Volume 4: Gathering of Sages Chapter 700: No Blanks for Difficult Problems
Three days later, Zhang Shou returned to Ciqing Palace to teach. He did not feel as if he had been away for a long time, but Qi Liang and several other tutors from Jiuzhang Hall who came to greet him were very happy to see him. Everyone got the opportunity they have now because of Zhang Shou, but everyone was worried that the teacher would retire and leave them here. After all, they still couldn't do without Zhang Shou.
However, compared to Zhang Shou's genuine students, a miscellaneous student pushed forward arrogantly and pushed everyone aside, but because of his big body, all others could do was glare at him.
"What are you looking at? You are allowed to surround the teacher, but I am not allowed to talk to the teacher? We are all the teacher's students, you can't monopolize the teacher!" Zhang Dakui looked at everyone with confidence, and then lowered his voice and said, "Teacher, great news, I heard that Concubine Jing died."
Although Qi Liang and the others arrived earlier than Zhang Dakuo, they heard about this for the first time and looked at each other . Zhang Shou knew that such noble sons were well-known in the palace, and the emperor might not bother to block the news of the death of the deposed queen, so he just gave Zhang Dakuo a meaningful look and then went to the main hall of Ciqing Palace.
But his reaction caught Zhang Dakui off guard. He was just slightly stunned and quickly caught up with him, and he was a little anxious: "Teacher, I really am not talking nonsense..."
Before he finished explaining, Qi Liang couldn't stand it anymore and had to cough and remind him, "Teacher didn't say you were talking nonsense, but this kind of thing is not suitable for discussion, especially in a place like ! Concubine Jing passed away, which is always a big deal, so you should be cautious when you should be."
When Zhang Shou nodded slightly, Zhang realized that he had said something wrong and done something wrong, and he immediately felt embarrassed. But when he wanted to admit his mistake, he felt that it was too embarrassing to admit his mistake in such an occasion, so he could only follow Zhang Shou closely, racking his brains before finally thinking of another topic.
Although he had heard a little bit of it yesterday evening, he still found it a little hard to believe, so he cautiously asked, "By the way, the Fourth Prince didn't come yesterday, and he didn't come today. Is he sick? His Royal Highness the Crown Prince didn't say anything, should we elect a representative to go and take a good look at His Royal Highness the Fourth Prince?"
This time, Zhang Shou walked forward slowly and said calmly, "The Fourth Prince will be attending classes at the public school these days and will stay there at night. With Xiao Huasheng and Xiao Cheng taking care of him, he will just have a few days of hardship at most."
While Zhang Shou was talking to everyone, they had already entered the main hall of Ciqing Palace. The Third Prince, who was preoccupied with his life, happened to hear these words. He was delighted at first, but when Zhang Shou said that he would have to stay outside for at least a few more days, and that he had grown up with the Fourth Prince since childhood, and because of their deep brotherly love, he couldn't help but feel reluctant to let him go.
Moreover, he had a lot to say about the death of the deposed empress, but with the Fourth Prince not around, he had nowhere to vent.
Therefore, when he saw Zhang Shou coming forward to salute, he hurriedly returned the salute solemnly and asked awkwardly: "Teacher, my fourth brother has always been impulsive, and he grew up in the palace, so he has some cunning and picky little problems. I am really worried. Besides, you are not in the public school now, and I am afraid that he will get into trouble because of his temper. Can you talk to my father..."
Seeing the Third Prince's look of sympathy for his younger brother, Zhang Shou couldn't help but smile knowingly and said, "I'm not here, but Lu Gaoyuan is still here."
Seeing that the Crown Prince in front of him seemed a little surprised because he mentioned Lu Sanlang, Zhang Shou said earnestly, "Yesterday I sent the Fourth Prince to the intermediate class to listen to a day's class. The teacher happened to be Lu Gaoyuan, who is stricter than me. Because the Fourth Prince dozed off in class, he was not only scolded by Lu Gaoyuan, but also sent outside to stand as punishment."
It's true... like teacher, like disciple!
Even though everyone here was Zhang Shou's student, and Qi Liang had joined even earlier, when they heard that Lu Sanlang could be so harsh on the Fourth Prince, even sending him to stand in the corner as punishment, they still had almost the same idea.
The Third Prince was not annoyed when he heard this. Instead, he showed a look of relief: "Fortunately, Senior Brother Lu is strict, otherwise no one would be able to control Fourth Brother. In this case, I'll have to trouble you and Senior Brother Lu to teach Fourth Brother more during the few days he's over there. Fourth Brother is actually more talented than me, but he's too impatient and prone to getting into trouble."
Everyone felt that the last eight words were very accurate, and Zhang Shou said nonchalantly, "If a man does not make mistakes when young, he will live in vain. I think the emperor deliberately asked the fourth prince to stay out of the palace for a while to reflect on himself, probably because he wanted him, who has always been smooth sailing, to experience more setbacks. This kind of temperament, if used in a good way, will be successful in everything, but if used in a bad way, it can easily lead to big mistakes."
Zhang Shou acted as if he had a lot of experience in educating naughty children, but no one present raised any objection, because the man in front of them was a famous young teacher who had turned over a number of noble sons in the capital who were considered to be spoiled and useless - and they themselves had all studied under him and had a deep understanding of the situation.
Therefore, even the Third Prince smiled and said, "Then I will accept your words, Master. I hope that you will learn from your mistakes and turn over a new leaf from now on."
After chatting, seeing several former students of the Eastern Palace secretly glancing at them, with obvious envy on their faces, and even another student from the Banshan Hall who was left behind by the big guy Zhang, looking like he couldn't get a word in, Zhang Shou smiled and said, "Well, it's getting late, it's time to start the class. By the way, Xiao Qi, have you reviewed the Crown Prince's previous lessons?"
"Yes." Qi Liang responded with a solemn expression, "The teacher assigned a total of fifteen exercises last time, and Your Highness has finished them all. I checked them according to the teacher's standard answers..."
At this point, he suddenly paused, and then showed a somewhat embarrassed expression. In the end, the Third Prince suddenly interrupted with a face full of shame: "Teacher, Senior Brother Qi is trying to cover up for me. Although I tried my best to do all the fifteen questions, I only got eight correct in the end, which was just over half... It was all because I was not careful enough..."
Seeing the Third Prince's face flushed red, obviously he was really ashamed and reflecting on himself, Zhang Shou remembered that his science homework was copied by countless people in the class, but for homework such as biology, he always copied others. He couldn't help laughing.
"You only got eight questions right? You should say, you actually got eight questions right! You know, the fifteen questions I left were all based on the last class, but three of them were basic, three were advanced and consolidation, and three were for improvement. As for the remaining six..."
Zhang Shou pondered for a moment, thinking about how to use the term of the day to explain what a competition question is. After a long while, he smiled and said, "This is equivalent to the weird questions in the imperial examinations. It's normal that you can't answer them."
The other East Palace attendants were all ashamed at this moment - especially the few students who even wanted to find a crack in the ground to crawl into. Because Zhang Shou said that those who couldn't do it didn't have to do it, so most of them only did one or two questions in total, and didn't even look at the last six... Anyway, compared to the third prince who had done all of them, the gap was like a chasm.
Even the few people from Jiuzhang Hall, although some got more questions right than the Third Prince, such as Qi Liang who got nine questions right, some got fewer questions right than the Third Prince, such as six or seven. But as for the remaining six questions, they really had no idea and were completely blank.
Therefore, someone coughed and said with a blushing face, "Your Highness the Crown Prince was able to answer all fifteen questions, which is already remarkable. As for the six weird questions that the teacher mentioned, we have no idea at all."
Qi Liang himself smiled bitterly and said, "If the teacher hadn't sent me the answers, I probably wouldn't have been able to figure out the ideas in a year or two... Although I have been learning mathematics with my teacher since I was a child, my progress is much faster than that of my classmates in the first grade. I have already learned the parts involved in the six questions, but I didn't solve any of them. I left them all blank."
This time, the Third Prince was truly surprised. He looked at several classmates who were older than him, and remembered that when he asked Qi Liang to explain it to him before, Qi Liang declined by saying that he would talk to him when the teacher came. He immediately felt guilty and spoke his heart out honestly.
"Actually...actually I can't say I did those six questions. I just racked my brains to deduce some insignificant details. Because when I heard Principal Yue talk about the key points of the imperial examination, he said that the most important thing is to write well, and the second most important thing is not to leave blank spaces. Even if I have no idea about the question, it is better to write an essay than to hand in a blank paper, so I..."
Zhang Shou burst into laughter. This was just like when he encountered a big question in math, physics and chemistry exams in later generations and had no idea how to solve it, he would just skip it and leave it to the end. If he still had no idea at the end, he would just rack his brains to find ways to fill in the blanks so that the paper would look better.
However, this is not to fool the teachers. You have to know that teachers all have sharp eyes and can see through your little tricks to cheat scores at a glance. This is to fool the parents after taking the test papers home!
Anyway, parents don’t understand those complicated mathematical proofs or derivation processes at all, so as long as you sincerely insist that the problem-solving error is not due to inability to solve, but due to carelessness, then basically the scolding and beating will be reduced in severity. After all, parents’ minds are simple. You can’t do it because you are not paying attention in class. As for the mistake you made due to carelessness...
Well, just change it next time!
Of course, this little trick can only be used once or twice, but not three times. The biggest meal of his life, stir-fried bamboo shoots with pork, was because he was absent-minded when he first learned complex numbers. As a result, he got a score that was just below the passing line, but he insisted that it was carelessness.
Thinking about these past events, he was not angry at the Third Prince's little trick that he regretted at this moment, but felt quite close to him. He raised the corner of his mouth and said with a smile: "I should have said at this time that if you know, you know, and if you don't know, you don't know, but Your Highness, you should have realized the common sense of people from these six questions that you can't answer."
"You know, during the imperial examinations, even if they didn't know how to answer the questions, they would try to fill in the blanks with beautifully written but irrelevant essays."
"When there was a shortage of granaries, some managers did not try to find a way to find out and fill the gap, but instead used inferior goods as good ones, or even used sand, rocks and rubble to cover up the shortage."
"In government offices, when your superior asks you about something you don't know but you should know, you will try to find ways to talk about other things and distract your superior's attention, and then cover up the fact that you don't know about it."
At this point, he saw that many students, including the Third Prince, were either terrified, ashamed, or embarrassed, so he smiled as if to comfort them: "Although I did the same thing when I was a child studying mathematics, it may be a bit too far-fetched to talk about these great principles now, but I still want to warn you that if you encounter this kind of situation in other things in the future..."
"It is human nature to leave no blanks for difficult questions, just like hoping to get away with it by cheating, but at least you should look back and get everything clear. Because you can fool around for a while, but you can't fool around forever. Okay, no more nonsense, let's talk about the exercises first."
Because of the emperor's sudden summons, Chu Kuan had to put aside the matter of Ciqing Palace for the time being and hurried to Qianqing Palace. When he learned that the emperor wanted him to take care of the funeral of the deposed Queen Jing, and the third prince wanted him to represent Concubine He, he was surprised in his heart, but lowered his head silently without showing any objection.
The emperor also knew that Chu Kuan would not object to this proposal, so he immediately instructed: "You should hold a funeral for her according to the rites for a concubine. When everything is settled, we can decide where to bury her. After all, I don't have an idea at the moment. As for her family members, if there are any in the capital, choose a lady to come to the palace to help with the burial. If not, choose two reliable female officials."
Chu Kuan immediately agreed. But he did not retreat immediately, instead he asked in a deep voice: "Most of the concubines in our dynasty are given two-character posthumous titles, and sometimes the Imperial Concubine is given a four-character posthumous title as an exception. In the case of Concubine Jing, I wonder if the Emperor will issue an edict to the Imperial Cultivation Temple to decide on Concubine Jing's posthumous title?"
Whether or not there is a posthumous title, and whether it is good or bad, is a standard to show the emperor's favor to the empress when handling funeral affairs in the palace. As for the emperor, he is not very old, and he has few concubines. There are only two people who have passed away before, and both of them were given posthumous titles, which were determined by the Taichang Temple, but he didn't need to worry about it, so he didn't think about this at the first time .
At this point, he obviously hesitated for a moment, but thinking of the recent turmoil, he finally said in a deep voice: "There is no need for a posthumous title. A good posthumous title is not worthy of her, an evil posthumous title is too humiliating, and an ordinary posthumous title... is more likely to make some people have wild thoughts! I don't want to give her a few altars of sacrifice in a hypocritical manner. As for the concubines, just let them do what they want, and you can take care of the rest."
After receiving the emperor's clear and definite answer, Chu Kuan asked again, "Then shall I go see Concubine He first?"
"Go ahead, and tell her to prepare well. Once the funeral is over, I will issue an edict to the Ministry of Rites to determine the ceremony for enthroning the Imperial Concubine. I have already ordered them to cast the golden seal and golden book. I know she has always been gentle and doesn't like to take power, but for the sake of her son, I hope she can establish herself well. If she is not good at it, don't you still have her?"
