It is the dream goal of countless readers, and in the minds of the people, it has the great honor of "holding out a round in the sky and looking up at all the people on earth".
Obtaining the title is also a very difficult thing. China has a history of more than 1,280 years of imperial examinations, with more than 1 million people and more than 100,000 jinshi emerging, but there are only 592 champions in total, plus only 777 wu zhuangyuan. What is even more speechless is that many candidates who have been admitted to the yuan have been brushed off for other reasons and eventually rubbed shoulders with the champion.
For example, the protagonist of this article, Shao Zichang.
Shao Zichang (邵自昌), courtesy name Sun (蕃孙), was a native of Daxing County,Shuntian Province (now part of Beijing) during the Qing Dynasty. Shao Zichang's family was poor, but he studied diligently since he was a child, coupled with his talent and intelligence, he wrote beautiful articles and successfully passed the boy test, township test and other barriers. In 1778, Shao Zichang participated in the examination held in the capital that year, and became a gongshi.
Subsequently, the temple test was conducted. At that time, there were a total of 7 main examiners, fellow examiners and reading officers of the temple examination, all of whom were from the same family, and the lineup was quite luxurious. After the end of the palace examination, the chief examiners submitted the examination papers to the Qianlong Emperor, who was planned to be the top 10, and asked him to make a final decision. Shao Zichang was proposed as the first place.
Generally speaking, the emperor hand-picked the top 10 examination papers, just go through the motions, as long as there are no major problems in the examination papers, generally respect the opinions of the main examiners. Therefore, Shao Zichang's title was almost ten to nine stable. In fact, this is also true. When the Qianlong Emperor got Shao Zichang's examination paper and read it for a while, in addition to feeling that the two sentences in the countermeasure were not very coherent, he did not find any major problems, and planned to hand-pick it as a champion with a stroke of his pen.
Here we need to introduce a little bit about the "Mifeng" system of the Qing Dynasty. Before the Song Dynasty, the examination papers were not sealed. In the Northern Song Dynasty, some candidates suggested that it was necessary to seal the candidate's name, place of origin and other contents in the examination paper to prevent the examiner from cheating in the selection and make the examination more fair, and the imperial court accepted this suggestion. After that, in all the imperial examinations, the examination papers sealed the candidates' names, places of origin, etc., and then dismantled them after the results came out. This is called "Mi Feng".
Therefore, before the Qianlong Emperor waved his pen to hand-pick the title, he first ordered someone to dismantle the "Mi Feng". The person who was ordered to dismantle the "Mi Feng" was the official Shangshu Cheng Jingyi.
I don't know if it was because I was too nervous, or for other reasons, Cheng Jingyi picked up Shao Zichang's test paper and dismantled it for a long time, but did not open it. The Qianlong Emperor waited for a while, impatient, and moved the examination papers of the second and third places forward. Shao Zichang's test paper became the third place. At this time, his "seal" had not yet been opened. It was not until the fourth place test paper moved to the third place position that Shao Zichang's "Mi Feng" was opened.
This kind of miraculous thing that "Mi Feng" could not open for a long time had never been encountered before. The Qianlong Emperor could not explain this phenomenon, believing that it was providence, so he designated Shao Zichang as the fourth place, that is, the first place in the second rank, and gave him the birth of a jinshi. Shao Zichang not only lost the title, but also did not even get the list of eyes and tanhua. The title of Champion was fortunately worn on the head of the second Anhui Xiuning examinee, Dai Quheng.
Shao Zichang took "bad luck", and his career after that was quite unsmooth. He was initially elected as a Shu jishi of the Hanlin Temple, and after the dissolution of the museum, he was assigned to the military department and became a chief. After that, Shao Zichang successively served as the secretary of the Dali Temple, the Fujian Xuezheng and other positions, and the official Zhizheng Erpin's Zuo Du Yushi. Perhaps because Shao Zichang's political achievements were so ordinary and lackluster, even the "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty" was not specially included.
In contrast, the career of "substitute champion" Dai Quheng is much more prosperous. Dai Quheng was initially appointed as a scholar of the Hanlin Academy, and has since served as a bachelor of attendants, a minister of military aircraft, and a scholar of Tirenge University. The Qing Dynasty did not have the position of prime minister, and the military minister was called the prime minister, and the university scholar was called the name of the prime minister. Dai Quheng had served as both a military minister and a scholar of Tireenge University, and that was a veritable prime minister.
[References: Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, etc.]