Transmigrating to the Ming Dynasty’s Imperial Examination

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Paired with the lightly colored portraits littered throughout the volume, both aspects brought out the best in each other and complemented each other well.
Occasionally, there was a big double-paged portrait and the characters were extremely elegant and scholarly, glowing with health and vigor.
This kind of mature male was precisely most in line with the aesthetic tastes of these scholar officials.

After Vice Minister Geng Yu finished reading the book, the impression he had of Qi Sheng slightly wavered——On that day, he had merely remembered that the other was a meager, minor official without any distinguishing feature or quality and not this kind of beautiful man who was as bright and brilliant as willow in spring.

He shut the book with a complicated expression and felt a strong urge to find Li Yu, the Right Imperial Censor-in-Chief, just to ask what the magistrate had looked like.
However, before this thought was put into action, he was summoned by Senior Grand Secretary, Wan An.
Wan An personally handed over a file and warmly explained: “This is a disciple of mine, and I ask that you help him arrange him for a position with one term outside the capital.
It is best if it is not a destitute area.”

 if it is not a destitute area.”

Geng Yu had always looked down on this individual known as one of the three “Long Lived Cabinet Elder[5]”and lightly replied with a “understood”.
After accepting the file and taking a look, he could not help but suck in a breath——Just what was with his affinity with Qian’an today? The Ministry of Appointments had just nominated a County Magistrate from Qian’an for promotion consideration, and then he had just read a book printed in Qian’an.
Now, as for that young righteous citizen who had donated his residence to the county that had been mentioned in the book, just how did he now have his hands on that youth’s father’s file?

Wan An observed that his expression was off and asked him, “What, do you know this Cui Que? Is it possible that there is something wrong with how he usually executes matters?”

Regarding his disciples, he was indeed somewhat knowing of their limitations as well as their strengths and weaknesses.
But on account of their sensibility and because they always acted with filial piety, he turned a blind eye.
But Geng Yu lived up to his clan name, he was someone who dared to keep an eye on higher-ranked officials and if Wan An let him dig up a problem on the spot, it would be rather embarrassing.

Cui Que would show filial piety left and right and the number of instances he did so was not small, so Senior Grand Secretary Wan An said in a magnamious manner, “If he is truly unacceptable, then you can simply dismiss him from office, no need to take into account my face as his teacher!”

Geng Yu lowered his head and clarified: “Senior Grand Secretary is overthinking.
This lower official had just heard of his son before and was a little surprised upon seeing the name on the file.”

Wan An laughed and said: “No wonder.
This Cui Que did give birth to a good son, what was his name again? Is he any good at composing poetry?”

Geng Yu replied: “His son should be called Cui Xie.
He did not compose any poems, but donated a courtyard to the county to construct a library and the County Magistrate wrote down such a matter in his anthology.”

Wan An could not help sigh, it seemed that this son was better than his father.
His father hadn’t even given him a residence on account that he was the other’s teacher——he hadn’t even seen a single room before! After such a comparison, his favorable impressions of this disciple of his became increasingly weaker and upon recalling how Cui Que was always clashing against his immediate superior, Liu Xu, he thus started doing things in a strictly businesslike manner and said: “Although this Cui Que is my disciple, he is a minor official working under Liu Xu’s Secondary Grand Secretary, I will have to request you to make the arrangements.”

This month, Geng Yue did not plan to make any such arrangements and clutching the file in hand, he headed to the Bureau of Appointments.
Calling over a secretary, he instructed: “Insert this file into the batch that is to be promoted next month.
This was sent over by Wan da-ren.
Find someone to head over to the Ministry of Revenue to make some inquiries.”

Official Cui’s future prospects became a dilemma as his file neither advanced or retreated among the Bureau of Appointments.
He only saw that someone came to investigate him but there was no sign of transfer which made him anxious to the point that he hated that he couldn’t just personally go to the Ministry of Appointment and ask just what arrangements Senior Grand Secretary Wan had made for him.
Leaving aside the fact that Senior Grand Secretary Wan was not a figure he could hold accountable however he wished, just based on the other’s nicknames like “Long Lived Cabinet Elder” and “Aphrodisiac Master[6]”, he did not dare to even approach the Wan Residence in broad daylight for fear of polluting his own pure reputation. 

With great difficulty, he finally went to pay a visit to his Teacher when no one was in the area, but Senior Grand Secretary Wan purposely stretched the other’s patience thin, not even meeting him.
Only a housekeeper came out to wait upon the guests, and he did not see any of that profound affection Cui Que had last time when he had come to pay his respects, with his hands full of presents.
The housekeeper gave him a cold and sharp gaze, saying: “Cui da-ren gave birth to a good son, but unfortunately, the son does not resemble the father.”

Cui Que suffered ferociously from this humiliation and narrowly smashed the outer study to pieces when he returned home.
Fortunately, he had cultivated a profound foundation of vital energy and was able to resist such inclinations.
The next day, he headed over to the yamen and Ministry of Appointments to carefully make some inquiries, and only then did he hear what had happened in Qian’an County.

He originally that that Cui Xie was not good at operating business operations and had sold the bookstore, but he did not expect that at such a young age, Cui Xie unexpectedly had given birth to a stomachful of ideas to climb up higher on the ladder and had given the bookstore to the County Magistrate instead.
Relying on the book collections donated from Cui Xie’s bookstore, that Qian’an county had produced three jinshi[7] this year ——two of them were Guo Yong and Wang Pu who had been newly admitted as juren last fall and they had been admitted while the County Magistrate had still been in office.
There were rumors that Left Vice Minister Geng da-ren had taken a fancy to the other’s ability to educate and enlighten the people.
One did not know whether they planned to transfer him to the capital or deploy him to the south as a Prefectural School Inspector.

Afterwards, the Qian’an County Magistrate wrote an article, printed a book and even lauded that degenerate son of his!

When Cui Que finally figured this  matter out, he was so angry that his entire body trembled and he bitterly wished he could go back to more than a year ago when the aged Old furen had given Cui Xie the title deed to the bookstore.
If at that time, he had made the decision to chase after the deed, if the bookstore or even the old residence had been donated to the Qian’an County to build a library in his name, wouldn’t all these accolades be his then?

What kind of son donated a courtyard to the county to build a library and didn’t record the glorious achievement in their father’s name? Instead, that County Magistrate who occupied his family’s property received all the benefits! What kind of reversed principle was this?

Yet, he was not the type of person who would throw his face out to make a ruckus so he headed outside to a restaurant to drink some alcohol to drown his sorrows and think of a way to call his son back to the capital for punishment.
In the evening, he drunkenly returned to the residence and called the newly married concubine to serve him and after enduring his fury, he fell asleep.
But, his anger and intoxicated state had injured his liver and in the early morning of the next day, he was burning hot until he became muddle-headed and fell ill, unable to get out of bed.

That concubine had not experienced such things before and was so frightened that she went to request an audience with the furen and repeated every drunken confession Cui Que had said last night, including the part where the son had donated the bookstore and that the County Magistrate was being promoted as a result.
The concubine then knelt and begged the furen for forgiveness.

How could the furen even bother to care about her at this point? The furen didn’t even want to look after Laoye anymore!

Her entire mind was consumed by the thought that the bookstore should have been the Cui household’s legendary tree that shed coins when shaked[8] or it could have served as a stepping stone for Cui Que’s promotion.
She fundamentally did not pay attention to this ignorant concubine in front of her.
She reached out her hand and pushed the person away, staggering back to her chambers.
Gritting her teeth, she yelled for the servants: “Go, go drag down this dog who dares to deceive the head of the household and beat them with a plank a hundred times! Then send a letter to my parents’ residence——The Master was bullied to the point that he doesn’t even dare to speak, and even servants treat me, the furen, as a fool that they can just play with, I can’t endure such days anymore!”

Footnotes:

Stand tall and see far (idiom): taking the long and broad view; acute foresight Juren (舉人, lit.
“recommended man”), a qualified graduate who passed the triennial provincial exam. three provinces along the northern border: Yansui, Ningxia and Gansu Regular path (zhengtu 正途): refers to people who obtain their official status through the normal way of taking examinations.
In contrast, irregular ways (yitu 異途) allowed one to purchase the official/student status. *Senior Grand Secretaries Wan An, Liu Ji and Liu Xu were known famously as the “Three Paper-Like Cabinet Elders” because they were useless at their job, ignoring national affairs and busy fighting for power and influence with eunuchs.
However, despite that, they were able to remain in power for a long time and they were virtually unshakeable.They virtually had no achievements and they were so clueless in the presence of the Emperor that whatever the Emperor said, they would kowtow and shout “Long Live the Majesty” and this soon became a name of ridicule.
Contrastingly, the six Ministers of the Ministries were timid and feared causing trouble so they were nicknamed the “Six statue-like Ministers.
The Ministers were Minister of Appointments, Yin Min; the Minister of Revenue, Yin Qian; the Minister of Rites Zhou Hongmo; the Minister of War, Zhang Peng; The Minister of Justice, Zhang Ying and the Minister of Works, Liu Zhao.
Thus the phrase: “Three paper-like cabinet elders and the six statue-like Ministers” was born.
It is fitting that Cui Que is a disciple of such a useless man. *Ming Dynasty official nicknames are probably the most wretched and simple out of all the dynasties.
The Emperors of the Ming Dynasty tended to be indulgent and loved sexual activities.
As a result, some shameless officials often presented techniques one could use in the chamber as a method of promotion.
During the Chenghua reign, Wan An obtained his position by offering aphrodisiacs and various other erotic materials.
He held a high position but he shied away from everything and was keen on making friends with eunuchs.
Technically the nickname is not Aphrodisiac Master but rather Washing P**** [male genital] Master”, but it sounded bad and looked really bad so I decided to go with something tamer. Jinshi: highest rank a scholar can get and is attained after passing the imperial court exam, when scholars attain this rank they usually become court officials.
It should be noted that the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) had a very large number of jinshi graduates reaching up to around 24, 536 in total. Legendary tree that shed coins when shaked (idiom): source of easy money.

TN: New chapter in a really long time! As you may or may not know, I went on hiatus due to family vacation, but after we came back, my entire family got Covid (except for me), so I had to take care of them and coupled with my move to my new apartment, its been quite a busy few weeks for me.
I finally had the chance to sit down and translate a bit.
I start my internship tomorrow, wish me luck!