How was the imperial examination conducted in ancient China?

The Xiu Cai, which is obtained by passing the Child Examination (County, Prefectural, and Court Examinations), was administered by the provincial government of each province. Those who do not pass the test are known as "child students". Some people are very old, to participate in a number of children's exams do not pass, or children, people jokingly referred to as the old children. Passed called into the school, the common name of the student, which is commonly known as the Xiu Cai. Xiucai were selected through the examination, eligible to participate in the current township examination (held in each province, the winner of the examination, become a lifer). The people honored the Xiu Cai as "Xianggong".

Lifers, is through the countryside and get the countryside exams held in the fall, also known as the "autumn exam". The Ming and Qing dynasties, not only with the qualification of the examination, and can therefore enter the civil service, is considered to have done the official "proper origin". The first place in the countryside examination is called "Xie Yuan". The following spring will be held in the examination, known as the "spring exam", by the court of the Ministry of Li presided over, so also known as the "Ministry of Li test", "Li exam" and so on. Through the examination of the liftsman called "Chinese liftsman" or "Gongshi", the first place is called "Huiyuan", they have the qualification to participate in the Palace Examination, can be to the peak of the scholar. People honored the lift for "master".

Jinshi, is the ancient scholars through the highest level of the examination (Palace Examination), into the ranks of the service, given the honorary name of the right way out. Usually three years to test once, encountered a special celebration, increase the examination, known as "Enke". The general scholar list is divided into three levels, the first class for the "first a give jinshi and the first", the second class for the "second a give jinshi birth", the third class for the "third a give the same jinshi birth", the first class for the "first a give jinshi and the first", the third class for the "third a give the same jinshi birth". The first winner of the Imperial Examination is known as the "Scholar". As the saying goes, "three in a row", on the countryside, the examination, the temple exam were first, it is very difficult, the Ming Dynasty for more than three hundred years only two people (Huang Guan, commercial chariot) "three in a row", people honored the scholar for the "adults! "

Science and technology

The imperial examination system refers to the court allows ordinary people and officials to voluntarily enroll in the government, and then after the examination, according to the results of the selection of talent and awarded to a system of government. The system was formally introduced in the Tang Dynasty, and has been closely associated with Chinese civilization for more than 1,300 years, ending with the last examination for the first grade in the twenty-seventh year of the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty.

The ancient Chinese imperial examination system went through several periods:

The Sui Dynasty was the origin of the ancient Chinese imperial examination system. After the unification of the whole country by the Sui Dynasty, in order to adapt to the changes in the development of the feudal economy and political relations, and in order to expand the participation of the feudal ruling class in the requirements of the regime, and to strengthen centralization of power, the power to select officials was returned to the central government, and the system of the imperial examination was used in place of the previous system of the Nine Articles of the Middle Rank. In the third year of Emperor Yang's Daye reign, he opened the Jinsi Section and used the examination method to select the jinshi.

The Tang Dynasty was the period when the imperial examination system was completed in ancient China. In the Tang Dynasty, the subjects of the examination were divided into two categories: the regular subjects and the system subjects. The examination was held in stages every year, and the examination held temporarily by the emperor's edict was called the system. The main subjects of the regular subjects were the Mingjing and the Jinshi. There were two kinds of candidates for the imperial examinations: one was the students of the Imperial College, Hongwenkan, Chongwenkan, and the state and county academies in various places, which were called apprentices at that time. After they passed the examination in the school, they could participate in the imperial examination held by the court in Shangshu Province, also known as the provincial examination. Secondly, ordinary scholars who were not in the school could apply for the examination to the local state or county government. Local states and counties examined them at each level, and those who passed were moved to Chang'an, the capital, to take the provincial examination in Shangshu Province. Such a person is called the township tribute. Any candidate who was sent to participate in the provincial examination, can be called lifts, the provincial examination is admitted to call and the first. The first name is Scholar Yuan or Scholar Head. The imperial examination and the first only to obtain the qualification to be an official, can not get directly to the official position, but also have to go through the examination of the Ministry of mandarins, to be awarded the official position. ".

The Song Dynasty was a period of reform of the ancient Chinese imperial examination system. Due to the development of the feudal economy in the Song Dynasty, the class of small and medium-sized landowners gradually expanded, and those who wanted to serve as officials were urgently required to go into the political arena through the imperial examination while their economic strength was getting stronger and stronger. Therefore, the imperial examination system of the Song Dynasty had significant development compared with that of the Tang Dynasty. First, the Song Dynasty liberalized the scope of admission and appointment. In the Tang Dynasty, only 20 or 30 people were admitted to the imperial examination, or a few or a dozen at a time. Song dynasty scholar is divided into three classes, a class called and the first, the second class called the gift of jinshi birth, the third class called with the birth of jinshi, the Song dynasty each time the admission of up to two, three hundred people, or even five, six hundred people. The Tang Dynasty, the admission is only to obtain the qualification to be an official, the actual granting of the official position must also pass the examination of the Ministry of Justice. The Song Dynasty, once hired, can be appointed officials, ranked in the top can get a high official. Song Dynasty also does not limit the origin of the applicant, and even monks and Taoists can also participate in the imperial examinations. Secondly, the Song Dynasty established a three-tier examination system once every three years, with the Emperor himself taking the examination in the palace, and all candidates became the disciples of the Son of Heaven, so as to avoid the formation of a clique between the candidates and the examiners in the name of teachers and students. Thirdly, from the Song Dynasty onwards, the imperial examinations formally began to implement the paste name and transcription, and to establish a new system to prevent favoritism. To paste names meant to seal up the names and places of origin of the candidates on their examination papers, and to transcribe them meant to make a separate copy of the candidates' examination papers. In this way, when the examiners reviewed the examination papers, they not only did not know the names of the candidates, but also had no way of recognizing their handwriting, thus achieving absolutely fair competition. These methods were later inherited by the Ming and Qing dynasties. Fourth, in the content of the examination, changed the Tang Dynasty only poetry and fugue practice, the scholar section increased the content of the scriptures, and there is also a "Ming law" section, "test law," the "criminal system," the main meaning of the case, "the successful candidate appointed as a judicial officer.

The Ming Dynasty was the heyday of the ancient Chinese imperial examination system. The rulers of the Ming Dynasty attached great importance to the imperial examinations, and the strictness of the method of the imperial examinations exceeded that of previous generations. Before the Ming Dynasty, the school was only one of the ways to deliver candidates for the imperial examinations, but in the Ming Dynasty, entering the school became a mandatory path to the imperial examinations. Ming Dynasty into the State Prison to study, commonly known as supervisors. Supervisors have four broad categories: students into the prison to study called the tribute to the prison, the bureaucrats' children into the prison called the shade of the prison, the lifts into the prison called the lifts into the prison, donations into the prison called the example of the prison. In the Ming Dynasty, the imperial examination system underwent great changes in both procedure and content. The official imperial examination was divided into three levels, namely the township examination, the assembly examination, and the palace examination. Township examination is held by the South, North Zhili and the Buzhengwei Division of the local examination. Location in the South, Beijing Province, the Buzhengzhi Division premises. Every three years. In the countryside examination for the lifter, the first name Xieyuan. In the test will participate in the emperor presided over by the temple test. Temple test is divided into three a, a three give jinshi and first, two a number of give jinshi, three a number of give the same jinshi. By taking the examination level by level, the ruler could select the most useful talents from them. The important change in the content of the examination of the Ming Dynasty, that is, the establishment of the eight-stock system. Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, took Liu Ji's advice and stipulated that all levels of examinations should be dedicated to the Four Books and Five Classics, and the authors could only answer the questions in accordance with the interpretations of the Song Dynasty's Cheng, Zhu and other schools of scripture, and were never allowed to express their own opinions. Ming Xianzong, more created the "eight shares" format, requiring articles in the form of paragraph by paragraph couplets. Pile of carving, completely detached from social reality. So more than the Tang and Song poems to get the scholar, more confined people's minds, so that the imperial examination system completely serves the needs of the emperor's dictatorship, but also to the imperial examination system itself led to extinction.

The Qing Dynasty was the demise of the ancient Chinese imperial examination system. The system was basically the same as that of the Ming Dynasty, but it carried out a policy of ethnic discrimination. Manchus enjoy all kinds of privileges, do not have to go through the imperial examination way, the imperial examination is only for the Han officials to lay a day to participate in the regime of the ladder. The content of the imperial examination, still take the eight-legged essay of the Ming Dynasty, used to confine the thinking of the scholars. After that, it was declining and had more and more drawbacks. Although the Qing rulers were harsh in their punishment of imperial examination fraud, the system itself was so flawed that it became an obstacle to the progress of history, and so in the end, it had to be wiped out.

Overall, the implementation of the imperial examination system was more positive than negative in ancient times. From a personal point of view: its positivity is reflected in the fact that a person born into an ordinary family wants to enter the imperial court, get a high ranking, and then be promoted to an official position and become a nobleman, to honor his ancestors, and to make his whole family rich and famous, all of which is dependent on the imperial examinations. Its negativity is reflected in the fact that if an ordinary person is extremely important to his reputation or some other reasons to become a government official, he will invest his life's efforts to study hard, and could have begun to other paths of development opportunities, but all do not think about it, or some people can not be high school on the day of his death, can not fulfill his lifelong aspirations, and died with a grudge. Therefore, sometimes we can't just regard the imperial examination as a political battlefield for fighting to the death, wasting time and gradually accelerating the corruption of the society. From the social point of view: it is a positive reflection of the open examination, absorbed a lot of poor people into the regime, so that they understand that the examination can be a good way out. It was helpful to expand and consolidate the political base of feudal rule and improve the administrative efficiency of the society. Changed the pre-feudal society, the powerful clansmen hold the situation of the government, the majority of commoners and landowners through the Imperial Examination as an official, to the feudal regime injected vigor and vitality, the Imperial Examination system has become the only fair and objective basis for selecting officials, conducive to the formation of a high-quality civil service team, reading, exams and the official triple link, the power, position and learning combined to create a tradition of respect for teachers and the Chinese people's hardworking and diligent The atmosphere of reading, and promote the prosperity of literature. Its negativity is reflected in the fact that, as a system for selecting civil officials, the direct result of the imperial examination was the selection of more than 100,000 jinshi, and nearly one million jurenshi. This huge group, of course, will also breed a lot of corrupt officials or despicable black sheep, do the official position but not to do their work, the emperor gave the parents of the policy can not be implemented. The Ming and Qing dynasties practiced the eight-legged to get a scholar, from the content to the form of serious restrictions on the applicants, so that many intellectuals do not speak of practical learning, binding their originally active thinking, the development of academic culture did not promote the role of, but rather corrupted the good social atmosphere, until finally the end of the Qing Dynasty, the system of science and culture seriously impede the development of science and culture, is to lead to the backwardness of the natural sciences in modern China is one of the important reasons.

The ancient imperial examination system so all the way, experienced constant reform, constant progress, to this ancient imperial examination evolved into the present college entrance examination. In fact, the current college entrance examination also has some of the history of the imperial examination system existed at that time, the two have similarity, such as the method used at that time to paste the name of the method to approve the examination paper, the current college entrance examination system also needs to paste the name of the phenomenon, so that can eliminate favoritism and malpractice phenomenon. Like the imperial examination is to select the best people all over the country, the college entrance examination is also national, which is conducive to more elite gathering, a mountain and a mountain high summary. Like at that time are election examination first place, the higher the official position. Now the college entrance examination is also to select the highest scores to study in the best university, to score high and low to determine the future. Secondly, the present college entrance examination system is more advanced than the ancient imperial examination system, which required students to stay in the school for three days and three nights until the examination was successfully completed. Nowadays, the college entrance examination does not have to be like this, but only needs two days to finish four courses in different subjects. Ancient imperial examination system only allowed men to take the test, the official is a man, but now the college entrance examination both men and women can take the test, the abolition of gender discrimination system. The ancient imperial examination system was to create conditions for the mutual transformation between members of different grades in feudal society, through the examination to determine the opportunity to become an official, the only way out after high school is to become an official. Nowadays, the college entrance examination is an opportunity to choose a specialty of interest according to one's own preference, to develop towards one's own ideal in the future, and to get a chance to find a job in the end. In ancient times, after winning the first place in the imperial examination, one would be a scholar, and there is no higher degree, while nowadays, after the college entrance examination system, one would be an undergraduate, and even go on to graduate school, doctorate, and postdoctorate, and rise up in the world. Ancient imperial examination system in the Manchurian Qing Dynasty, there was a fraud case of Xing Dajian, Jiangnan Koba prison and other chaotic situation, the means of insidious and vicious, so that the community are on edge. And now the college entrance examination also exists in the fraud incident, but with the use of scientific and technological means as well as the severity of the punishment means, so the generalization has been few and far between.

So, the imperial examination system and the current college entrance examination has its correlation correspondence, the country is step by step to improve the shortcomings, the implementation of a system must have advantages and disadvantages, how to do the best is exactly China has been thinking about the problem. For the country to convey and cultivate talents in all walks of life or put into the current college entrance examination system, must do the principle of fairness, vigorously develop the education business, improve the comprehensive quality of the people, which is the inevitable way to revitalize China.

References: know