were just there to experience the atmosphere.

There was no fixed quota either; usually one in ten was taken, and if there were too many, that was the prefect's headache to deal with.

"Father, I passed, I passed!" Fei Ruhe was wild with joy.

Fei Yinghuan's face was expressionless: "You passed, so be it. No need to go take the prefectural exam — I fear you wouldn't even understand the prefectural exam questions."

Fei Ruhe still clung to his fantasies: "What if I get lucky, and His Excellency the Prefect passes me anyway?"

Fei Yinghuan's expression was utterly terrible as he ground his teeth and said: "The Prefect is not as easygoing as the County Magistrate, and your father has no personal ties whatsoever with the Prefect!"

Fei Ruhe shut his mouth at once.

Zhao Han asked, "Young Master, then I also don't need to go to the prefectural exam?"

"You may go, or not." Fei Yinghuan let Zhao Han decide for himself.

Passing the prefectural exam made one a child student; there was still no fixed quota, usually one in two was taken. But if there were too many candidates, it might be one in three, one in four, or one in five.

Jiangxi's hellish difficulty first manifested in the prefectural exam; of the children who had already passed the county exam, at least three-quarters would be eliminated.

In the departments and counties of other provinces, the prefectural exam pass rate was roughly one in two.

"Then I'd rather not go," Zhao Han said with a smile.

Even if he passed the prefectural exam, so what?

The circuit exam stage would still ruthlessly weed people out; a Jiangxi xiucai was not so easy to earn! From the county exam, to the prefectural exam, to the circuit exam, across all three hurdles combined, the xiucai admission rate was probably under one percent.

Beside the results list, several model essays were posted, and Zhao Han's essay was conspicuously among them.

A young student of seventeen or eighteen, swaying his head in rhythm, exclaimed in continuous praise: "'A common man who became the teacher of a hundred generations, a single word that became the law of all under Heaven' — truly a piece of extraordinary writing! I wonder which prodigy this Fei Han is?"

"Which one is Fei Han?"

"Which branch of our Fei clan is Fei Han from? I must make his acquaintance."

"He's definitely from our Chenjiang Fei clan!"

"Nonsense, he's definitely from our Shitang Fei clan!"

"..."

Zhao Han promptly slipped away, quietly squeezing out of the crowd.

Among all these countless people looking at the results, not a single one had noticed that his essay was plagiarized.

Fei Yinghuan returned to Hanzhu Academy and immediately hurried to the library to search for essays.

Zhao Han had written down the titles of over a hundred essays, including Qin and Han ancient prose as well — roughly half of the contents of Guwen Guanzhi.

Inside the library.

Fei Yinghuan looked at the ancient prose catalog and asked, "Who is the author of this piece 'Letter to Han of Jingzhou'?"

"Li Bai," Zhao Han answered at once.

If he couldn't answer any more, Fei Yinghuan was going to start hitting people.

For several earlier ancient prose pieces, Zhao Han only remembered the essay titles but had forgotten even who wrote them — how was Fei Yinghuan supposed to go find them?

Upon hearing it was written by Li Bai, Fei Yinghuan was very pleased, because the library had the Collected Works of Li Taibai.

"Over here!" Fei Yinghuan called to the academy worker.

Two laborers carried over a wooden ladder. Fei Yinghuan climbed up himself, took out the Collected Works of Li Taibai, and flipped through it quickly.

Ancient collections also had tables of contents. Fei Yinghuan soon found the original text, tossed it down to Qinxin, and said, "Copy that essay!"

Zhao Han quickly said, "'Preface to the Spring Night Banquet in the Peach and Plum Garden' is also by Li Bai."

Qinxin hurriedly checked the table of contents and said, "Father, it's right here in this volume in my hand."

"Copy that one too," Fei Yinghuan instructed.

Although Zhao Han could not recite either essay in full, he had a very deep impression of several passages.

"I would not care to be enfeoffed as a marquis of ten thousand households, if I could but once know Han Jingzhou." — flattery right from the opening; Li Bai was a master of bootlicking.

"Heaven and earth are the inn of all things; time is the passing traveler of a hundred generations. And this floating life is like a dream — how much joy can we seize?" — perfect for a QQ signature to show off.

Fei Yinghuan glanced over the list of ancient prose titles and asked, "Was 'Lament for the Ancient Battlefield' also written by Li Bai?"

"Uh... I forget. Probably not Li Bai," Zhao Han said, a little embarrassed.

"Then there's no way to find it," Fei Yinghuan could only give up. He asked again, "Who wrote 'Rhapsody on the Epang Palace'?"

Zhao Han said, "Du Mu."

Fei Yinghuan had studied Du Mu's poetry. He immediately took servants and page boys to search.

After a flurry of effort, they only found a copy of Fanchuan Poetry Selections, which contained nothing but Du Mu's poems and did not include any ancient prose at all.

For a modern person, 'Rhapsody on the Epang Palace' is something you can see anytime, anywhere.

But in the Ming dynasty, you could only get it through two channels: one was the Ming-printed imitation Song edition of the Collected Works of Fanchuan (which contained both prose and poetry), and the other was the Wu Zhi edition of the Collected Works of Fanchuan (which had prose but no poetry).

Both of these block-printed editions were regional publications, and in most prefectures and counties you could not buy them even if you wanted to.

The search turned up nothing. Fei Yinghuan said, "Forget it, we won't look for this one either."

Zhao Han quickly said, "Young master, this is a peerlessly magnificent essay."

"Really?" Fei Yinghuan was somewhat skeptical, because he had read Du Mu's poetry, and its style did not seem capable of producing a peerlessly magnificent essay.

Zhao Han said, "I can try to recite it, though I'm not sure I can get it all."

Fei Yinghuan ordered Jiandan, "You, record it."

Zhao Han immediately began to recite: "The six kingdoms were finished; the realm was one. The woods of Shu were stripped bare, and Epang Palace rose. It covered over three hundred li, blotting out the very sun. It began north of Mount Li and turned westward, running straight to Xianyang. Two rivers flowed gently into the palace walls. A tower every five paces, a pavilion every ten. Corridors wound like waists, eaves peaked like birds' beaks. Each hugged the terrain, locked in intricate rivalry..."

Jiandan began to weep as he wrote. He put down his brush and said, "Brother, slow down."

Zhao Han leaned over to look — good heavens. "The six kingdoms were finished" had become "The six kingdoms were killed off," and what followed was a heap of wrong and miswritten characters.

"I'd better write it myself," Zhao Han could only say.

He wrote out the first few paragraphs from memory, but then forgot the entire middle section. Zhao Han racked his brains for a long time but could not recall it.

So he simply put in an ellipsis and jumped straight to the final paragraph: "Alas! It was the six kingdoms themselves that destroyed the six kingdoms, not Qin. It was Qin itself that exterminated Qin, not the world. Ah! Had the six kingdoms each loved their own people, they would have been enough to resist Qin. Had Qin in turn loved the people of the six kingdoms, then the throne could have passed through three generations to ten thousand generations as sovereign — who could have exterminated them? The men of Qin had no time to mourn themselves, and those who came after mourned them. Those who came after mourned them but did not learn from them, and thus caused those still later to mourn them in turn."

Fei Yinghuan, standing beside him, finished reading and exclaimed in wonder, "A truly eternal masterpiece — I never imagined Du Fanchuan could write such a piece!"

Zhao Han said, "Young master, let's keep searching for essays."

Fei Yinghuan pointed at 'Rhapsody on the Epang Palace.' "What about the middle?"

"Forgotten," Zhao Han said helplessly. He really had forgotten.

"How could you forget such a fine essay? Think harder," Fei Yinghuan urged.

Zhao Han gave a bitter laugh. "I've tried. I truly cannot recall."

Fei Yinghuan had found a fine essay, but it was incomplete, and his heart itched unbearably as if clawed by a cat. He said to Jiupo, "Go around the academy and ask everywhere. Whoever can tell me where to buy Du Fanchuan's collected works, I will give him five taels of silver. Whoever can recite 'Rhapsody on the Epang Palace' in full on the spot, I will give him twenty taels of silver!"

Jiupo took the order and left. Fei Yinghuan continued searching for essays.

After searching like this for several days, of the more than one hundred titles Zhao Han had given, they found only a little over seventy in the library, and that included many essays by the Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song.

They asked every teacher and student at Hanzhu Academy, but no one could recite 'Rhapsody on the Epang Palace' from memory.

However, one teacher gave them a lead: he had once seen the Collected Works of Fanchuan in the library of the Ouyang clan in Taihe County.

To obtain a complete 'Rhapsody on the Epang Palace,' Fei Yinghuan actually took out fifty taels of silver and said to Wei Jianxiong, "You and Qinxin, go to Taihe County at once. Prepare a visiting gift, take my name card, and pay a call on the Ouyang clan. You must copy 'Rhapsody on the Epang Palace' and bring it back!"

Wei Jianxiong said in surprise, "Fifty taels for one essay?"

"It's worth it. A hundred taels would be worth it," Fei Yinghuan said. "As long as you bring the essay back, no matter how much you actually spend, the remaining silver is yours."

"There's such a good deal?" Wei Jianxiong said happily. "Young master, rest assured, leave this matter to me."

Qinxin was also very happy. Wei Jianxiong was always generous, and if he followed along on this errand, he was sure to get a good share of the money too.

Wei Jianxiong and Qinxin departed. Fei Yinghuan continued his painstaking search for two more days.

Seeing that no more essays could be found, Fei Yinghuan could only head home. He said to Zhao Han, with a hint of meaning, "Brother Han, your family's old library must have been much larger than mine."

Zhao Han's expression did not change. He answered, "My late father, in his lifetime, liked to borrow books from everywhere to read."

Fei Yinghuan thought for a moment and sighed. "Ah, I won't press you to the bottom of this. Your ancestors must have had an extraordinary origin. If you pass the juren examination in the future, you should change back to your original surname."

"Many thanks, young master," Zhao Han said, cupping his hands and bowing.

Some of the essays in Guwen Guanzhi, nowadays, could only be found either in the Yongle Encyclopedia or lying in some clan's private library.

An ordinary scholar would never have a chance to encounter them in a lifetime.

When Pang Chunlai learned of this, he came midway to pay a visit to Fei Yinghuan and had Xu Ying help copy a set as well.

Over seventy ancient prose essays, all of them famous pieces — Pang Chunlai had previously read only a little over twenty of them.

It was not that he did not want to read them; he simply had no way to.

After reading all these essays through, Pang Chunlai called Zhao Han over and asked, "Were all of these taught to you by your late father during his lifetime?"

"Yes," Zhao Han said, his skin growing thicker by the day.

Pang Chunlai joked, "Your family wouldn't happen to be descendants of the Zhao Song imperial line, would they?"

"No," Zhao Han flatly denied.

"You could be. It would be useful when you raise a rebellion in the future," Pang Chunlai said.

Zhao Han laughed. "The banner of Zhao Song would be useless even if we raised it. Besides, rebellion depends on oneself. Are kings and nobles born into their rank?"

"Ha ha ha ha!"

Pang Chunlai laughed heartily. "You have ambition — that's how a true man should be!" Then he asked, "You're not going to sit the prefectural exam?"

"Could I pass it?" Zhao Han asked in return.

"No." Pang Chunlai shook his head.

Zhao Han, Xu Ying, and Fei Ruhe — all three had passed the county exam, but not one of them went on to take the prefectural exam.

Everyone knew how hard the prefectural exam was!

(End of chapter)