I was a swordsman in ancient Japan

Some are well-dressed and well-dressed.

Some are sloppy, and the clothes on their bodies are as dirty as a rag specially used to wipe the toilet floor. What's more, their clothes are directly tattered, and they are simply ragged.

Most people come on foot.

Of course, there are also a small number of people who come directly on horseback or in sedan chairs.

Although there are thousands of styles of people gathered on this street at this time, they all have one thing in common. They all have the soul of a samurai on their waists: a sword.

Almost all the people here, no matter whether they are glamorous or ragged, are basically samurai.

Of course there are a few exceptions.

There are also very few people who do not have a knife in their waist.

These people without swords in their waists are either warriors with weird personalities who don't have swords on their bodies, or ordinary civilians.

The latter is much more likely than the former.

The number of samurai who go out without a sword is so small that they can be called "rare animals".

Ogata guessed: These civilians who came to participate in the "Imperial Examination" may just want to take part in the literary examination, to see if they can get a bonus for the literary examination.

After all, it is unlikely that these civilians will come for the "martial arts test" that will follow.

Looking at the crowded crowd in front of him, Ogata couldn't help but secretly said in his heart:

It is the epitome of the samurai class of this era.

With this situation, Ogata couldn't help expressing his emotions.

Although there are very few civilians in this small open space, most of them are warriors.

The group of warriors gathered in this small open space at this time is like the epitome of the warrior class of this era.

Although they all have the title of "samurai", their lives are very different from each other.

Some have rich clothes and fine food, and they have horses and sedan chairs when they travel.

Some wore tattered clothes that were not even as good as ordinary civilians. Apart from the sabers stuck in their waists, their appearance was no different from ordinary civilians.

After expressing this small emotion in his heart, Ogata walked to the outermost edge of the crowd, quietly waiting for the official start of the essay test.

Accompanying Ogata to the Kitamachi Magistrate's Office were A-machi and Makimura.

Ogata didn't want to bother Makimura to send him to the Kitamachi Magistrate.

However, Mu Cun is a person who likes to join in the fun.

With such excitement to join in, Mucun naturally wouldn't let it go.

So even though Ogata persuaded him not to come see him off, Mucun still insisted on following Ogata and Atachi to Kitamachi Magistrate's Office.

Ogata felt quite helpless for Mucun's behavior of insisting on joining in the fun

Because the main reason why Ogata didn't want Mucun to come over was that he wanted to be alone with A-cho after a long absence

Makimura and A-cho, who was wearing heavy makeup that even his parents couldn't recognize, looked at everything around them with curious eyes.

This kind of warriors with different styles gathered together is a spectacle that is hard to see in ordinary times.

While looking at everything around him with curious eyes, Mucun also tapped Ogata's shoulder with his hand, and asked Ogata:

"Are you confident in this essay?"

"It's okay." Ogata smiled.

These days, Tian Xufang has been taking the time to read the Four Books and Five Classics.Review some chapters that you are a little rusty, or have forgotten most of the content.

The entire test content of the essay test is to test 100 fill-in-the-blank questions.

If you want Ogata to answer all the 100 questions correctly, then Ogata has no confidence.

But if it is said that Ogata is to meet the conditions for passing the essay test: answering half of the questions correctly, then Ogata still has some confidence.

Filling in the blanks can be regarded as an examination question with a long history.

As early as in the imperial examinations in the Tang Dynasty, there was a kind of examination questions called "posting scriptures".

And this "pasting scripture" is to fill in the blanks.

While Ogata waited silently for the official to take them to the examination room, a familiar voice suddenly came from behind:

"Isn't this Mashima Goro-kun?"

Upon hearing this voice, Ogata frowned immediately, then turned his head following the voice, and looked at the owner of the male voice: a well-dressed samurai.

This samurai is also an old acquaintance of Ogata

It was the banner samurai from a prominent family: Takikawa Heiichiro.

Takigawa's attire at this time was the same as the one he saw last time at Mae Ogata, the registration place for the "Gozen Trial Match": his whole body exuded the aura of wealth.

The samurai of this era often have the family crest of the lord to whom they belong to be tattooed on their clothes.

For example: before Ogata left the feudal domain, the only few clothes he had had the family crest of "Matsudaira Hirose" tattooed on them.

And these clothes were thrown away by Ogata after he left the feudal domain.

The haori on Takigawa's upper body is also tattooed with the family crest of the lord he is loyal to: the family crest of the Tokugawa family: clover.

Not counting the ronin who no longer have a loyal lord, there is also a chain of contempt among the samurai.

At the bottom of the chain of contempt are those samurai who serve the weak foreign daimyo.

And the samurai standing at the top of the chain of contempt are those who can wear clothes with clover patterns.

Takikawa, who was well dressed, walked slowly to Ogata.

After Takikawa approached, Ogata's plain attire greatly enhanced Takikawa's magnificence.

"Guian. It's really early for you to come." After approaching Ogata, Takigawa said hello to Ogata with some innocuous words.

"Nothing." Ogata replied in a calm tone, "I'm just here too."

"How? Are you preparing well for today's essay test?" Takikawa continued to ask.

"Let's just go through those Sinology classics several times." Ogata's response was still flat.

"That's good." Takigawa nodded, and put on a strange tone, "I look forward to seeing your excellent performance."

After saying this in a weird tone, Takigawa didn't say another word to Ogata, bypassed Ogata, and walked in another direction away from Ogata.

As soon as the voice of Takigawa's words just fell, Ogata frowned slightly.

What Takikawa said just now was said in a very weird tone, so that made his words just now have a yin and yang tone from the beginning to the end.

However, Ogata's brows were slightly furrowed for a while, and then relaxed.

Ogata has never had a good impression of Takikawa, so he didn't even say a word to him, and he didn't bother to care about Takikawa's weird words just now.

But Ogata can ignore Takikawa, it doesn't mean that other people can also ignore it.

"What?" A-Machi cast his eyes on Takikawa with displeasure, "Who is that guy? Why does he speak so badly?"

Apart from A-Machi, Makimura was also looking at Takikawa's back as he was walking away with displeasure on his face.

Mucun had accompanied Ogata to the place where he registered for the "Gozen Trial" before, so he knew Takikawa.

But Machi didn't recognize Takikawa.

In order to avoid unnecessary incidents between A-Machi and Makimura, Ogata hurriedly said:

"Who is that guy, I will explain to you slowly later."

"Don't worry about that guy. Just treat that guy as one of those annoying flies that just whimper."

"There's no need to cause trouble and waste time for this guy."

Hearing what Ogata said, Atachi and Makimura turned their displeased eyes away from Takikawa's back.

After briefly introducing who that Takigawa was to A-Machi, Ogata continued to wait quietly for the start of the essay test.

After waiting for an unknown amount of time, finally a group of people dressed as officials came out of the execution office.

After this group of people dressed as officials walked out of the execution office, the crowd gathered in this small open space immediately became more noisy.

Through conversations with people around him, Ogata learned that the leader of the group of officials who came out of the Kitamachi Magistrate's Office was the current Kitamachi Magistrate of Edo: Nagase Shogo.

As soon as Nagase, who is the head of the Kitamachi, arrived at the scene, he loudly announced to everyone that the essay test was about to start, and everyone was quiet.

Nagase's voice is very loud, and his voice can perfectly cover every corner of this small open space.

After hearing Nagase telling them to be quiet, the originally noisy small open space slowly quieted down.

The common people standing outside watching the excitement also lowered their voices.

After quieting the open space, Nagase cleared his throat, and then announced the next procedure to everyone.

Nagase talked about a lot of tedious process instructions.

After removing those official words and clichés, and streamlining the remaining parts, the main content is: later they will call their names one by one, and the people whose names are called come out and go to the person who called their names. Officials, and then they will be taken to the place where the essay test will be conducted.

According to Nagase, because there has never been a similar event before, there is no special place for a large number of people to take the exam.

In order to solve the problem of the examination place, the shogunate rented several large tea houses adjacent to the Kitamachi Executive Office.

Ogata and the others will be brought to these tea houses in batches later, and will take the literary test in these tea houses.

Everyone will be taken to a separate room in the tea house for an examination.

Exams continued until noon.

Ogata was not surprised that the shogunate actually rented several teahouses as a place for the literary examination.

After all, there was no examination culture in Japan during the Edo period, and no examination activities had been held before.

In the situation where there is no such place that can accommodate a large number of people for examination, renting a tea house with a large number of independent compartments is the best choice.

After briefly explaining the procedures before and after the literary test, the officials who had just followed Nagase out of the Kitamachi Magistrate's Office dispersed and started shouting at everyone involved in the "Imperial Trial" name.

After a while, Obi heard an official not far away shouting "Mashima Goro".

"Then I'll go first." Ogata smiled at Atachi and Mucun beside him, "See you in the afternoon."

"Oh!" Mucun patted Ogata's shoulder vigorously, "waiting for your good news!"

"I wish you good luck!" Ah-cho cheered Ogata loudly.

"It's Masataka Bunun." After correcting what A-Machi said just now in a half-joking tone, Ogata quickly walked towards the official who just called out the name "Mashima Goro".

After walking up to the official and showing the official the document that looked like a "candidate's certificate" that he had obtained from the official at the "registration place", the official nodded and let Xu Fang waited for a while.

Each of these officials is in charge of a group of candidates participating in the "Imperial Examination", and after counting the candidates in charge of each, they take the candidates in charge to the various tea houses where the literary test is held.

After waiting for a while, the official in charge of Ogata finally counted all the candidates under his charge.

The luck of this official was pretty good. All the candidates under his charge, including Ogata, were present, and no one was absent.

After counting all the candidates he was in charge of, the official led Ogata and the others in charge, and strode towards the tea house where Ogata and the others were taking the literary test.

When following the official to a tea house not far from the Kitamachi Magistrate's Office, Ogata suddenly found four people dressed as officials standing in front of the tea house.

These 4 officials have ten hands stuck in their waists, holding thorns in their hands.

Seeing Ogata and others coming, the four officials immediately told Ogata and others in a stern tone that they wanted to check whether they were carrying any cheating equipment.

Only those who pass the inspection can enter.

Hearing the words of these four officials, Ogata couldn't help raising his eyebrows.

Ogata was neither surprised nor a little surprised that there was an "anti-cheating check".

Ogata was not surprised that it is normal for candidates to check whether they have cheating equipment before entering the examination room.

Ogata was surprised that in Edo Japan, where the examination culture was almost zero, the officials of the shogunate knew how to prevent cheating.

Everyone will be taken to a small room in the tea house, and then checked.

Check that you are not carrying anything strange, and that there are no problems with your clothes.

Under the inspection of the officials, two guys with problems were really caught.

One of the two people wrote the contents of the Four Books and Five Classics on the inside of the kimono in tiny characters.

Another person was even more ruthless, putting the "cheat sheet" filled with the contents of the Four Books and Five Classics into the interlayer of his clothes.

These two guys who were caught in the act were directly tied up.