When it comes to ancient Chinese history, the imperial examination must be a topic that cannot be avoided, since the imperial examination system was established in the Sui Dynasty, after the reform of successive dynasties, it has become the most important and basic system for selecting talents in ancient China.
The length of the evolution of the imperial examination system and the complexity of the content are certainly not clearly described by the author here, so this article only talks about the progress and shortcomings of the imperial examination in the early days of its establishment, in the development process from the Tang Dynasty to the five generations.
The development of the imperial examination in the fifth dynasty of the Tang Dynasty
The imperial examination was originally produced in the Sui Dynasty, but often a nascent system will have various incompleteness, and the imperial examination is no exception, and it is full of the limitations of the times at the beginning of its establishment.
In the early Tang Dynasty, the examination system was also inherited, and the original Two Subjects of Xiucai and Jinshi were added to the Ming Classic, Ming Calculation, Ming Law and other subjects, and there were more specific provisions on the relevant rules of the examination, such as the time of the start and end of the examination, the number of examinations and the process of putting on the list, all of which had a more reasonable arrangement, including the increase in the verification, re-examination and supervision links of the Imperial Examination in the Tang Dynasty in order to increase the fairness of the Examination.
Then it was the middle of the Tang Dynasty, at this stage, the imperial examination became the main way for the imperial court to select talents, and the proportion of ordinary people who entered the imperial court was also increasing, and under this environment, these people began to form gangs and factions to form "friends".
In the late Tang Dynasty, due to social turmoil, the imperial examination was also affected to a certain extent, the first manifestation was the quantity and quality of the scholars, but the imperial examination system did not stop developing, first of all, the re-examination link was added for the suspected cheating scholars, that is, the real cheaters could be excluded from the examination team, and the loss of talent could be avoided by one size fits all and the loss of talent.
During the five generations period, the examination system continued to develop and improve. The examination and review of the content of the candidates' examinations is more rigorous, for example, "Zhigong Ju Zhang Wenbao's testers are not refined, and a penalty of one season" fully reflects the importance attached by the imperial court to this matter. At the same time, some improvements have also been made to the too frequent review, so that after the group of courtiers discusses whether a re-examination is required, the results of the discussion are fed back to the emperor, and finally the emperor nods and decides.
Progress and shortcomings in the development of the examination system
progressive
As mentioned above, in the process of the development of the imperial examination, various systems are constantly improving, which is mainly manifested in the picketing of favoritism and fraudsters, and the fairness of the examination is guaranteed through various reviews.
Secondly, in the middle and late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties period, the imperial court mainly encouraged the movers to enter the central embassy or enter the capital, and directly controlled the talents into their own hands, and at the same time, these lifters who directly handled affairs for the imperial court would have more room for promotion and their careers would be more open. In this way, the move will have a grateful heart for the imperial court, and it will have a very good effect in maintaining the rule of the imperial court.
Most of them were able to stand up for advice and even stand up during local turmoil, such as Zheng Quan in the middle of the Zhenyuan Dynasty
"Stand up into the white blade, resist the words and righteousness to rebel, because the number of people who killed its first rebels, the three armies were afraid to obey"
To a certain extent, these acts have stabilized local public order, strengthened the central government's rule over localities, and reduced the harm caused by war to the civilian population from the side.
malpractices
Of course, there are drawbacks, such as the concept of the main protégé developed by the imperial examination in the flourishing Tang Dynasty, which has been affecting the middle and late Tang Dynasty and the five dynasties, and the atmosphere of the imperial examination has been greatly affected. What is a "seat master"? That is to say, we are talking about the main examiner, and this concept that arose during the prosperous Tang Dynasty is also the habit of visiting the main examiner, and corruption will breed in the process, and even more through various relationships that cannot be beaten by eight rods, and these seriously affect the atmosphere of the examination.
After the release of the list, the candidates in the middle of the examination are considering the development of the future career, and will visit the main examiner to repay the favor of the main examiner in various ways, and the phenomenon of pulling gangs and factions gradually begins to appear, which also lays the groundwork for the formation of "friends" later.
Then the second drawback was that the clans who were dependent on the imperial power could not exert much influence to help the royal family govern the world. One of the main purposes of the imperial examination during the Tang Dynasty was to encourage the scholars of the major scholar clans to take the examination and become officials in the dynasty so that the emperor could better control the scholars, but in fact, with most of the elite of the scholars entering the dynasty as officials, the relationship between these out-of-the-ordinary scholars and the previous clans slowly weakened, and the occurrence of this phenomenon made the bureaucrats attached to the imperial power unable to exert much social influence, so that the most important political system of the Tang Dynasty (that is, the juntian system and the prefectural military system that ruled the common people through the bureaucratic group) were also affected.
In general, the development of the imperial examination system during the Five Dynasties of the Tang Dynasty brought some drawbacks, but the progress in this development is also very worthy of affirmation, which has made a good guide for the reform of later generations and has a very positive effect in the entire history of the imperial examination.
Resources:
"Examination of the Five Dynasties Examination System", "Old Book of Tang", "New Book of Tang" and so on