As the highest level of the ancient Chinese imperial examination, the status of jinshi has always made the world's readers flock to it, and being able to enter the jinshi can also be regarded as touching the "ceiling" on the road of learning.
However, the same high school jinshi is strictly divided into three different levels according to the grade ranking, namely "jinshi and the first", "jinshi birth" and "tongjinshi origin". What are the differences between these three grades that seem to be the same but are actually different?
The ancient imperial examination is graded and explained in detail
From "merit-based admission" to "full recruitment"
Originating in the Sui Dynasty and founded by the Sui Emperor Yang Guang, the imperial examination system was carried forward and gradually flourished during the Tang and Song dynasties, reaching maturity and peak in the Ming and Qing dynasties. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the imperial examination was divided into four grades, namely the children's examination, the township examination, the meeting examination, and the temple examination.
The child examination is held in the state and county, and the test is Xiucai.
The township examination is generally held in the provincial capitals of the provinces, and the participants are Xiucai, and the examination is to lift people.
In the following year, the person who raised the person could enter Beijing to participate in the examination organized by the Ministry of Ceremonies, and the winner was a tribute.
And these carefully selected tributes had the honor of participating in the next highest-level examination presided over by the emperor himself, the temple examination, and the winner was a jinshi.
In the second year of the Wanli Calendar (1574), the painting shows the scene of the Ming Dynasty Gongyuan holding an examination
During the Northern Song Dynasty, the elimination rate of the temple examination was relatively high, until a reader named Zhang Yuan appeared. After becoming a Gongshi, this person repeatedly participated in the temple examination and ended in failure, and finally defected to the Western Xia, a sworn enemy of the Northern Song Dynasty, in a fit of rage, and was highly used by the Western Xia Emperor Li Yuanhao, all the way to Xiangguo. In the future, this person repeatedly offered advice and suggestions against the Song Dynasty, causing considerable trouble and losses to the Great Song. Song Renzong recognized the seriousness of this problem, and in order to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future, he reformed the temple examination and abolished the elimination system, which means that as long as they can participate in the temple examination, they can eventually become jinshi.
This policy was also accepted by later rulers and continued until the Ming and Qing dynasties.
《Ming Zhuangyuan Tu kao》
The strict "rank of the soldiers"
Of course, full recruitment is one thing, but the division of rankings cannot be ambiguous at all. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the number of jinshi recruited by each temple trial was about one hundred to three hundred, and all of them were divided into three distinct grades according to the ranking of achievements.
The first grade is called "first class", only the top three, that is, we are familiar with the champion, the list eye, the tanhua, they are called "jinshi and the first", can be described as the jinshi in the jinshi.
The whereabouts of these three are naturally not ordinary, and they can be directly granted official positions. The title can be directly awarded to the Hanlin Academy for compilation (from the six products), while the list eye and tanhua can also be awarded to the Hanlin Academy for editing (正七品). The Hanlin Academy has always had a special and important position in ancient Chinese politics, not only to revise history and write articles, but also to help the emperor deal with major military affairs, write chapters, and read for members of the royal family. Serving here can not only get full experience, but also get close to the opportunity to make friends with the imperial family and important courtiers, which is of great benefit to the future career.
Therefore, the three in the first division can be said to be already ahead of the starting line at the beginning of their careers.
Qing, ivory carved Hanlin courtyard waist plate
Next is the second grade, the so-called "second class". The number of people is about forty or fifty people. This group of people is called "jinshi birth".
The first name of the second division is called "Chuanxu" (in fact, it is also the fourth place in the overall ranking), and can also be directly awarded the official position of Hanlin Yuanzheng Qipin. But the rest of the people were not so lucky, they could not directly obtain official positions, and they had to pass a new examination to enter the Hanlin Academy, but they could only obtain the status of "Shu Jishi", equivalent to interns, and only after passing the examination could they be awarded positions such as editing or editing, or to other central or local departments. Because of this, the Erjia Jinshi called the Yijia Jinshi who could directly become an official "Heavenly Immortal" and laughed at themselves as "halfway cultivation".
But in fact, these second-class soldiers still have a lot of privileges, for example, they can give priority to their own places and positions, and they can also give priority to "ranking" when official positions are "scarce". Because of this, these people were called "tiger classes" by the official circles at that time.
A symbol of the status of officials in the Qing Dynasty, a must-have for entering the examination hall of the Imperial Examination, and an ink cartridge with a combination of pen and ink
As for the remaining jinshi, they are called the three jinshi, they are called "tongjinshi", somewhat similar to today's "enjoy the same academic treatment" and the like, from the name of the gold content is a lot worse.
Compared with the first and second divisions, they did not even have the qualifications and opportunities to enter the Hanlin Academy, and they could only go to local posts, and they could only choose from the official positions and places that were selected by the second-class "tiger class" jinshi, and the results were naturally imaginable.
The Purple Light Pavilion was built in the Ming Dynasty, and the Qing Dynasty was the place where the emperor paraded and tested martial arts
It is worth noting that the palace examination in the Ming Dynasty also paid great attention to the content of the article, and in the Qing Dynasty, it paid more attention to formalism, attached great importance to the calligraphy of the candidates, and more limitedly, you must be able to write the official pavilion style small letters well to gain favor, and the other fonts were written well. Therefore, in the Qing Dynasty, calligraphy was often more important than the article, and it was quite inverted.
The Qing Dynasty academic master Gong Zizhen was full of talent, but because of the average level of calligraphy, the temple examination only took a top three "tongjinshi origin" and could not enter the Hanlin Academy, perhaps this experience made him later issue a sigh of "I advise tiangong to shake again and demote talents in an eclectic manner".
Cai Yuanpei, who later served as the first minister of education of the Republic of China and the president of Peking University for 10 years, after participating in the examination of gongshi, because he felt that his calligraphy was not good enough to affect the ranking of the temple examination, he actually proposed to the imperial court to suspend his participation in the temple examination, and after getting permission, he went home to practice calligraphy, and re-participated in the palace examination two years later, and finally won the second-class "jinshi birth".
Cai Yuanpei
Test scores aren't the only criteria for determining careers
The strict and meticulous division of ranks and the clear starting point of appointment seem to make people feel that many poorly ranked jinshi have lost at the starting line. In fact, during the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were not many elites in the first ranks, especially the champions, who really left their names in history, and many of them neither sought high positions in the official career, nor left a reputation in academic articles, and eventually spent their lives in a small official position.
However, many second-class and even third-class soldiers have finally achieved fame and made a great achievement.
For example, Zhang Juzheng of the Ming Dynasty, that is, the second-class jinshi, finally served as the first assistant of the cabinet, which was equivalent to not being a chancellor, and carried out reforms that have been famous for thousands of years; Li Hongzhang, the "Lord of the Middle Hall" of the Qing Dynasty, was also born of the second-class jinshi, while his mentor, Zeng Guofan, who was known as the "perfect man of a generation", was only a "tongjinshi from the top three", so that even if Zeng Guofan became the governor of Liangjiang and became the leader of the Xiang Army, he was grumpy about this matter.
Zuo Zongtang (1812-1885), zi ji gao
As for Zuo Zongtang, another important minister of the Qing court, he was only admitted to the rank of a scholar, and did not even touch the side of the jinshi, but this did not prevent him from becoming a feudal official with his outstanding merits (Empress Dowager Cixi specially granted him the status of a jinshi in recognition of his merits).
It can be seen that in ancient China, the employment of personnel still attached great importance to the comprehensive ability and quality of officials, and did not simply use the results of scientific examinations to "determine a lifetime."
References: The Epitome of Empire: Yamen in Chinese History, by Guo Jian, Xuelin Publishing House