The imperial examination system is a system for selecting talents and scholars in China. In ancient times, Japan, Korea, Viet Nam and other countries with close exchanges with China were also deeply affected.
The selection of officials is based on wealth and assets, which existed as early as the Qin Dynasty. When Emperor Hui of Han elected officials, he said, "If you don't give them credit, you won't get credit." . In the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, the procuratorial system came into being. The "inspection system" began in Emperor Hui of Han Dynasty and was customized by Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty. After moral inspection, he will be recommended to be an official.
In the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Shang Shu ordered Zuo Xiong to change the accusation system, increase the examination, and Confucian scholars tried to learn Confucian classics, while civil servants tried to play the chapter method. If they fail, filial piety is abolished and the recommending officials are investigated. After the fall of Chen Nan, the imperial examination system in Sui and Tang Dynasties entered the historical stage.
The imperial examination in the Tang Dynasty has a remarkable feature-the papers don't paste names, so reputation is very important for candidates. At that time, the imperial examination was very important and sensitive for candidates because it didn't paste the name. At that time, many examiners colluded and cheated for personal gain.
In the Song Dynasty, the annual Jinshi examination in the Tang Dynasty was changed to once every three years, but the number of places admitted each time was ten times more than that in the Tang Dynasty. And paste the name of the report card in parallel, and abolish the recommendation residue. Zheng Qiao in the Southern Song Dynasty said in his Tongzhi that the dynasties "chose scholars regardless of their family background". The first is to test the "strategic theory". The second is to test "Poetry".
In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu annotated four books and five classics as official books, and selected scholars with eight-part essay propositions. This style, with the pursuit of "carrying Tao", has a formula of enlightenment, inheritance, transformation and integration. Talking about current events with the words of a generation of saints is helpful to cultivate Confucian morality, and at the same time, it also allows marking officials to have a unified standard to judge their own merits. In the Ming Dynasty, three years was called Dabi.
Maintaining certain mobility is indispensable for social stability and development, and the imperial examination in Ming Dynasty provided institutional guarantee for this mobility. The innovation of the imperial examination system in the Ming Dynasty made it a model of connecting the past with the future, and it was completely inherited by the Qing Dynasty.
Eight-part essay is a literary form. "Selected Records of Ming History": "I specially selected four books and five propositions: Book of Changes, Calligraphy, Poetry, Spring and Autumn Annals and Book of Rites." "Its text is slightly like the meaning of the Song people, but the voice of the ancients is it, which is called stereotyped writing, which is called restraint." Yuan Zhongdao's Preface to Writing: "Although the prose of the time is a small skill, those who want to express their anger cannot but smell it."