A few days before the National College Entrance Examination, the students began their vacation and cleaned their classrooms. An Ran went to school to help her younger sister bring everything home.
Then she went to the examination venue to familiarize herself with it and confirm her seat. This would prevent nervousness from making her unable to find either one during the National College Entrance Examination.
When the People of Ancient Times saw the examination venue and its schedule, they imagined themselves cramped inside those crude examination sheds for several days. Those in poor health might even have died there. Their eyes reddened with envy one after another.
Then they glared resentfully at the Government Office.
The Officials gazed at the sky. What kind of conditions did those people have, and what kind did they have? Those people produced thousands of jin of grain per mu and probably lacked nothing in other areas either. They had money!
They had no money, so they could forget about good treatment. They should exercise more instead.
A few days before the National College Entrance Examination, the elderly men and women outside the Residential Complex stopped dancing in the Public Square. Car horns grew less frequent, and everywhere became quieter.
Soon, the time for the examination arrived.
Her parents took leave in advance, and the whole family went to see the younger siblings to their examination venues. Since the two were taking the examination at different venues, the family split into two groups: An Ran and her mother accompanied her younger sister, while her father accompanied her younger brother.
Along the way, they saw many Traffic Police Officers maintaining order and prohibiting honking. Some roads were also placed under traffic control, and all vehicles were forbidden to pass.
When they arrived at the examination venue, volunteers outside were providing candidates with water and assistance, while People's Police Officers maintained public security and order in the surrounding area.
After An Ran and her mother reminded An Ning about a few precautions, they watched her walk into the examination venue.
An Ran led her mother to a shady spot to wait. She was not worried about her younger siblings. One was a top scholar who had ranked among the school's top ten all year and had been in a good mood recently, so she would not perform abnormally. The other was a carefree poor student who could accept any result.
Her mother was worried, afraid that some unforeseen accident might occur during the examination, such as diarrhea or nervousness.
An Ran could only comfort her mother and tell her to relax.
After waiting outside for a while, An Ran grew bored. She took out her phone to look for news related to the National College Entrance Examination. Every year around this time, some jokes appeared.
Instead, she discovered that the signal was poor. She thought she had run out of phone credit, but it was only the beginning of the month.
Then she remembered that signal jammers would operate near National College Entrance Examination venues. She put her phone away and chatted with her mother about their recent circumstances.
The People of Ancient Times watched the Future Era on high alert, taking everything seriously. Curious, they asked, “Is this the imperial examination of the Future Era?”
“No way. I heard them say they are taking an examination for university admission. It should be similar to our academy examinations.”
“The arrangements for an academy examination are this grand? Even bailiffs have come out.”
Their imperial examination might not even have such a grand arrangement. The authorities had closed the roads, and so many people were eagerly offering assistance.
Tang Dynasty. Li Shimin once again sensed how much the Future Era valued education. First came Nine-Year Compulsory Education; now, even Officials from the Government Office had been sent to oversee a student examination.
The prosperity of Later Generations must have come from this as well. With more people studying, the number of talented individuals would naturally increase. With those people serving the Nation, the Nation would flourish.
It seemed they also needed to place greater importance on education.
Qin Dynasty. Watching the atmosphere surrounding the National College Entrance Examination, Qin Shi Huang had the same thought. Unfortunately, he lacked the means to establish such an education system. They could not even eat their fill, so how could they spare the energy for anything else?
However, he could learn from this method of categorized examinations: teach people the skills they lacked, then test them. Those who passed could become Officials in the corresponding departments. This would let him recruit useful assistants quickly and reduce his burden.
Ming Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang envied the many Scholars he saw. With so many Scholars, how many talented individuals must there be? If he had so many Scholars, he would be delighted.
Soon it was noon. When the bell rang, the candidates ran out one after another, beaming with excitement. Her mother asked An Ning how she had done and relaxed only after hearing that she had performed normally.
Two days passed quickly. When the final examination ended, the candidates rushed out of the examination venue, their faces shining with the joy of freedom.
An Ning was no exception. An Ran asked whether she wanted to travel together and whether they should go before or after the University Application Submission.
An Ning thought for a moment. “After the University Application Submission. By then, everything will be settled, so we’ll enjoy the trip more. Besides, we can use those ten or twenty days to rest and recharge.”
A year of High-Intensity studying, followed by the stressful National College Entrance Examination, would leave her exhausted if she traveled without resting first.
An Ran nodded. After returning home, she also asked An Bo. An Bo did not plan to travel with her; he was going with his best buddies.
After the National College Entrance Examination ended, the candidates breathed a sigh of relief, and so did An Ran. For the past two days, she had been unable to focus even while using her phone. She tapped one thing, then another, yet after several hours had absorbed almost nothing.
When she opened her phone, every Soft attributes application was discussing the National College Entrance Examination. She also saw reports saying that the number of Gaokao Candidates had reached a new high this year: 13.53 million, five or six hundred thousand more than last year.
She remembered that her year had had around nine million candidates. There were four or five million more now! The competition was becoming fiercer and fiercer. No wonder university students were now worth so little.
This figure startled both An Ran and the People of Ancient Times.
“How many? More than thirteen million scholars? Good heavens, how many people must there be in the future era?”
“This is only the number of students in their final year of Middle School who are taking the National College Entrance Examination. I heard there are also students in Elementary School and Middle School. If every grade has this many students, then there must be one hundred million students in school alone, to say nothing of people of other ages.”
“No wonder the grain yield is so high. Without that much food, they would starve to death!”
“Isn’t it the other way around? Without food, how could there be so many people?”
“That makes sense. If there were no food, everyone would starve to death. How could there be any people?”
Qin Shi Huang was also stunned by this figure. The Qin Dynasty had a total population of only twenty or thirty million, while the students taking the National College Entrance Examination in the Future Era alone accounted for half that number. If he had so many Scholars, he would not be so troubled.
No wonder Later Generations had so many strange yet useful things. With so many Scholars, they would naturally have an enormous number of talented individuals.
He needed to urge the Agricultural School of Thought to develop Hybrid Rice as soon as possible. With enough food, the population could grow, and his Qin Dynasty would become even more powerful.
Han Dynasty. Liu Bang drew in a sharp breath. They had it even worse. At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, the population was only a little over sixteen million—barely more than the number of students taking the examination. If the nation of the Future Era existed during his time, it could destroy the Han Dynasty through sheer human-wave Tactics without sophisticated weapons.
Zhuge Liang of the Three Kingdoms sighed. The nation of the Future Era must be peaceful, with few wars.
If there were wars, there could not be so many people, nor could so many young people study in peace.
Constant warfare had reduced the population of the Three Kingdoms to around eight million.
Moreover, he was curious. If there were so many Scholars among people of this age, how many people were there in the Future Era altogether?
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