The hardships of entering the Tang Dynasty, the secrets of the official examination questions, and the difficult and dangerous road to the workplace
Yesterday, I wrote an article about the new governor of the Qing Dynasty, and some readers left a different opinion, suggesting that I write about the Tang Dynasty, which is a scientific prize. Let's take this opportunity to reflect on some of the basic circumstances of the imperial examination in the Tang Dynasty.
of the Tang Dynasty'Imperial Examinations'There are several names.
The Tang Dynasty was a strong, prosperous, and open dynasty, and since the Sui Dynasty began to implement the imperial examinations, the Tang Dynasty entered a period of rapid development. The imperial examinations in the Tang Dynasty were roughly divided into:"Changke"with"Subject", there are a lot of topics.
For example, there are six main subjects: Xiucai, Mingjing, Jinshi, Mingfa, calligraphy, and Mingsuan. Xiucai was the earliest subject established in the Tang Dynasty, and it was also the subject with the highest legal status and the most difficult. Due to the difficulty of the Xiucai section and the small number of middle lifters, the Xiucai section was abolished in the second year of Yonghui.
There are many forms of the Xiucai system, some as many as 63, but the content of the subjects is roughly the same, and some are only slightly different. The purpose of the imperial examination is to select literary talents.
In the Tang Dynasty, the most enthusiastic people still attended the Ming Jing and Jinshi courses. The Ming Jing course is an examination based on Confucian scriptures. Ancient Chinese rulers valued the Confucian classics to unify their thoughts, so they used scriptures as a means of selecting students. Although the names of those who passed the Ming Jing examination are not recorded in the various records of the Tang Dynasty, the number of people who passed the Ming Jing examination in each chapter was mostly around 100, and they were usually appointed as middle and lower ranks**.
The Ming Jing was an important common subject in the imperial examination in the early Tang Dynasty, when the imperial examination only tested the Five Classics and current affairs, and the number of words in the article was used as the admission standard. In a society that valued literature over military force, the prestige of the imperial examinations grew, and many of those who passed the examinations soon rose to the upper echelons of the imperial court. Hence the fact that it came later"The Ming Sutra is thirty, and the Less Sutra is fifty"no matter how difficult it is.
The imperial examination system in the Tang Dynasty was not perfect, and the imperial examination was only a way to select talents, not the main guidance, so many people still entered the officialdom through inspection and general examination. In addition, the imperial examination in the Tang Dynasty was still very loose and lacked ranks, that is, candidates had an unsightly relationship with the Zhigong Juren (chief examiner) through various relationships, and often a specific grade had been determined before the examination, and whoever could rank first was the champion.
From being promoted to being an official, the road is long.
In the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties, the middle lifter could be directly appointed as **. While the Qing Dynasty had a waiting period, one thing was certain: if the conditions were favorable to the winner, he or she would sooner or later be appointed as **.
The situation in the Tang Dynasty was completely different, in the Tang Dynasty, whether it was the Jinshi examination or the Ming Jing examination, it could only be regarded as a qualification document, a kind of called"Origin"Eligibility. If you want to really enter the official career, you must pass an important re-examination - the official examination, and only by passing the official examination can you obtain an official position.
What is the main test of the Criminal Department Examination?Main exams"Body, speech, book, and judgment"Four items. The body refers to the physical appearance, the speech refers to the ability to express oral language, the calligraphy refers to the level of calligraphy, and the judgment refers to the judgment of rhetorical cases. The most important of these are books and judgments, especially judgments.
In the early years of the Tang Dynasty, the criminal departments of some prefectures and counties used to take some doubtful cases to test whether the candidates were capable of handling government affairs. This situation was the same as in the imperial examinations after the middle of the Qing Dynasty, where strange questions often appeared.
It is very difficult for Jinshi to pass the examination of Guozijian, so it often requires a lot of preparation. For example, after passing the Jinshi exam, Bai Juyi studied hundreds of questions in this regard, some of which were included in the "Bai Juyi Collection". Here are two things about"Judgment"Questions:
Question 1 Zhang wanted to marry his daughter to Zhao, Zhao had already paid the dowry, but Zhang wanted to give up, so Zhao went to the government to sue Zhang for not fulfilling the marriage contract, but Zhang said that he did not enter into a marriage contract. How should this case be decided?
Question 2 A's cow hits and kills B's cow, and B demands compensation from A. A said that the cow was killed while grazing in the field. A claimed that the cow was killed while grazing in the field and demanded half of the compensation, but B did not agree. How to decide?
The above two questions are one of the most difficult, and they are not only related to the applicable laws and regulations, how to adjudicate, how to write, and a certain amount of confirmation fees, but also reflect the political level of the examiner. After all, Zhijinshi lacked practical experience and did not understand the world, so he had to memorize other people's judgments to cope.
More importantly, due to the lack of effective supervision and standardized regulations, the examination of the Criminal Department has been exploited by many snobs, who abuse their power for personal gain and engage in favoritism. During the Tang Zhongzong period, there were two criminal department ** colluded with each other, and the criminal department deliberately only passed a small number of people in each exam, so that those who failed the list continued to take the exam several times a year, and some even took the exam for several years in a row. For the Ministry of Justice**, the more exams passed, the more bribes are received.
A case reported by Tongdian Daily also pointed out that during the period of Tang Zhongzong, the criminal department with the right to select ** accepted a large number of ** bribes and issued bribes indiscriminately, so that all the ** places in the past three years were used up, and there were three or four thousand non-** people in each yamen and many ** did not even have a place to sit.
In fact, the gold content of protégés in the Tang Dynasty was generally inferior to that of the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties. Even if you can enter the Criminal Department, generally speaking, the civil service is not high, and they are all from the ninth rank, which is the lowest rank among the nine rank officials. This is mainly because the imperial examination in the Tang Dynasty did not have a stable system, and there was no national method for selecting talents, so there were various drawbacks.