Chapter 40 Chapter 39 The Imperial Examination System in the Yuan Dynasty

In the Yuan Dynasty, scholars of the Han nationality were also treated as slaves like ordinary civilians.Later, Qiu Chuji, a real person in Changchun, gained the belief of Genghis Khan, and his disciples were exempted from taxation and labor. Quanzhen Buddhism became popular, and most of the literati who were persecuted by the Mongols believed in it. Later, some of the Yuan people who understood Sinicization advised the Yuan people's authorities, and the Han scholars were slightly relieved.For example, during the reign of Emperor Taizong of the Yuan Dynasty, 4,030 Huai and Shu scholars were captured as slaves, and a quarter of them were exempted from slavery.Another example is that after Yuan Shizu acquired Ezhou, there were more than 500 captive scholars who were redeemed.

During the reign of Emperor Taizong of the Yuan Dynasty, Yelu Chucai said: "You must use good craftsmen to make utensils, and you must use Confucian officials to assist government affairs. It is not easy to train a Confucian official, and you must accumulate decades of experience." Therefore, the Yuan government will follow the county examination. The Confucians were captured as slaves in order to assist in governing government affairs.So Confucianism in the south moved to the north with the help of these captives.In the second year of Huangqing Emperor Renzong of Yuan Dynasty, the imperial examination was held, and it was stipulated that the Mongols and Semu people took the "Great Learning", "Mencius" and "The Doctrine of the Mean", named "Five Articles of Jingwen", which was annotated with Zhuzi's chapters and sentences.In the second test, we will use current affairs to make questions.The Han people and the Southerners studied the Mingjing, and also used the above four classics. The other one examined the meaning of the scriptures, and each treated one classic. One of the three classics of "Shangshu" and "Zhouyi" was selected, and Zhu Zi's annotations were the main ones. In addition to using ancient commentaries, there are also ancient Fu and strategies for textual research, history, and current affairs.This system lasted until the end of the Qing Dynasty, when the imperial examination began to use the four scriptures to select scholars.There is also the provincial system, which also started at this time.These two systems have influenced the Ming and Qing dynasties for six hundred years.

However, in the Yuan Dynasty, the number of opening courses to obtain scholars was very small, and the holding time was not long.It has been nearly 40 years since the death of Song Dynasty that Emperor Renzong of the Yuan Dynasty started his studies to obtain scholars.The imperial examination was held every three years, from Emperor Shun to the first year of the Yuan Dynasty, and the imperial examination was suspended for only 20 years.In the fifth year of the Yuan Dynasty, there were no more than 20 imperial examinations. According to the book "Continued Tongdian", in the Yuan Dynasty, only one percent of the people held official positions from Jinshi, and nine out of ten people rose from minor officials to prominent officials.When Emperor Shun stopped the imperial examination, Xu Youren fought for it with the authorities, claiming that 73 people were promoted for free from April to September of this year, while the imperial examination only recruited more than 30 people a year, but the results were not great.

According to the twenty-eight volumes of "Stop Farming Records", the Jiangsu-Zhejiang Township Examination was exposed to be fraudulent, which has lost the original purpose of the examination! In short, the Yuan Dynasty ruled China for more than a hundred years. They have never been able to accept the traditional cultural regime since the Qin and Han Dynasties, and their political consciousness has always had the smell of feudal armed forces.Although the Mongols once dominated Europe and Asia, they gave up their rule over China under the resistance of the Han people.