The prefectural exam rankings were more or less the same as the county exam's.
This showed that the candidates from Qingshui County hadn't cheated and the County Magistrate hadn't secretly manipulated the rankings. The overall situation was good. Barring any surprises, the examination period would proceed smoothly.
In other counties, however, the rankings fluctuated dramatically.
Take Guyuan County, for instance.
The top-ranked student from Guyuan County, Cui Junrong, was the very same person whose essay the Lord Prefect had criticized as "utter nonsense" and "convoluted."
This time, his rank plummeted from first place all the way down to twelfth.
To put it in perspective, Guyuan County was only set to accept a total of four Scholars. The number of people who passed the prefectural exam was just over three times the number of final spots. By that logic, twelfth place was at the very bottom of the list.
