The Autumn Examination

Once the eighth month began, the Capital City grew lively. First, the inns along the streets hung out their "No vacancies" signs one after another, then long lines formed at the brush and ink shops, and eventually even the lantern stalls began selling examination baskets on the side. The baskets were woven from bamboo, with three tiers: dry provisions went at the bottom, brushes and ink in the middle, and a thin blanket on top. "May your name grace the golden list" was painted in red on the lids. The crooked lettering made it obvious they had been rushed out, but the buyers were not fussy. Every year at this time, those words sold better than any others.

Candidates from the provinces arrived one after another. Some came on horseback, some in mule carts, and some wore through their shoes halfway and tied them together with straw rope to keep walking. From morning until night, the tea shelter outside Yongding Gate was full of travelers resting their feet. The owner put out three extra tables, but there still were not enough seats. He cleared out the shed where he stored firewood in his backyard and set up two more benches, which counted as adding a private room. There was nothing elegant about this private room, but for two extra copper coins, one did not have to squeeze in with everyone else.

When word of the court's appointment of the chief examiners came out of Xuanzheng Hall, the Examination Compound was already undergoing its final cleaning. There were three chief examiners, six deputy chief examiners, and eighteen associate examiners. The principal chief examiner was Zhou Zhongping, left vice minister of rites, fifty-two years old, a Hanlin scholar who had earned his jinshi degree during the late emperor's reign. His hair had already gone gray, but his back was still straight. It was said that after receiving the decree, he shut the gates of his residence and pasted a note on them bearing the words "No visitors." "No" was written in regular script, while "visitors" was in cursive. Someone stood outside studying those two words for ages, trying to work out who had written them, until an old man who sold calligraphy and paintings said, "Stop looking. He wrote that himself. His hand was shaking when he did it." When the news reached the teahouses, someone said that Lord Zhou was so afraid of people asking favors that he did not even dare open his gates. A middle-aged man in a gray cotton tunic beside him set down his tea bowl and remarked, "Shutting the gates is no use. Anyone who needed approaching has already been approached."

The man in gray had spoken the truth. Before the Autumn Examination, every prominent household in the Capital City was busy with the same thing. They were not busy reviewing their books, but delivering visiting cards. The cards did not request an audience; they said, "Long have I admired you." That did not actually mean long-standing admiration. It meant, "I have someone here. Would you see whether you could accept him?" Those delivering the cards never went empty-handed. Some brought inkstones from the previous dynasty, some brought newly arrived silk from the South, and some brought nothing at all, merely slipping a thin sheet of paper into the card with someone's name, native place, and the official posts held by his father and brothers. Whose hands these cards ultimately reached depended on the abilities of those delivering them. But everyone understood one thing: none of these cards could make its way into Xuanzheng Hall. Emperor Chengwu recognized no protégés, only examination papers.

When Qi Xiao received the chief examiners in Xuanzheng Hall, he repeated those words. Zhou Zhongping knelt below him, and by the time he finished listening, the beads of sweat on his forehead had grown larger. This was not his first day acquainted with His Majesty. Over the years, in every case involving examinations, once the charges were substantiated, not one had been dealt with leniently. The year before last, a case of smuggled notes had emerged during the Jiangnan provincial examination. The education commissioner and examiners implicated, seven men in all, were now planting trees in the northwest.

Besides the chief examiners, the court also dispatched imperial guards to patrol the grounds. Their commander was Marquis Jinghai, Xie Ting. This arrangement surprised quite a few people. Patrolling examination grounds had always been the duty of the Commander of the Infantry Guard's Office; sending imperial guards raised the level of the assignment. According to what De'an had heard from the Grand Secretariat, more candidates had come for the examination this year than in previous years, and the area around the Examination Compound was packed with lodgers, raising fears of trouble. But De'an knew perfectly well that fear of trouble was not the only reason His Majesty had sent Xie Ting. Xie Ting allowed no room for personal considerations and deferred to no one. Back on the battlefield, he had torn up even the enemy commander's letter urging him to surrender, let alone anything from a few people passing him notes.

After receiving the decree, Xie Ting went home to change. His wife took a new black outer robe from a chest and asked him to try it on. Xie Ting stood before the bronze mirror, looked himself over, and said it would do. His wife straightened his collar, then used a handkerchief to wipe the dust from his shoulder insignia. When she finished, she stepped back to look at him, her gaze pausing on his brow bone. That old scar had grown very faint; without looking closely, one could hardly see it. She turned away to pack his things.

The Examination Compound was in the western part of the city, some distance from the Jinghai Marquis Residence. Xie Ting rode there and dismounted at the entrance. The main gates had been repainted, black with red frames, and the studs had been polished again and again. When the soldiers standing outside saw his waist token, they all cupped their fists in salute. Xie Ting went inside and inspected the examination cells one by one. Each was a small cubicle with three walls and an open front, containing a table and a stool so narrow it could hold only half a backside. The whitewash on the walls was fresh and not yet fully dry; pressing a finger against it left a shallow mark. Standing at the entrance to a cell, he remembered entering an examination ground himself when he was young. That had been twenty years ago. His father was still alive then, and the title of Marquis Jinghai still belonged to the old marquis. He had entered in an old padded robe and emerged with its sleeves covered in ink, because after finishing his paper, he had fallen asleep on the desk with his face pressed against the still-wet ink on the rice paper. That year, he passed the military provincial examination. He had never entered an examination ground again.

Leaving the Examination Compound, Xie Ting rode back along Chang'an Street. There were even more people on the street than when he had come. There were young scholars carrying book chests, peddlers selling steamed flatbreads from shoulder poles, and servants holding horses outside inns. A young man in a blue cotton tunic was crouching by the roadside, his book chest on his knees, taking out a copy of the Great Learning that had been soaked by rain. Its pages were wrinkled beyond recognition. He turned them one by one toward the sun, presumably thinking they would still be usable after some drying. Xie Ting rode past him and glanced back.

That young man was named Gu Hengsheng. He had come from Henan Circuit, traveling for twenty days. Three generations of his family had been tenant farmers; he alone had studied. His father had sold the family ox to scrape together his travel expenses, and his mother had pawned the pair of silver bracelets from her dowry. On the day he reached the Capital City, he had thirty copper coins left. At a noodle stall by the city gate, he spent two coins on a bowl of plain noodles, then sat on the stall's bench gnawing a hard flatbread he had brought with him. His mother had cooked the flatbreads before his departure. They were nearly a month old now and hard as stones. He softened one in the noodle broth and ate it. As he chewed, he found a strand of hair in it-his mother's. He pulled it out, wiped his fingers on the hem of his clothes, and kept eating. The stall owner took pity on him and gave him another ladle of noodle broth. He looked up, smiled at the owner, and thanked him.

Gu Hengsheng was not the only poor scholar in the Capital City. Those young men carrying woven bamboo book chests and wearing long gowns washed pale slept every night on the cheapest communal platforms at the inns, three people squeezed into one space, having to count to three even to turn over. They rose at daybreak and went to sit beneath the stone lions outside the Examination Compound to study, because the light was best there. When they grew tired, they leaned against the lions for a nap, then resumed reading when they woke. On their way back in the evening, they spent one coin on two baked flatbreads at the roadside and gnawed them down with cold water. After eating, they lit their lamps and continued studying into the night. Lamp oil was expensive, so several of them pooled their money to buy a pot and took turns using it. Beneath the oil lamp, their faces were blackened by smoke, with only the whites of their eyes still white, reflected in stark black and white against the pages. They had begun their schooling at seven or eight and studied into their early twenties, more than a decade of their lives resting on a few thin examination sheets.

There were also those whose families had money. Wealthy merchants' sons rode in their own carriages with brocade cushions inside, bringing two bookboys each, one to grind ink and one to turn pages. They stayed in superior rooms rented by the month, burned sandalwood incense, and drank Longjing tea. They did not care what office they might hold after passing the provincial examination; they cared that passing would earn them a separate page in the clan genealogy. Merchant households had money but no power; one could turn back three generations in their genealogies without finding a single man of official rank. The money their families had accumulated over generations was all to support the making of one such man in official robes.

Those whose fathers and elder brothers already held office were different again. They cared less about whether they passed than about their ranking. With fathers and brothers serving at court and sons and nephews entering the examination grounds, the examiners would show respect to the Buddha even if not to the monk. As long as their essays were not too poor, they generally would not fail. But that only meant not failing. To take one of the top three places still required genuine ability. For the final hurdle was called the palace examination, and its chief examiner was Emperor Chengwu himself. No ledger of personal favors sat on Emperor Chengwu's desk.

The atmosphere in the palace was also a little tenser than usual. Even the rabbits in Yuning Hall had quieted down. Gray Rabbit had not been very active these past few days, lying in the cage with Light Gray Rabbit beside it, their ears resting together as though they, too, were waiting for something momentous to happen. Chun He changed their water and added two carrots. Gray Rabbit sniffed them but did not move. Chun He crouched down and stroked its ears, then turned to ask A Ping, "Does this rabbit know the examination is coming too?"

A Ping was crouching on the floor wiping the threshold. He looked up and said, "If it knew about examinations, it shouldn't just eat carrots. It ought to gnaw through a few books."

Qi Yu had been busy these past few days too. Not because of the Autumn Examination, but because Grand Tutor Sun had taken advantage of the excitement surrounding it to give the princes extra schoolwork. The grand tutor said that the Autumn Examination was a great ceremony for selecting talent. Though they were princes and would not have to sit it themselves, they needed to understand how the court selected men of ability. So their assignment these past few days was to read outstanding examination papers from previous years, then write a policy essay titled "On the Way to Select Scholars." Qi Yu sat facing the blank paper for the time it took an incense stick to burn and wrote two words: "Selecting scholars." Then he began twirling his brush. Whenever he dropped it, he picked it up and kept twirling. Half an incense stick later, those were still the only two words on the paper. Beside him, Qin Wei had already written half a page. Qi Yu tilted his head to look, and Qin Wei covered his work with his hand. Qi Yu said looking would not cost him a piece of flesh. Qin Wei said the grand tutor had told them to complete their policy essays independently. Qi Yu turned back and added a line beneath those two words: "The way to select scholars lies in fairness." He looked it over, thought it too short, and added a few words before "fairness": "The most important thing is fairness." Still too short. He simply put down his brush and leaned over to look at Qin Wei's work. This time Qin Wei did not cover it, but pushed his notebook half an inch toward him. Qi Yu read it from beginning to end, then drew his own sheet over and wrote a new line beneath "Selecting scholars." Qin Wei lowered his head to look, and the corner of his mouth twitched. Qi Yu had written: "Your subject believes that the way to select scholars begins with ensuring that the candidates eat and sleep well."

Qin Wei pulled his sheet away. Qi Yu sprawled over the desk with his chin on his arms, his head tilted as he watched Qin Wei fold the paper and tuck it beneath the inkstone. "Why are you weighing down my paper?"

"Keeping it safe for you. It'll serve as evidence someday."

"Evidence of what?"

"That you've never been serious, even as a child."

Qi Yu lightly kicked Qin Wei under the desk with the toe of his boot. Qin Wei did not dodge, but lowered his head and continued his policy essay. Outside the window, a few more yellow leaves fell from the old locust tree onto the veranda. Grand Tutor Sun walked along it and stepped on a fallen leaf, snapping its stalk. He pushed the door open, placed a stack of newly found examination papers from previous years on the teaching desk, then noticed that the sheet in front of Qi Yu held only two lines. He picked it up, looked it over, and put it down. His ruler tapped the edge of the desk.

"Fourth Prince, where is your policy essay?"

"I'm thinking." Qi Yu sat up straight.

"You've spent all afternoon thinking, and these few sentences are all you have?"

"Grand Tutor, I'm still working out the structure."

Grand Tutor Sun looked at him. Qi Yu looked back. The grand tutor's gaze moved from Qi Yu's face to the sheet on his desk, then from that sheet to the densely filled notebook in front of Qin Wei. Then he slapped the ruler down on the desk and told them to keep writing.

Qi Yu picked up his brush again and began writing in his notebook. This time, he really wrote. It was not long, but he thought of every word himself. In the final line, he wrote: "Selecting scholars is not for the sake of selecting scholars, but of selecting hearts. When hearts are upright, scholars are upright; when scholars are upright, the nation is upright." He set down his brush and read it through, deciding that the last sentence was not bad. Tomorrow was the Autumn Examination.