The Sage of Confucianism and Taoism

Until noon, Fang Yun did not write anything.

The theme requirements for the poems this time are very general. In addition to the almost mandatory "frontier category", there are also four categories: "countryside scene", "diligence in study" and "farewell". Six rhymes are also specified.

After lunch, Fang Yuncai took out a piece of white paper and wrote and drew on it. Finally, he decided to write a poem about rural scenery, rhyming it with Bao Dao, and wrote "Remembering Hometown".

"Green grass by the river..."

After writing "Recalling Hometown", Fang Yun put the poems away and flipped through the thick test paper one by one. After five pages, he took out the questions on classics and meanings.

Fang Yun took a closer look at the words "Weimin only", a smile appeared on his face, and then he thought in his heart.

If this "weiminzhizhi" is interpreted literally, it means the place where the people live. From "The Book of Songs", the entire sentence is "The territory of the country is thousands of miles away, and the maintenance of the people stops, and the territory reaches the four seas." It means that the Shang Dynasty had a vast territory and the people lived and worked in peace and contentment.

These four words reminded Fang Yun of the allusions of ancient China.

During the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the three emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong established literary inquisition in order to maintain imperial power. Anyone who made even the slightest insinuation of the Manchu Qing Dynasty would have their homes searched and executed. There were nearly 200 major cases, and 130 of them occurred during the Qianlong period alone. In these literary prisons, less than 10% of the people are truly disloyal, and 90% are unjust cases.

During the reign of Yongzheng, Wang Jingqi once wrote an article saying that emperors with "zheng" reign titles would not die well. He cursed Yongzheng and Kangxi, and colluded with Nian Gengyao, resulting in their execution.

If Wang Jingqi hated Kangxi and Yongzheng because of his opposition to the Qing Dynasty, he would be an upright and righteous man, but Wang Jingqi was purely venting his personal anger, which would be considered slander even in enlightened future generations. But the subsequent "cases stopped by the Weimin" were unjust cases.

A few years after Wang Jingqi's death, the classics and meaning test questions issued by the Jiangxi Academic Affairs Examination Court included "zheng" and "stop". He violated the taboos of Yongzheng and was severely investigated. Later, his home was confiscated and he was executed.

In order to ridicule Yongzheng, later generations used the "Wei Min Zhi" in "The Book of Songs" as the meaning of the classic, because the word "Yongzheng" without the U-turn means "Wei" and "Zhi".

Fang Yun thought of the cruel literary prison of the Qing Dynasty, and then thought of today's Shengyuan Continent. The two eras were simply two extremes. Shengyuan Continent was originally open to speech, but now many of the words are no longer words, but curses. Those who speak have the purpose of hurting others, and some even secretly connect to slander.

Fang Yun had known for a long time that people from Wu State in Qing State had been spreading rumors about him, but he never understood why those people were spreading rumors until he heard a word from Li Wenying.

"Looking at the grass and beautiful trees, you can't see the deep roots, and hate them for taking away the light of the sun and the moon. Looking at the elephants, you can't see the insects and mice running around in the four seasons, thinking that they are fighting to swallow up the filth."

Fang Yun suddenly smiled, remembering that there was a "Wuyun Literary Society" in Qing Dynasty, which was intended to "dirty Fang Yun". If he hadn't heard what Zong Wude said with his own ears, and even seen the slanderous remarks they wrote, he would not have believed it in the world. There are such despicable people.

Fang Yun shook his head gently, put all distracting thoughts behind his mind, and concentrated on solving the problem.

"The superficial meaning of what Weimin refers to is the place where human beings live, and the inner meaning is that people live and work in peace and contentment. However, the two sentences before and after the original text of "The Book of Songs" refer to the territory of the Shang Dynasty. If the meaning of this scripture is to be of high quality, it must be clearly titled The true intention of the Semi-Saint is that this step alone is enough to differentiate the talented people."

"The meaning of Weimin's stop is that if it is taken down, the people will live in peace; if it is taken in the middle, the territory of the human race will be permanent and will not be invaded by demons and barbarians; if it is taken up, then everything that people can reach will be our territory of the human race! First understand the meaning, then solve the problem!”

There are six ways to solve a problem, namely overt breaking, dark breaking, smooth breaking, reverse breaking, positive breaking and reverse breaking. It is also divided into broken meaning, broken sentence or broken character.

Fang Yun thought for a while, decided to reveal his intention secretly, and slowly wrote the words to break the topic on the draft.

"Destiny lies with man, but Heaven is endless!"

In this sentence, people are used to represent the people, and heaven is used to represent the stop. This is a typical metaphor, and the "endless" in it includes the territory of the two sentences before and after "weimin stops", but it does not go off topic, because the center of the question is It’s “man’s destiny”.

The destiny of man means that man is the most outstanding creature in the world, so people should naturally live and work in peace and contentment. Since the world is endless, man can live in peace anywhere.

A great scholar can sense misfortunes and blessings, and his sincere heart can predict them in advance. After writing this sentence, Fang Yun felt that he was calm in his heart, as if he had somehow merged with a kind of holy way, with a high degree of unity of mind, spirit, literary courage, and literary palace. All the strength of the body was mobilized at this moment, the talent burned rapidly, and the power of Wen Dan continued to vibrate in Wen Palace.

Fang Yun saw that there were countless golden characters flying in his literary palace. They instantly formed a holy scripture and disappeared instantly, and then formed a new holy text. But in the blink of an eye, all the holy scriptures flashed in the literary palace. Pass.

The books he had read turned into invisible power, making Fang Yun's spiritual thoughts become extremely powerful at this moment.

After solving the problem, it is time to pick up the problem.

Fang Yun continued to write the question and further explained his solution.

"Those who are destined by fate should be judged by wisdom, and human beings should come first..."

Fang Yun first explains why people receive destiny, and then discusses in depth how to live and work in peace and contentment.

Fang Yun first used himself as an example. He and Yang Yuhuan depended on each other for life, and he was poor and at ease. However, when Liu Zicheng appeared, his place was uneasy. However, when he left Ji County and went to Dayuan Mansion to face Liu Zicheng, his residence became more stable.

Then, Fang Yun took Confucius's World of Demons on the Four Seas as an example, and further elaborated on the core arguments of his scriptures. He believed that since the human race has its destiny, it should expand its territory and protect the "endless world" with the "endless sky". "Shelter", using the most thorough way to let people live and work in peace and contentment.

Then he quoted Confucius's famous saying "If a person has no long-term worries, he must have immediate worries" to unify "living and working in peace and contentment" with "endless heaven".

This is the classic meaning, the focus is on the overall situation, and that’s it. If he were to write a strategy, Fang Yun would have to describe in detail how the human race could protect the Holy Yuan Continent while sending outstanding talents to conquer the ancient land, etc.

After writing the draft happily, Fang Yun realized that he was covered in sweat and his clothes were soaked. All the sweat was slowly being drained away by the power of the dragon beads, but the dragon beads drained water very slowly, and the sweat was as heavy as mercury.

Fang Yun lowered his head and looked at his clothes, thinking that this is the legendary place where the heart is. Sweat turns into mercury, and every drop of sweat contains the gains from reading, which is the power of spirit and wisdom.

Fang dipped his pen in ink and was about to revise the manuscript, but found that he was weak and weak. He was surprised. When he entered the literary palace, he found that his talent and literary courage were almost exhausted.

Fang Yun was overjoyed. If the article could consume one's own talent and literary courage, it would be a typical "near-sage way". Ordinary articles should never consume half of one's strength.

"Fortunately, I have received five talent initiations and have literary courage to replace my talent. If an ordinary scholar writes such a sutra, he will be seriously ill for at least three days, but after three days, his talent will be full and his body will be stronger. If Tong Sheng writes this kind of scripture, Writing articles would take at least half a year. Scholars before Confucius were frail and sickly, and were laughed at as being powerless because all their strength was spent on reading and writing, and they had no talent to make up for it.

Fang Yun no longer read the draft, but drank a lot of water, ate some dry food and went to bed.

Writing in the imperial examination is completely different from practicing in daily life, because the imperial examination is closely related to the holy way.

Daily practice is just to learn the holy way, while the imperial examination is to touch the holy way!

The examination papers of the imperial examination are the product of the intersection of thought and holy way.

It's okay to ask for holy words or poems, but every word of classic meaning and policy requires more energy. This time it also consumes talent and literary courage. Fang Yun slept until eight o'clock the next morning before waking up, which was enough. Slept for six hours.

When he woke up, Fang Yun re-read his article on classics and meanings after dinner, and found that there was no way to change it. This draft could be regarded as a formal article. Fang Yun was confused, so he recalled carefully and was surprised to find a problem.

The poem "Recalling Hometown" was written in the afternoon. Using cheap military time, it was around three in the afternoon. I thought about it for another two-quarters of an hour. This "Wei Min Zhi Zhi" only has more than a thousand words. It stands to reason that it could not be written until five in the afternoon. It can be finished at half past one. But in my memory, when I finished writing the scriptures, it was already dark, at least 7:30 pm.

“Where did that hour in between go?”

Fang Yun recalled carefully and suddenly realized that after he finished writing the essay, all the classics of the saints that he had read appeared in the literary palace. It seemed to him that it only took a moment, but in fact a whole hour passed.

"It's really amazing. Confucius once studied hard, and unknowingly realized that he was getting old. I used to think it was just a metaphor, but now I understand that Confucius was probably immersed in the holy way, and even time may have changed."

Fang Yun shook his head again, always feeling that Confucius could not reach that level before he was canonized.

Fang Yun was not careless. He read his own "Wei Min Zhi Zhi" scriptures and meanings silently over and over again, examining them word for word. He found that there was really nothing to change. A faint smile appeared on his face, and he vaguely understood the meaning of the hour that passed in that moment.

"In terms of levels of meaning, this sutra should be similar to the "Indecent Rituals" article in the scholar examination. However, "Indecent Rituals" contains principles that should not exist in this era, so it caused strange phenomena. And this "Wei Zhi Zhi Zhi" The principles in "What the People Stop" have already appeared in the scriptures of the saints, so their value is not as good as "Indecent Rituals", so they do not cause any strange phenomena."

Fang Yun was relieved that after writing this article, his level of classics and meanings had improved further, which showed that his efforts these days were not in vain. Especially the tempering of the Holy Ruins. Without the exchanges with the Ten Kingdoms, without the experience of the Holy Ruins and the Demon Tribe, it would be impossible to have such a deep understanding.

Fang Yun was in a good mood, and did not go directly to read the policy test questions at the end, but to revise his poem.

While correcting the situation, I saw several officers passing by in a hurry. After a while, the officers carried an unconscious scholar and ran out.

There were sighs everywhere in the examination room.

Fang Yun was not surprised. During the talent test, almost a dozen people had problems. Just one day after the talent test, almost seven or eight people had problems.

The subsequent Jinshi Examination was a hot water, because the Jinshi Examination not only tested the speaking skills, but also the practical skills. It was very complicated and did not end after answering the test paper.

The imperial examination is a collision between thoughts and holy ways. If you are not careful, your mind may be disturbed.

There were still two days left, so Fang Yun decided to spend the whole morning revising the poems, and the last day and a half to write the policy.

The morning passed quickly, and Fang Yun saw more than 20 young scholars leaving on their own initiative.