During the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a special group of people who held certain official positions but still took the imperial examinations. This phenomenon was uncommon in Chinese history, and it was even rarer during the Song Dynasty.
These people are usually from scholarly families and are well-educated and educated, but their fate is not fixed to a position like their parents, but they hope to achieve a higher social status through their own efforts.
Among them, the most well-known is the writer and poet Lu You. His father, Lu Dian, was a high-ranking official who had served as the secretary of the Dali Temple, but he did not see this as his only way out. On the contrary, he firmly believed that only by studying could he change his fate, so he devoted himself to the imperial examination as a teenager and successfully passed the Jinshi examination.
For these officials, participating in the imperial examinations was not only to improve their social status, but also to preserve the honor of their families and the status of society. Because they know that only by becoming a true literati can they be respected and recognized by the world, and not just by virtue of power and wealth.
Of course, there are also some officials who do not take the imperial examination for such reasons. Some people just want to use it to find new opportunities or challenge themselves, while others want to prove their talent and abilities.
Whatever their purpose, they all showed the positive and courageous spirit of the people of the Song Dynasty. It also left a deep imprint on later history, allowing us to better understand the cultural and social context of that era.