What are the interesting stories of imperial examinations in ancient times?

First of all, let's trace the history of the imperial examinations, in order to lay out those interesting things, China's imperial examination system, starting from 605 A.D., to the end of 1905, a full 1,300 years.

In 605 A.D., Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, an emperor who made people feel that he had not done anything good, but opened a branch of the scholar section, with a branch of the way to select officials, the imperial examination, and from then on unlocked the selection of officials in the history of China's new chapter, affecting the country for more than a thousand years.

According to the historical process of nagging a little hard, first look at the Tang Dynasty. Why not say Sui Dynasty, the answer is that Sui Dynasty in the Sui Yang Emperor set up the scholar section, not long to let the Sui Yang Emperor put the end of the dynasty, did not give the imperial examinations to the interesting things happen to leave time. The Tang dynasty, which took over the baton, was a different story.

In the Tang Dynasty, the imperial examinations are divided into many subjects, including the jinshi section is very difficult to test, therefore, the examination of the jinshi has become the dream of many Tang literati, even Tang Xuanzong Li Daolong also has such a dream, he is also fascinated by the jinshi, he not only highly valued jinshi origin of the officials, but also in the palace columns written down ? The village tribute scholar Li Daolong? s words.

Above this is said to be difficult, but in the same dynasty and appeared now candidates dream of open-book exams. The Tang dynasty imperial examination practiced the system of line scrolls, that is, before taking the examination to put their own poems and writings into a book to give away, in order to publicize their own, to increase the popularity, so that in the examination time more chances of winning the examination.

Because the Tang Dynasty imperial examinations were not sealed, everyone could read the names of the candidates. Some people took advantage of this. There was a candidate named Yan Jimei who did not win the imperial examination for the first time, and after he lost the election, he wrote a poem to the chief examiner with great disappointment.

Later, Yan Jimei took the imperial examination for the second time, and coincidentally, the examiner was the same official as last time. This time, because he had an impression of Yan Jimei and his grades were not bad, Yan Jimei was lucky enough to be successful in the examination and became a lucky person under the system of not sealing the scrolls.

In 837 A.D., a candidate named Li Humus was directly admired by poetry as the top scholar. Li Humu's poem for the examination, "The Song of Nei Shang Yu Yi", was considered perfect poetry by the examiner, who showed it to Emperor Wenzong of Tang, who was delighted, and even more delighted when he realized that Li Humu was a royal descendant. It seemed that royal children were not as irredeemable as people thought.

So, Li Humeral became a scholar. Emperor Wenzong of Tang wanted to set Li Humus as an example, so that more royal children would learn from him and be a useful talent to the court. However, we can assume that if Li Humus was not a royal child, could he have won the Scholarship? The answer is probably unknown.