Lin'an Never Night

Chapter 408: Erlang is on top
Meng Huaiyin was the father of the concubine of Zhao Yu, Prince of Jin.

It doesn’t matter which concubine it is.

Anyway, everyone knows that the Goose King has many concubines.

Meng Huaiyin is a foreman of craftsmen. He usually undertakes jobs such as repairing bridges and roads, and renovating houses, and has dozens of people under him.

This year's Ministry of Rites examination will be held at the end of February.

The Ministry of Rites examination was held at the Gongyuan, not far from the Wulinmen Wharf.

As the big exam was approaching, the rooms and other buildings in the Imperial Examination Hall naturally had to be inspected first.

Otherwise, let alone collapse, if it happens to rain heavily and the dormitories leak, it will affect the examination. If it causes a riot among the candidates, it will be a big disaster.

Therefore, the Ministry of Rites needed to find someone to inspect the rooms.

Meng Huaiyin went to the Ministry of Rites with a note approved by the Goose King.

Just for the sake of King Jin's face, it is enough to fight for such a small project.

What's more, the Minister of Rites Qu Mo is the Goose King's real father-in-law.

Even though the father-in-law and son-in-law don't get along well, they are still father-in-law and son-in-law.

So the job of inspecting the cell naturally fell on Old Meng.

Lao Meng is the disciple of Wang Changsheng.

Wang Changsheng was dressed like an ordinary bricklayer, with his trouser legs rolled up, and followed Lao Meng into the Imperial Examination Hall of the Ministry of Rites.

The Imperial Examination Hall covers an area of ​​nearly 80 acres. Walking into the large archway, you will see the Sealing Office, followed by the Transcription Office, and further back are rows of signing rooms for the supervising officials.

After entering the middle gate, there are rows of rooms on the left and right corridors.

There are more than 1,500 rooms of these types, totaling more than 3,000, which can meet the needs of scientific research.

Wang Changsheng followed Lao Meng and took a stroll in the Gongyuan housing area.

When Lao Meng led people to start repairing the room, Wang Changsheng left.

"Opening a secret passage from the outside to enter the Imperial Examination Hall may not be possible for others, especially in such a short time, but for me, it is not a problem at all."

When talking about his profession, Wang Dajiang becomes particularly arrogant.

He grabbed the teapot and gulped down a bellyful of water, and his throat felt better.

He felt that he should be more restrained. He suddenly had twelve beautiful ladies, who were all very docile and obedient. They did not make any material demands on him and served him like an emperor. Of course, he was very satisfied.

I am so tired that I am out of breath after walking a few steps. This is not good. There is a long way to go, so we should take it slow.

Mr. Qu Da said happily: "So, it's feasible?"

"It's feasible! But the problem is, from outside to the room we are going to, I don't know the situation underground, and if I can't do much coordination on the ground, it will be difficult for me to find the direction and position below."

Mr. Qu Da was furious when he heard this: "Then it's the same as if you didn't say anything?"

When Mr. Qu Da found Wang Changsheng through Xiao Qianyue, he advised him to join the "Youqiu Division".

A trip to Japan brought Wang Dajiang a taste of success.

He felt that "Youqiusi" with its connections and extensive network of contacts was not bad.

When he worked on his own, could he have earned as much as he does now?

Not to mention, he also spared twelve docile and obedient Japanese beauties for nothing.

Therefore, Wang Changsheng, also known as Wang Dajiang, is now a member of the "Youqiu Division".

Wang Changsheng shook his head and said, "Not entirely. As long as we find one person, the problems I mentioned will not be problems anymore."

Mr. Qu Da asked, "Who?"

"Han Qianchen."

"What does this person do?"

"This man is a hereditary diviner in the imperial court, responsible for predicting good and bad luck and choosing auspicious times."

"There are such officials in the imperial court? What we do cannot be publicized. Can we use officials in the imperial court?"

Wang Changsheng smiled slightly and said, "If you want to use him, it's not impossible. As long as we can catch him."

"What's the use against this person?"

"Well, from time to time he would use his expertise to instruct others in tomb robbing and make extra money from it."

In ancient times, grave digging was a very serious crime, and generally the result was hanging.

Mr. Qu Da understood what he said. He thought for a moment and asked, "Has he been doing any tomb-robbing work recently?"

Wang Changsheng smiled slightly and said, "If he doesn't have it, we can make him have it!"

Mr. Qu suddenly realized and nodded, "Okay, leave this to me. Go and prepare first."

Wang Changsheng rented a large courtyard not far from the Imperial Examination Hall to store various materials needed to renovate the cells.

They also have other businesses, so the compound is very busy with vehicles carrying sand, gravel, and construction going in and out all day long.

Since the establishment of "Youqiusi", Dan Niang has been looking for several unscrupulous con men who are also good at stealing and recruited them into "Youqiusi".

At this time, those idlers suddenly transformed themselves into a group of tomb robbers.

They found Han Qianchen through their connections.

According to them, they found an ancient tomb in Kuaiji Mountain, which was either from the Wei and Jin Dynasties or the Sui and Tang Dynasties.

They were unable to find the tomb passage or door, nor could they dig a successful hole to rob the tomb, so after being introduced by someone, they came to Master Han for help.

They were very generous and Han Qianchen couldn't help but be tempted.

Since he had a fierce wife at home, he found a concubine outside to enjoy her tenderness.

But my wife is very strict and it costs money to have a mistress.

So he took all his equipment and followed this group of "tomb robbers". Then he was captured alive by Uncle Gou, the village chief and the villagers.

He wrote a confession, signed it, sealed it with his fingerprints, and Muramasa and several villagers also signed it as witnesses.

Afterwards, Uncle Gou gave Muramasa some money, and took Han Qianchen to Wang Changsheng's home with a letter of confession.

When Han Qianchen saw Wang Changsheng, he realized that he had been plotted against by his old friend.

However, it was not known whether it was because the banquet set by Wang Changsheng was too sumptuous, or because he was deeply touched by seeing Wang Changsheng's twelve gentle and obedient concubines.

Han Buguan finally chose to join the "Youqiusi".

His first job after joining the Youqiu Division was to work with Wang Changsheng to dig a secret passage from the compound all the way to the tribute court, and then to "Bianmao, seat 250."

This "erbaiwu" means two hundred and five.

At that time, there was no concept of adding zeros in the middle of Chinese numbers.

When using Arabic numerals, a zero is only needed when there is no digit in the tens place.

The Ministry of Rites has now begun to use this lowercase number.

However, lowercase numbers have not yet been popularized. If they are used on "floating tickets", candidates from all over the country will not be able to understand them, which will cause a lot of confusion.

Therefore, the "floating tickets" at this time still use the original writing method.

Yang Yuan, the champion of the Xie Yuan class, went from being an idiot to being an idiot.

On the day of the exam, the chief examiner was the Minister of Rites Qu Mo, the deputy chief examiner was the Imperial Censor and Acting Academician Xiao Jingxing, and several gatekeepers of the Imperial Examination Hall patrolled the gate and carefully watched the people coming in and out.

This time the examination was more thorough, and Yang Yuan had to strip completely naked, causing his fellow examinees and the inspecting soldiers to feel jealous and resentful of him.

Mr. Jie Yuan is indeed Mr. Jie Yuan, really different from ordinary people!

So, when Yang Yuan entered the examination room, rumors about him had already spread.

The Ministry of Rites examination also tests three subjects, namely classics, policy and essay.

Today is the first day. There are three questions on the main ideas of this classic, one question each on the main ideas of "The Analects of Confucius" and "Mencius", a total of five questions.

Although the imperial examinations in the Song Dynasty placed more emphasis on the last two exams, which were more practical, such as policy papers and essays, if your answers in the first exam were incomprehensible and full of errors, the examiners would not mark your second and third papers and would directly eliminate you.

Therefore, you have to give your all in every exam.

The first test question came out. The invigilator walked slowly in the examination room holding a sign with the test question written on it, so that the candidates could see the test question clearly. Yang Yuan was completely confused.

He knew every word in the test question, but when he put them together, he could barely understand the general idea.

He could only understand the general idea of ​​this sage's words, so there was no way he could solve the problem.

Fortunately, he didn't need to do the test himself, he just needed to carefully copy the question on a piece of paper.

Then, when there were no inspectors or guards hanging around, he tapped his feet lightly, and a blue brick stood up, revealing a small hole.

The paper with the test questions written on it was rolled into a tube and fell through the small hole.

……

In the large courtyard rented by Meng Huaiyin to store construction and decoration materials, there is a spacious and bright study.

Li Shishi was half-lying lazily on the cushion, with Fujiwara Himeka standing behind her, gently massaging her shoulders with a smile on her face.

She finally met the peerless beauty she had always dreamed of, she was so happy.

There was a hole right on the ground next to it.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light, and a petite figure emerged from the cave.

She was wearing a very neat tight-fitting outfit, showing off her beautiful curves.

She had a green scarf wrapped around her head and a headband on the outside. On her forehead was an ingenious "rolling lamp" device with the light inside still on.

When the face towel was pulled off, it turned out to be Xiaonai.

Hua Yin rushed forward, took a roll of paper from Xiao Nai's hand, and presented it to Li Shishi with both hands.

Li Shishi unfolded the paper and looked at the test questions. She closed her eyes and thought for a while, then ordered, "In the second row, there is a copy of Xing's Analects. Bring it to me."

Kanon Yazawa agreed and quickly walked to the wall, where there was a row of bookshelves filled with books.

Following the location Li Shishi mentioned, Hua Yin searched briefly and found the "Anatomy of Confucius with Commentaries" written by the great Confucian scholar Xing Bing of the Northern Song Dynasty.

Li Shishi waved her hand and sat up straight on the soft chair.

Fujiwara no Himeka hurriedly stopped and brought her a bowl of "Siwu Soup".

Li Shishi flipped through a few pages of the book, took a sip of soup, held her chin and pondered for a long time, then pulled over a piece of paper.

Hua Yin was busy grinding ink on the side while Li Shishi wrote down the main points of her ideas on paper, scribbling, adding or deleting.

When the paper was completely filled with words and only she could understand them, she smiled with confidence and started writing.

……

Yang Yuan sat upright, writing at his desk.

He wrote a lot of sentences here and there, and even he didn't know what he was writing. He just thought of it as practicing calligraphy.

You know what, his handwriting is still very beautiful.

Until there was a slight noise from the blue brick where he stepped lightly.

Yang Yuan moved his feet away, bent down and scratched his calves.

Because of his robe, even if the examiner was standing right in front of him, he couldn't see anything unusual under his robe.

When he straightened up again, a piece of written paper was already tucked into his sleeves.

Then, the test paper was spread out on the table, and the piece of paper he used to practice calligraphy had disappeared...

(End of this chapter)