Chapter 4 The threshold of the Imperial Heaven Supervision

Where is the Imperial Heaven Prison?

This shows the layout of Beijing.

Outside the Beijing Palace City, in front of Fengtian Gate, is outside the Tian-An Gate of later generations. Six ministries are densely distributed. The Imperial Heavenly Prison is located behind the Ministry of Rites and is particularly close to the palace wall.

This is also determined by the special location of the Imperial Heaven Supervision Bureau.

After all, celestial phenomena are of great importance, and the emperor often summoned officials of the Imperial Heavenly Prison to interpret celestial phenomena. Therefore, the Imperial Heavenly Prison yamen is very close to the palace city, and it can even be said to be separated by a wall. Of course, this place has become part of Tiananmen Square in later generations.

Zhou Mengchen was not familiar with the road, and there were all yamen here, so they would not come here unless they were in the officialdom. Zhou Mengchen walked around for a few times before finding his destination.

The Imperial Heaven Criminal was a building during the Zhengtong period. The Imperial Heaven Criminal was not a big yamen. In addition, it was disrepaired and there was a simple, almost dilapidated gate. However, this gate was closed, and before the gate, there was a group of people talking about it.

Zhou Mengchen went to ask and found out that it was time for the Imperial Heaven Supervision to recruit people.

Just like the Four Elements Hall recruits students with characters, the Imperial Heavenly Prison also recruits students with Yin and Yang on time.

This Yin-Yang birth means that Feng Li can let Zhou Mengchen enter the Imperial Heaven Supervision.

Zhou Mengchen looked at these Yin and Yang births, most of them were about the same age as Zhou Mengchen. They were all in their early twenties, and even some were older.

Zhou Mengchen was a little dazed for a moment.

If he had followed Feng Li's path, he should be one of them now.

Just as Zhou Mengchen's thoughts were flying, he heard a creaking sound. It turned out that the dilapidated gate of the Imperial Heaven Supervision was slowly opening.

But an official walked out with several servants. The official was wearing a green robe, probably a seventh-rank official, a green official uniform, a little curly hair, a little deep eyebrows, and a hint of green in his eyes. He seemed to be a person with a erotic eye. He didn't look at some yin and yang, but just coughed and said, "You have all studied astronomical calendar calculations, so I won't say much about anything else. I've pulled it out and tried it. I've prepared the test questions and answered them first."

Then the official strode in. Only some servants gave each person a small stool, pen, ink, paper and inkstone. Then he took out a piece of paper and several questions and asked him to answer the questions on the spot.

Even Zhou Mengchen gave him one.

After all, here is at the foot of the palace city, and idle people will not come here to stroll. Zhou Mengchen also knew that he had offended the Imperial Heaven Supervisor before, and he felt that it was not appropriate to wear official uniforms, and it was also a problem to wear any official uniforms. The official uniforms were of grade.

Zhou Mengchen only wears a ninth-rank official uniform, but he seems to be an eighth-rank official now. Although the color of the ninth-rank official uniform is the same as the eighth-rank official uniform, the tonic is different. Zhou Mengchen was not prepared for a while.

They just wore casual clothes. Anyway, they were just here to report today, not formally working. In addition, Zhou Mengchen was young, so they regarded Zhou Mengchen as a member of the Yin-Yang birth.

Zhou Mengchen originally wanted to explain, but after reading a few questions, he suddenly felt that it was extremely simple.

Several arithmetic questions are either from Chapter Nine or from Zhou Feng’s Arithmetic Sutra. They are much simpler than the questions that Wang Daozhi made Zhou Mengchen difficult at the time. Most of the remaining questions come from Bu Tiange. Bu Tiange compiled the names of the positions of stars in the sky into songs, which can be said to be an introductory course in ancient astronomy.

When Zhou Mengchen saw these questions, he thought to himself: "It's so simple?"

Zhou Mengchen didn't know that the Imperial Heavenly Prison was originally a tragic yamen, and no one wanted to enter, unless they were insiders, and if they really studied astronomy, the difficulty was not much simpler than the eight-legged essay, or even more difficult.

Because astronomy is inevitable with mathematics, and mathematics itself is extremely difficult. The mathematics learned in later generations has been simplified and summarized by generations. There are still many people who regard it as a book of heaven, let alone this era, without any talent, and really don’t want to learn mathematics.

Therefore, the selection of Yin and Yang generation has gradually become a formality. Most of them are the children of internal personnel of the Imperial Heaven Supervision. Through this move, they enter the Imperial Heaven Supervision Office. Most Yin and Yang generation are the beginning of learning after entering the Imperial Heaven Supervision.

It is precisely because the Yin and Yang generation is not valuable that Feng Li can guarantee that he can help Zhou Mengchen get it.

Zhou Mengchen originally wanted to directly reveal his identity, but he was a little serious, and it was not good to rashly destroy the exam. Anyway, the question was very simple, and Zhou Mengchen had the answer after reading it once. He simply wrote it on white paper one by one and raised his hand to the servant who was invigilating the exam.

These servants were very surprised when they saw this, so they let Zhou Mengchen go in.

As soon as Zhou Mengchen entered, he saw the official lying on a lounge chair, covering his hat and enjoying the cool under the shade of the tree. There was a small table on one side with a purple clay pot on it.

Zhou Mengchen walked over and sent the answer in his hand.

The official then took off his official hat, looked at Zhou Mengchen with suspicion, picked up the purple clay pot, took a sip of the tea in his mouth, and then took the answer with one hand. Just a glance, he knew that Zhou Mengchen had answered correctly.

He sat up and looked at Zhou Mengchen up and down. Instead of asking for his name, he asked, "Are you not from Beijing?"

Zhou Mengchen said, "I am from Wuchang."

The official nodded and said to himself: "No wonder I don't know you."

Although these questions are simple, it is unlikely to be done without systematically learning mathematics and memorizing Bu Tian Song. Zhou Mengchen naturally thinks it is very simple. This question can only be said to be not difficult, but is just the most basic requirement for people in the circle. For people outside the circle, it is almost a heavenly book.

Most of the people selected are children of the astronomical family.

As soon as the official looked at the answer, he knew that Zhou Mengchen was a person in the circle. So he asked him if he was from Beijing.

After all, the circle of astronomy is not big or small. To be big, there are Yin and Yang officials everywhere. Behind every Yin and Yang official position, there is a family that is a worldly astronomy. To be small, in fact, except for less than a hundred families in Beijing and Nanjing, other Yin and Yang officials do not have the essence at all, and can only fight and can do nothing else.

No one in the Beijing astronomical circle knew this official. But he had never met Zhou Mengchen.

The official said: "Since you answered the questions so quickly, I will test you a few questions?"

Zhou Mengchen originally wanted to come up with his order. After hearing the official's words, he became interested and said, "Please give a question."

The official said: "Where is the most greedy place?"

This question was asked by an old senior from the Imperial Heaven Supervision Bureau. He thought about it for several days but couldn't figure it out. So he asked Zhou Mengchen.

After hearing this, Zhou Mengchen frowned and said in his heart: "What the hell is this? Is it irrelevant?"

He thought about the question raised by this official: whether it is biased towards astronomical constellations or calendar arithmetic numbers, but what is this problem? It is inexplicable whether it is not up or down?

Zhou Mengchen took a deep breath after looking at the official first, and after confirming that he was not joking, he took a deep breath and said intimately: "Calm down, there are so many weird interview questions in the world, and this one is not bad."

Zhou Mengchen calmed down and pondered silently, and said intimately: "First determine the intention of the questioner. This question must be astronomy test. What is the key information in this question? Place, right, place?"

"So is there any knowledge about geographical location in astronomy?"

"Latitude and longitude? No. In this era, there is no latitude and longitude. That is the division system.

When Zhou Mengchen thought of this, he seemed to have a way of thinking.

Dividing is one of the characteristics of Chinese astronomicality.

Among many ancient people, for example, Li Bai’s sentence in Shu Dao: He looked up at the well and snore with his hands, sat down with his arms and sighed. Among them, the Shen Well refers to the stars. The Shen Xing is the distinction between Shu, and the Well Star is the distinction between Qin. He is from Qin to Shu.

So the question is, what kind of people who separate stars are the most greedy.

This made Zhou Mengchen scratch his head a little.

First of all, there are many systems of division. Different astronomers will divide different divisions, including the nine provinces, the twelve countries, the Big Dipper, and other types. So what stars can represent greed?

Zhou Mengchen thought about it, but couldn't find the entry point for a while. He thought to himself: "This road is not clear, so I think about it the other way around, what star can represent greed."

After thinking about it, it seemed that there were only twenty-eight constellations in the stomach. Thinking of this, he finally realized his enlightenment.

There are not many constellations of Wei Su, only seven, Wei, Tianlin, Tianhu, Daling, Tianchuan, corpse accumulation, and water accumulation.

Among them, the stomach is also alias, called Tiancang or Daliang.

This time it faced each other. What is Daliang? It is the ancient name of Kaifeng, and Kaifeng is Daliang City.

The ridge is in the stomach, that is, the people of Kaifeng live in the stomach? Who is the most greedy person in the world? Is it still necessary to say?

Zhou Mengchen immediately said, "It's from Kaifeng."

The official was stunned at first, then pondered for a while, then suddenly stood up and said, "Yes, the beam is in the stomach, and the beam is in the stomach. Why didn't I expect it?"

This official also had a different view of Zhou Mengchen.

This problem seems like a brain teaser, but in fact, if he does not understand the stars in the sky and has a very clever mind, he will not have thought of it. At least he will not have thought of it.

Zhou Mengchen no longer kept him in hiding, but handed the transfer order to the official and said, "Zhou Mengchen in Wuchang has met the Lord."

The official took Zhou Mengchen's order and saw it, suddenly thought of something, almost jumped up and said, "Are you Zhou Mengchen who predicts solar and lunar eclipse?"
Chapter completed!