Racing in Green Shirts: A Farmer's Road to the Imperial Examination
During the Qianlong period, Chen Yan, a farmer from Kunshan in the south of the Yangtze River, was about to drop out of school due to an autumn drought. However, he relied on half a copy of the Analects of Confucius he picked up and his extraordinary resilience to get an unusual education from a down-and-out boy named Mr. Zhou. Faced with the doubt that "study is not as good as farming", he completed his studies by doing odd jobs in the school and emerged as a child student. However, Zhang Huaian, the son of a squire, made things difficult for him at every turn.
From a county schoolboy to a tribute scholar in the capital, he and his friend Liu Qingyun went north to take the imperial examination. They encountered robbers and plots but still adhered to their original aspirations. In the imperial examination, he spoke out about the shortcomings of official administration and was awarded a review by the Imperial Academy. However, because he was far away in the capital and was unable to protect his family members who had been wronged, he took the initiative to transfer to Suzhou Prefecture. In his local post, he withstood the dual pressures of squires and weak officials, clearing land, severely punishing corruption, and building water conservancy projects. With the creed of "diligence can make up for one's weakness, public service can make a living", he rose from the prefect of Suzhou to the governor of Zhili.
He broke the estrangement between scholars and businessmen and married Su Wanniang, and helped each other with Fa Xiaowang Erzhu. He dealt with his old enemy Zhang Huaian for decades, and never forgot his oath to "be an official for the people." This work takes the road to the imperial examination as the main line, connecting the hardships of survival at the bottom, the complexity of the officialdom ecology, and the perseverance of poor scholars, and lays out a picture of the growth of scholars in the Qing Dynasty that combines fireworks and feelings of family and country.
