Thinking about the eight-part essay question

Master Zhu Xi of the Song Dynasty wrote the "Collected Commentary on the Four Books", which confirmed the supreme status of "The Great Learning", "The Doctrine of the Mean", "The Analects" and "Mencius". Since the Yuan Dynasty, imperial examinations must draw questions from the Four Books and Five Classics, and they must not go beyond this scope.

In the Ming Dynasty, candidates gradually formed a large-scale composition format-the eight-legged essay. The writing method of the article must include breaking the topic, carrying the topic, starting, starting, starting, middle, back, and ending. To break the topic is to use two sentences to break down the meaning of the topic, and to continue the topic is to take over the meaning of the broken topic and explain it. The beginning of the speech is the beginning of the discussion. The first two words start with "meaning", "ruoyue", "think", "qiefu", "changsi", etc. "Start" is the place to start after the introduction. The starting stock, middle stock, back stock and closing stock are the formal discussions, with the middle stock as the focus of the whole article. Among these four strands, each strand has two parallel strands of text, which form an eight-part essay, hence the name eight-part essay.

This is not easy to understand. Let’s give a simple example. Suppose A is a university president, and the exam question is "On A". So the general idea is this:

What is A so-and-so? (Broken question)

A so-and-so is a university president. (According to the title)

What kind of university president is A? (Start)

A so-and-so is a good university president. (Get) the following eight shares:

Why is A so-and-so said to be a good university president? Because he is already a university president, he must be a good university president. If A is not a good university president, we *** will not appoint him as university president. Since he has been appointed as a university president by our ***, he must be a good university president. If A is a bad university president, we will definitely catch him. Since he hasn't been arrested by our police yet, it shows that he must be a good principal. A often said in meetings that he wanted to be a good university president, so he must be a good university president. If A was not a good university president, he would not say that he wanted to be a good university president. ...

In short, A is a good university president.

Of course, we can also replace A with something else. In short, we can understand the eight-part essay as a relatively advanced word game.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, scholars who wanted to be a scholar had to take an exam, those who wanted to pass the imperial examination had to take an exam, and those who wanted to be a Jinshi had to take an exam. The Imperial Academy of the Central Government, the official schools of various provinces and counties, and all students in various academies had to take the exam. take an exam. There are only a few words in the Four Books and Five Classics. After thousands of years of examination, it is inevitable that they will not be repeated. Therefore, examiners also have to work hard to stump candidates.

For example, the test question is "It's so wonderful that people don't know it." Candidates should immediately think that this is what is said in "The Master said: "Learn and practice it from time to time, isn't it true? Isn't it true that when no one knows but is stunned, isn't it also a gentleman?"

When the famous scholar Yu Yue presided over the Henan Provincial Examination, he came up with a question that stumped many candidates: "Mrs. Jun's sexual desire." This harmful question was taken from two consecutive articles, namely "The Analects of Confucius * Jishi Chapter" "Foreigners also call her Mrs. Jun" and the next article "The Analects of Confucius * Yanghuo Chapter" 》"Yang Huo wants to see Confucius". If the candidate cannot think of this at once, he will have no choice but to hand in a blank paper.

Confucian classics master Yu Yuexiang

When writing questions, you can combine them before and after. For example, there are several sentences in "The Analects of Confucius *Shuerpian": "The elegant words of Zi, and the etiquette of poems and books are all elegant." Obviously, "the elegant words of Zi", "the etiquette of poems and books" and "all of them are elegant" "Yan Ye" are all examination questions in the Eight Classics of Zhenger. In addition to these three sentences, you can also write "Zi Suo Ya Yan Poetry Book", "Ya Yan Poetry Book", "Ya Yan Poetry Book Zhili", "Poetry Book Titles such as "Everything is elegant when performing etiquette", "Everything is elegant when performing etiquette", "Everything is elegant when performing etiquette". If we combine these sentences with "Ye Gong asked Confucius Yu Zilu" in the next chapter, there will be even more tricks.

Just because it can be cut back and forth, some very funny word games will also appear.

For example, the test question is "Gu Hong", which comes from "The King Stands on the Marsh, Gu Hongyan and the Elk" in "Mencius * King Hui of Liang";

The test question "Shichi Tang" comes from " "I heard that King Wen was ten feet tall and the soup was nine feet tall" in "Mencius * Gaozi";

The test question "Baoyu" comes from "The treasures, pearls and jade must reach the body" in "Mencius *Jinxin";

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The test question "Seventy-year-old son" comes from "Mencius * Wan Zhang 2" "The princes are all hundreds of miles away, the uncle is seventy miles away, the son and the son are fifty miles away";

The test question "Leifeng" ” and “Don’t eat too much”, come from “The Analects of Confucius* Xiangdang” “Thunder and wind will change” and “If you don’t withdraw ginger food, don’t eat too much”

The test question “Grass” comes from “The Doctrine of the Mean” It is "so vast that vegetation grows on it."

These test questions are indeed a bit "cheating"!

"Mencius * King Hui of Liang" has this sentence: "The king is lustful, and he is the same as the people, what is the king? Mencius said to King Xuan of Qi: The king's ministers have entrusted their wives to their friends. The question asked by the examiner was "The king is like a lustful man who entrusts his wife to his friends." As a result, some candidates answered like this: "If the husband and the king are not as lustful as the ministers, it is because the king's ministers have their own wives. If the husband and the king's ministers do not entrust their wives to the king but to their friends, it is because the king is lustful." and Guo Degang's "entrusting his wife and offering his son" has a lot to offer.

Candidates must also have taboos when answering, that is, they must not violate the "prohibitions on committing crimes." For example, if the question is "Kill a chicken to make millet and eat it", candidates should immediately think of this passage in "The Analects of Confucius": "When Zhizi stays on the road, if he kills a chicken to make millet and eats it, he will see his two sons." However, when answering questions, candidates must not involve "stopping a child on the road" or "seeing his two sons." As a result, some candidates wrote like this: "It's either a rooster, it's a hen, or it's a capon that's neither male nor female? It's a white chicken, it's a black chicken, or it's a capon that's neither white nor black." "Anyway, we can't talk about Zilu or our two sons, so as not to violate the prohibition of committing crimes."

In the late Qing Dynasty, with the introduction of Western knowledge, there appeared such an examination question: "Xiang Yu on Napoleon." As a result, those scholars did not know why Napoleon was so sacred, so they answered like this: "I think Xiang Yu is The mighty hero has a broken wheel but cannot hold it! The wheel is broken and it must be light. How can Xiang Yu use his strength to hold the broken wheel? , It has no effect, it is not a good use of it." It made a big joke.

It is precisely because the imperial examination restricted people's thinking that there is a poem that ridicules scholars who only know stereotypes: "Scholars are the worst. When the time is bad, the literature is as bad as mud. The country is meant to survive, who knows It turned into a trick of deceiving people. Three sentences continued the topic, two sentences broke the topic, and he shook his head and said that he was a senior disciple of the Holy Sect. You know what kind of articles "Three Links" and "Four Histories" are, and which ones the Emperor of Song Dynasty and the Emperor of Han Dynasty were. Go to the emperor? Put a sermon on your desk, buy a new weapon in the store, and feel your arms and legs tremble after reading it. How does it feel to chew sugarcane bagasse again and again? High officials are also bad luck for the people and the court."