Starting from a thatched cottage, the farmer embarked on the road to wealth through imperial examina

It seems that the wind has a great impact on archery. The light breeze just now caused more than half of the people to miss the target.

The eliminated people left the competition venue, and Ye Changyan lined up at the back of the team again, adjusting his mentality while waiting for the next round of competition.

This light breeze seemed to have no intention of stopping, but the race could not wait for the wind to die down before continuing. Not to mention the large number of onlookers around the racecourse, the dignitaries in the stands could not just sit there and wait for the wind to die down.

The game continued amidst the gentle breeze.

The second round, the third round... until the sixth round, although Ye Changyan had never hit the center of the bull's eye, every time he shot an arrow, it hit the target straight on.

At the end of the sixth round, there were only thirteen people left in Ye Changyan's "Gui" group, while the "Ren" group next to them was slightly better, with eighteen people left.

During the seventh round, when Ye Changyan's arrow just flew out, Ye Changyan felt a gust of wind blowing towards him, stronger than before.

"Oops!"

Several members of the Guozi Tiangang Polo Team who were watching the game were staring at Ye Changyan and his target, and suddenly they heard Liang Jingcheng anxiously shout "Oh no!"

Ye Changyan's arrow was blown by the sudden gust of wind just now, which changed its original trajectory. In addition, it had now reached the 110-step line, which was far away from the target. The arrow brushed past the target and flew out, and Ye Changyan missed the target.

Liang Jingcheng clearly saw Ye Changyan sigh, and it seemed that the sound of Ye Changyan's sigh was ringing in his ears.

Just as Ye Changyan was about to pack up his bow and quiver to leave the competition arena, a dramatic scene occurred.

Because the wind just now was too strong, there were only thirteen people in the "癸" group left. In the seventh round of competition, only four people did not miss the target, which is far from the number of ten people selected from each group who advanced.

Among the "壬" group, which originally had 18 people entering the seventh round, only seven did not miss the target.

Therefore, all the students in Groups Ren and Gui who missed the target in the seventh round had to play an extra round.

Upon learning that Ye Changyan had not been eliminated yet and had entered the extra round, several members of the Guozi Tiangang Polo Team were delighted. Among them, Liang Jingcheng was particularly excited. He silently cheered for Ye Changyan in his heart.

Entering the extra round, Ye Changyan pulled his bow, seized the opportunity, and released his arrow without hesitation. The arrow flew out and this time hit the bull's eye directly.

Seeing this, several members of the Guozi Tiangang Polo Team cheered, and Liang Jingcheng even jumped for joy.

Of the twenty people who entered the extra round, only six missed the target this time. Including the few people who did not have to participate in the extra round, fourteen and eleven people from the Ren and Gui teams respectively entered the eighth round.

I don’t know if it was because the wind suddenly stopped blowing, but the 25 people who entered the eighth round became more and more courageous, and no one was eliminated in the eighth round.

In the ninth round, just one person was eliminated from the "Gui" group where Ye Changyan was, and the remaining ten people all advanced. As for the "Ren" group, six people missed the target, leaving eight people. After an extra round, the six people who missed the target finally competed for the final two qualifying places.

At this point, the first archery competition ended, and one hundred outstanding students were selected smoothly.

The five players of the Guozi Tiangang Polo Team all successfully entered the next game.

The second archery competition used moving targets. On each of the ten poles, an apple was hung with a half-arm-long rope, and a long rope was tied to each pole three feet above the ground.

Not far away, there are ten blindfolded donkeys pulling a specially treated millstone. A long rope from a target pole is tied to the millstone. When the donkeys rotate around the millstone, the long rope will loosen and tighten, causing the apples hanging on the pole to swing in a certain pattern.

Except that the target was changed from a fixed target to a moving target that would move constantly, the rules of the second archery competition were basically the same as the first one. It also adopted the elimination system, starting from a distance of fifty steps, and increasing the distance by ten steps with each additional round.

The second competition was divided into ten groups, with ten people in each group. In the new ten groups, no one was in the same group as in the previous competition, which ensured the fairness of the competition as much as possible.

Then they were reorganized into groups according to A, B, C, D, E, J, Geng, Xin, Ren and Gui. The ten groups took turns shooting, and those who missed the target were eliminated until only one person was left in each group.

Ye Changyan and Fan Tao were assigned to the newly formed "Ding" group, while Lu Xiaotong and Ao Chong'an were assigned to the newly formed "Ji" group, and Liang Jingcheng was assigned to the newly formed "Xin" group.

With the sound of crisp gongs, the second archery competition officially began.

The people watching the scene cheered, and the dignitaries in the stands were obviously much more excited than before.

The second round of competition was obviously much more difficult than the previous one. Not only did the target become a small apple, but it was also a moving apple.

Among the ten people who shot their bows first, four failed to hit the hanging apple and were eliminated.

Ye Changyan was the fourth person to come on stage. He pulled his bow, looked for the pattern of the apple's movement, estimated the arrival time of his arrow, and then when the time was right, he decisively released his hand that was pulling the bowstring.

With a "swoosh", Ye Changyan's arrow flew over the edge of the apple, and the apple began to sway violently. The recorder confirmed on the spot that Ye Changyan's arrow had scraped off a small piece of skin on the edge of the apple, and the recorder raised the flag to indicate that it had hit the apple.

Several other members of the Guozi Tiangang Polo Team also entered the second round, and of the one hundred people participating in the second game, more than twenty were eliminated after the first round of shooting.

During the third round, someone at each millstone in the distance took out a whip and started whipping the blindfolded donkey pulling the millstone. The donkey ran very fast under the whip, causing the target pole to shake violently, and the apple hanging on the target pole also shook more violently, and the shaking became more and more irregular.

As the difficulty of the third round suddenly increased, more than half of the people were eliminated in this round. Ye Changyan, Fan Tao and Ao Chong'an were all eliminated in this round.

There were less than thirty people left on the field, most of whom were students with military backgrounds. There were no more than six students with civil service backgrounds left. Among them, there were two people left in the "Xin" team where Liang Jingcheng was, and the other one was a young general from a fourth-rank military family in the Imperial Academy.

In the fourth round, Lu Xiaotong also missed the target and was eliminated. At this time, there were already four groups with candidates entering the finals.

The remaining six groups entered the fifth round. Liang Jingcheng performed stably and shot through the apple hanging on the target pole in the fifth round.

The young general in the same group with Liang Jingcheng also kept close and entered the sixth round with Liang Jingcheng.