In the five-thousand-year history of our country, the way of selecting and promoting talents has been updated and changed, from the earliest Yao and Shun's pioneering Zen concession system, to the hereditary system of succession to the throne in the middle period, and later there have been ways such as the inspection system and the nine-pin Zhongzheng system, etc. These systems always have some unsatisfactory places, corrupt official relations and irregular selection systems, resulting in the loss of many talents, until the Emergence of the Tang Dynasty, the system of selecting talents was perfected.
The imperial examination system breaks down the monopoly of hereditary and relationships and provides opportunities for truly knowledgeable talents. In the imperial examination, the first place was awarded the title of champion, and there were 800 champions in the ancient history of our country, all of whom were extremely intelligent and full of poetry. However, it is said that during the Qianlong period, Qianlong produced a five-character couplet, and the result was that a group of candidates were overwhelmed, and one candidate gave up answering the questions raised by the Qianlong Emperor, but unexpectedly won the appreciation of the Qianlong Emperor and became the first person in the first place.
In ancient China, there were many forms of communication between literati, such as poetry, lyrics, and pairs, which were all the learning methods that caizi was enthusiastic about every day, and later included in the scope of the examination of the imperial examination. According to historical records, the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty was particularly fond of pairs, Qianlong was very interested in literature, he often liked to give questions to the ministers, if the answer was satisfactory to him, he would also reward money, and even used the pair to select officials, the Qianlong Emperor's selection method can be described as very innovative.
Legend has it that once, Qianlong proposed a very difficult Shanglian "Smoke Lock Pond Willow", and he wanted to take this opportunity to select rare talents, so he came to the palace examination of the imperial examination and raised this question to a group of candidates. In fact, Qianlong has his own way of judging in his heart, this upper link looks unremarkable, but carefully consider the words of this sentence, you will find that the left side of these five words is gold, wood, water, fire and earth, while the simple five words create a kind of Jiangnan water town, beautiful and beautiful picture, so the lower link not only has to be beautiful sentences, but also corresponds to the five elements of the upper link, which is extremely difficult for the candidates on the scene. Most of the candidates on the scene were thinking hard, and at this time, one candidate chose to give up after thinking for a moment, and it was his move that made him the first place in this year's imperial examination.
On the hall examination field, Qianlong already knew that no one in this couplet would hand over a satisfactory answer sheet, and what he wanted to judge was the candidate's handling method and true level. In fact, Qianlong chose this candidate who gave up for no reason, and being able to see the difficulty of putting on the league at first glance and quickly thinking about the results is naturally a person with real learning, and at the same time being able to stop doing useless things and wasting time in time is a great advantage. Such candidates have both a clever mind and a neat approach, which is the real talent in Qianlong's heart.
This good story is widely circulated among the people, and Qianlong's practice is really ingenious, abandoning the previous selection method, which is also an extremely enlightened practice. Qianlong's uplink, later generations believe that the most suitable is "smoke lock pond willow, cannon town Haicheng Tower".