"Ten years of sharpening a sword, once famous all over the world", this sentence vividly depicts the living conditions of most people in ancient times. In a society with strict hierarchies and relatively closed transportation and information, the only way to get ahead was through the imperial examination system.
In order to select talents, the emperor of the Sui Dynasty held imperial examinations throughout the country, which enabled many poor students to emerge. The Tang Dynasty continued and improved the imperial examination system while adding it"Wuju", through the investigation of martial arts, a group of martial arts talents were selected.
Wuju originated during the reign of Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in the history of our country. Ruling under the dominance of a patriarchal society, Wu Zetian faced many potential difficulties, and these unfavorable factors eventually contributed to the emergence of martial arts.
Therefore, after Wu Zetian took power, it caused the dissatisfaction of the courtiers, and hostile forces also arose in various places. In order to consolidate his rule, Wu Zetian adopted a tough hand and resolutely eradicated these hostile forces inside and outside the super-dynasty.
However, due to the fact that most of the military officers who fought against each other at that time were military attachés, the Tang Dynasty was lacking in generals. Wu Zetian's resolute attitude in handling the problem caused everyone in the court to be in danger, and in order to protect themselves, they had no choice but to frame others and even fall into the ground.
In order to consolidate his throne, Wu Zetian took a series of measures to reduce some of the forces in the court and carried out a large-scale reduction of military attachés. However, the empress's accession to the throne attracted the attention of the border ethnic minorities, and the Xiongnu, Turkic and other ethnic minorities in the Tang Dynasty took the opportunity to harass, triggering border wars and rebellions among some generals.
This incident made Wu Zetian deeply aware of the importance of military power, so he began to pay attention to the training of military generals, and set up martial arts on the basis of the original imperial examination system, and the selection was more strict.
After careful consideration, Wu Zetian hoped to further enhance the military strength of the Tang Dynasty and protect the country's frontier security by reforming the imperial examination system.
The ancient martial arts system was not open to everyone, and it severely limited the qualifications for participation. The participants are mainly from two groups of people: one is the students of national schools, who need to be selected and qualified to be eligible to participate in the ** martial arts examination; Second, students who do not take the exam in these schools but have excellent grades also need to pass the exam before they can participate.
This model has already taken the prototype of our modern school, and the apprentice is equivalent to the internal examination of the affiliated school of the university, and the township tribute is equivalent to the qualification of the university to be assigned to the local area to absorb cutting-edge talents.
Of course, all of this needs to be rigorously vetted and selected. After the qualification review and assignment of martial arts, the preparation of the entire process and subjects begins. After passing the preliminary selection, they will be dispatched to participate in the provincial examination organized by the Ministry of War, which is richer in content, but there is a certain overlap with the primary selection, similar to the current repetition of the test center in junior and senior high schools.
We started with flat archery, followed by mounted archery, and finally foot archery, each of which has its own characteristics, but all revolves around the basic skills of archery. "
In ancient times, a person's speech and demeanor would directly affect his career, just like the interview now, it was the last part of all exams. After passing the martial arts exam, there is usually a period of time for you to report to the military department, which is called "sue", that is, to obtain the qualification to be an official.
Subsequently, based on your performance in the martial arts exam, you will be awarded the corresponding official position. The martial champion who won the first place is usually awarded the guard of the third rank, and the Bangyan and Tanhua are awarded the guard of the fourth rank respectively, second only to the martial champion.
The next ten will be awarded the Fifth Rank Guard, and so on, until the last sixteen will be awarded the Sixth Rank Blue Feather Guard, and the rest will be kept as a backup.
Although they are all guards, they look more like bodyguards. However, the higher the rank, the more opportunities. For example, a guard of the rank of Zhengsanpin or higher has more opportunities to come into contact with the emperor, which gives them the opportunity to show themselves in front of the emperor and increase the likelihood of promotion.
It is even possible to be made a royal guard. And for the lower-ranked guards, although they may not be able to enter**, they still have the opportunity to stay in the barracks, and although it is far from the imperial court, there is a complete promotion system.
If these martial artists who have performed well in the barracks or have made obvious meritorious contributions after three months of evaluation, according to their military performance, they can be directly awarded official positions and transferred back to ** posts, although the positions may not be high.
Therefore, the strict selection of martial arts has made very few people finally pass the examination, and the comprehensive requirements have increased the number of subjects in the martial arts examination, and the overall similarities with modern examinations have been similar.
However, martial arts is more complex than modern exams, but the corresponding official positions are more selective.