In the Qing Dynasty, the imperial examination was roughly divided into four levels: the children's examination, the township examination, the meeting examination and the temple examination. Among them, the temple examination is the most advanced examination in the imperial examination, and it is also the beginning of the scholar's career. Therefore, both the emperor and the test takers themselves attach great importance to this.
In order to prevent cheating in the temple examination process, a complete and strict set of palace examination procedures was formed during the Qianlong period. In the early Qing Dynasty, the examination will be held in February, the list will be issued in March, and the temple examination will be held in early April. On the day before the temple examination, the emperor selected 2 university scholars and 6 ministers to serve as reading officials.
After the reading officer was ordered, he secretly drafted the examination questions, immediately sent them to the emperor for examination and approval, and was monitored by the superintendent Yushi on the spot, and the cabinet secretary wrote the examination questions on yellow paper, and let the craftsmen engrave and print them in the cabinet lobby that night. During the printing, the commander of the escort army led the escort military school and others to close the internal and external doors and conduct strict inspections, and did not lift martial law until the next morning when the printing was completed.
Despite such a strict examination system, it is not worth the absurd and casual selection system. In addition to this, there will actually be factors that ordinary people do not know, in fact, the name of the test taker is one of the important factors.
During the Daoguang years, Dai Changfen won the first title. According to legend, the title of his gold list was all accidental: in that temple examination, the original first place in the first division was Shi Qiu. When the emperor approved it, the Daoguang Emperor looked at the name Shi Qiu, how Shi Qiu read like a "death row prisoner", which was also too unlucky, so he hooked him up and did not admit him. Later, when the Daoguang Emperor saw the ninth place in the second division, he was overjoyed and immediately raised his pen to point out Dai Changfen as a champion.
Why is the name Dai Changfen good? Because the ninth (heaven and earth) of the Qing Dynasty, Dai Dai (generation) Lan Fen, is not the meaning of Dai Changfen's name. However, a good name and good meaning could not stop the disillusionment of the Qing Dynasty in the end.
In the examination of Cixi's seventieth birthday, officials were more concerned about auspicious signs. Therefore, the examiners sent by the imperial court to preside over the township examination were Li Zheming, Liu Pengnian, Zhang Xingji, Wu Qingdi, Dashou, Jing Yongchang, Qian Nengxun, and Luo Chengjun, and the names of these eight people were connected to form: "Next year's auspicious celebration, Shoujing can become". These eight examiners are really grateful to their parents who have given their names. This is not nothing, there is more interesting: among the people who took the temple examination, they found a person with a name of "Shou" as the champion, Wang Shoupeng, which also indicated that Cixi could prolong her life.
Wang Shoupeng won the title because he had a good name, but because of this, some people will regret it for life because of his name. Later, there was a person named Wang Guojun, listening to this name called this is quite good, Guo Jun, the heavy responsibility of the country, but when the palace examination was held that year, Wang Guojun originally had a very ideal examination result, and the tragic thing was that Cixi read his name and said: "This name is too similar to the pronunciation of "Fallen Monarch", unlucky and unlucky..." Therefore, Wang Guojun was ruined for life.
There was another man named Fan Mingxuan, who also passed the top ten in the temple examination, but the Xianfeng Emperor only gave him the status of a cabinet secretary because his name was pronounced too similar to "poor among all the people", which was a bad sign.
In the thirty years of Guangxu, when the last temple examination in history was held, the pronunciation and meaning of the name still played a great role. When Cixi received the list and began to read it, she began to frown: "The first Zhu Ruzhen? The surname "Zhu" reminded her of Hong Xiuquan of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, who had changed the law, and Sun Yat-sen, a revolutionary. In addition, she killed Zhenfei and cared very much about the word "Zhen". Looking at the second Liu Chunlin, the name is indeed a good meaning, it was a great drought at that time, and everyone was looking forward to the next "Chunlin", so they changed the title to Liu Chunlin.