Chapter 1316: One Examination Decides a Lifetime

The news that the entrance examination for the Jinling Women's University was extremely difficult quickly spread throughout the three towns of Wuhan!

The parents and families of the more than three hundred girls who had already passed the preliminary examination all suddenly became somewhat uneasy. Those among them with connections went through various channels to obtain copies of Princess Nisha's examination papers to look at. At a single glance, every one of them was dumbfounded.

This is far too difficult and too advanced!

Many of the examination questions were not something a girls' secondary school graduate could do — they could be used to test Imperial Academy students!

Yet you could call it difficult, but she answered everything — three subjects with 100 points, one subject with 85 points, four papers totaling 385 points! It is said she scored 85 in martial arts, 95 in music, and 60 in the interview, for a total of 625 points (out of a total of 660)!

Those girls who had designs on the position of Crown Princess, and their parents, were both worried and felt fortunate!

The worry was because they feared failing the examination. This time it truly was one examination deciding one's whole life! There was no repeating a year, and no place to go abroad for gilding — fail the examination and your whole life would be ruined!

As for the good fortune, it was because Princess Nisha was not participating in the competition for Crown Princess — she had already been reserved by the Crown Prince's father.

But even without Princess Nisha in the competition, no one else dared to let down their guard. In the ten days before the women's university examination officially began, the Imperial Academy students of Wuhan suddenly became very much in demand, all of them invited by prominent figures with daughters to serve as tutors.

The old textbooks of the Army Military Academy also became sought after, and people with connections all wanted to get hold of them so their daughters taking the exam could cram at the last minute — but apart from young ladies of military families who had been steeped in military matters since childhood, no one else could understand them! At most, they could rely on a good memory and memorize the books by rote, which was still better than knowing nothing at all!

Just as the parents of the more than three hundred examinees were thrown into a flurry by the sudden increase in examination difficulty, the Great Ming Emperor issued an edict appointing Zhu Cixuan, Prince of Fu, as Left Instructor of the Jinling Women's University, and Pan Shuchen, Director of the Eastern Depot, as concurrent Right Instructor of the women's university, and ordering the two of them to take charge of presiding over the university's entrance re-examination.

At the same time, Zhu Cilang also announced through the edict the date and subjects of the "higher examination."

This "higher examination" would be divided into a written examination and an interview. The written examination would begin on the morning of the fifteenth day of the fifth month in the twentieth year of Hongxing and end on the afternoon of the seventeenth day of the fifth month. On the morning of the fifteenth, the examination would cover Confucian studies, that is, philosophy; on the afternoon of the fifteenth, mathematics; on the morning of the sixteenth, French; on the afternoon of the sixteenth, natural philosophy; and on the seventeenth, the entire day would be devoted to martial arts. From the eighteenth until the end of the month would be interviews — conducted personally by Zhu Cilang for all girls who passed the re-examination and were qualified to become brides of the Zhu family. Examinees not qualified to become brides of the Zhu family (those surnamed Zhu or not subjects of Great Ming) also had to participate in interviews, but these would not be conducted personally by Zhu Cilang; instead, Zhu Cixuan would be responsible for interviewing them.

In other words, this "higher examination" did not test military science, only martial arts.

The scores for each subject were also announced: Confucian studies, mathematics, French, natural philosophy, martial arts, and interview each had a maximum score of 100 points, for a total of 600 points!

The number of students to be admitted in the first class of the Jinling Women's University was also announced at the same time — no more, no less, exactly 200 students, to be divided into four classes, all going to the Jinling Women's University in Yingtian Prefecture to study. The school would provide lodging and also allow students to commute.

The academic system of the women's university was also announced in the edict: a four-year program, and students were permitted to continue their studies after marrying.

As for the questions on the four examinations of Confucian studies, mathematics, French, and natural philosophy, they were all personally set by Emperor Zhu — if you had the ability, go ahead and guess!

Finally, Emperor Zhu also announced in this edict that any examinee who was a subject of Great Ming, not surnamed Zhu, and not a cousin of the Crown Prince, regardless of status or wealth, had the opportunity through this examination to become the Crown Princess of Great Ming — as long as she could place first!

The edict concerning the Jinling Women's University admissions examination was a public grand edict, that is, one openly published in the newspapers to "report to all under Heaven."

The matter of the Jinling Women's University admissions had actually been dragging on for a long time, but it had never been "reported to all under Heaven" — the decree had only been sent down to the few girls' schools in various places and to the ennobled families of Yingtian. Moreover, it had never explicitly said that "one examination decides one's whole life," nor had it ever publicly stated that the top scorer in the women's university entrance examination would become Crown Princess.

So when this edict came out, the whole nation was naturally shocked!

The position of Crown Princess could be obtained by "the highest score wins" — had this not become like winning the top jinshi degree? Now the men of Great Ming no longer had a top jinshi to compete for — Zhu Cilang had changed the civil service examination into an official examination, no longer organizing the "progressive" examination system, and naturally there were no longer the ministry examination, palace examination, and selection of the top jinshi that all under Heaven had once watched.

Now there were three paths by which officials (civil officials) of Great Ming came into office. First, government offices at the ministry, court, provincial, and prefectural levels organized their own official examinations under the supervision of the Ministry of Personnel (with the Ministry of Personnel examinations supervised by the Censorate). Second, graduates of the fifteen universities supervised by the Ministry of Rites could become officials without examination (there were only fifteen universities in the whole country, with about 1,500 graduates a year — extremely rare!). Third, retired military officers could transfer to civil rank (they had to be graduates of army or navy military academies to transfer to civil service).

No matter which path one took, it was very difficult to ascend to the "Hall of the Son of Heaven" (to be qualified to participate in the grand court assembly). One had to pass test after test, produce achievements in governance, make few mistakes, and also have a certain amount of official luck. The good fortune of "in the morning a commoner, by evening in the Hall of the Son of Heaven" no longer existed!

But now here came the matter of "in the morning a schoolgirl, by evening the Crown Princess" — how could people not be left stunned?

While most subjects of the Great Ming Empire still could not figure out what Emperor Zhu was really up to, the future first generation of female university students of Great Ming had already arrived at the examination grounds, accompanied by their families.

Ding Yuying was one of the few commoner girls among those taking this examination. On the fifteenth day of the fifth month, just past the fourth watch, while the sky was still dark, she had already risen. First she practiced the boxing routine Pan Shuchen had taught her, then took out a Kaiyuan bow and began practicing archery — she originally knew no martial arts. It was only after moving into Pan Shuchen's residence within the Eastern Depot compound that she learned archery from Pan Shuchen, along with a set of body-strengthening boxing techniques, simple saber techniques, and a bit of horsemanship (she already knew how to ride). In order to score more points on the martial arts examination, she had risen every morning for these past few months to practice, regardless of wind or rain! Even when goose-feather snow fell from the sky, she would train hard. This ferocity was worthy of the nickname "Little Ding the Skinner" — except that her father skinned other people, while she skinned herself.

Pan Shuchen had originally not thought highly of this girl without any foundation, but he was moved by her spirit of hard work, and he thought of his own past circumstances. He was of eunuch origin, so the state of his family could well be imagined! That he had reached his present position was naturally because he too was a ruthless man willing to endure hardship.

But he also knew that martial training could not be rushed. The daughters of ennobled and military families had all put in hard work since childhood — how could Ding Yuying compete with them? A few months' time, even if she trained herself to death, would be useless.

So he devised a tutoring plan for Ding Yuying that played to her strengths and avoided her weaknesses — martial arts had to be practiced, otherwise she would get zero points. But she could not count on scoring high in martial arts; she had to put her limited energy where points could most easily be gained.

To this end, Pan Shuchen even hired a teacher from Wuhan Imperial Academy to tutor Ding Yuying. This teacher had real ability. After a round of assessment, he found that Ding Yuying's mathematics and Confucian studies were both decent, but her French was terrible — she had attended a privately run girls' school, and moreover one in the Huguang region, where the standard of education was very poor.

Ding Yuying was the number one top student in her school, so her mathematics and Confucian studies were passable — those two subjects had teachers, and if worst came to worst she could study on her own. But French would not do — there was no teacher to teach it, and there was no way to study it on her own. In this day and age there was not even a radio, so how could it not be poor?

So this teacher gave Ding Yuying intensive tutoring in French, and after a few months, this little girl's French had reached the point where she could converse with Frenchmen!

By the time Ding Yuying finished practicing archery, the sky had begun to brighten. Pan Shuchen had also risen, washed, dressed neatly, and stood under the eaves with his hands behind his back, watching the young girl putting away her bow and arrows, and sighed softly — this girl was a piece of fine jade! It was a pity there was not enough time to carve and polish her.

(End of Chapter)