Chapter 24 Examination System in Chinese History-1

one In Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Constitution with five powers, one power of examination is specially set up. Its intention is to select talents and make up for the shortage of elections.Western electoral systems are limited only in terms of electors.In the United States, a learned university professor once ran against a truck driver and lost.The original intention of the election is how to obtain ideal talents so that they can fully represent public opinion.Relying solely on popular elections may not necessarily be able to make the best of talents.Therefore, Mr. Zhongshan advocated that there should be a limit to the electees, so he used examinations to make up for the shortcomings of the electoral system.He said: "All candidates for public office should first take the national public examination to obtain their qualifications for election." This intention is exactly in line with the Chinese historical tradition.The examination system in Chinese history originally evolved from the electoral system, and its intention was to make up for the shortcomings of the electoral system.Therefore, in Tang Duyou's "Tong Dian", the examination system is described under the item of election.Today we are going to talk about the examination system in Chinese history, we should still start with the election system.

There has been an electoral system very early in Chinese history, as far back as the Western Han Dynasty. Elections at that time can be roughly divided into three categories: (1) regular elections, (2) irregular elections, and (3) temporary elections.The purpose of the election is to hope that talents from all over the country will have the opportunity to participate in the government.Traditional Chinese political theory emphasizes responsibility rather than sovereignty.In theory, the main issue is not who owns the sovereignty of the government, but what kind of responsibility the government should bear.Since the government is expected to be responsible, it is necessary to select talents and talents from all over the country to participate in order to effectively shoulder the important responsibilities of the ideal government.Therefore, the first item in the election in the Han Dynasty was virtuousness, which in modern terms means outstanding talents.This election is not fixed. Whenever a new emperor takes over, or when there is a change in the sky, or when there is a big celebration, the government will issue an edict at any time, asking the ministers inside and outside the government ministries to list and recommend them based on what they know.Regardless of whether the elected person has been in office or not, after being elected, the government will ask questions on major political programs, and when they are selected as virtuous, each will answer the question and express his own opinion directly. This is called a virtuous strategy.The government selects and employs them based on their countermeasures.The second is filial piety, filial piety, honest officials, emphasizing virtues, not talents.The government pays equal attention to the virtues and talents in employing talents, but virtuousness is what the government needs, and filial piety implies advocating rewards.At that time, the social atmosphere valued virtuousness, and he was willing to be elected.He is quite contemptuous of Xiaolian.Emperor Wu issued an edict to punish all officials, saying that there were no filial sons and honest officials in the area under his jurisdiction, who could be elected by the country, and it could be proved that their duties were not fulfilled, so he ordered that those who failed to be promoted would be punished.Since then, the prefectures and states have inspected filial piety and honesty according to the year, which has become a story.Therefore, virtuousness is an irregular election, while filial piety is a regular election.In addition, due to the temporary need of special talents by the government, such as going on missions to remote areas, learning about water conservancy, and being able to control floods, etc.Generally speaking, the elections in the Western Han Dynasty mainly fall into these three categories.

Most of the official careers in the Han Dynasty were transferred from the Lang Department.The Lang Department is a group of guards in the imperial palace, most of the county and state officials, most of them advanced to the Lang Department and then transferred to official careers.In the Han Dynasty, there were more than one hundred prefectures and states. If one dutiful son and one honest official were selected according to the annual inspection, more than two hundred people would be selected to enter the Lang's office every year.At that time, the Lang Department had no fixed staff, and the total number would not exceed 3,000. If so, it would be less than 20 years, and the Lang Department was full, and there was no remaining balance.Since the government employs people first from the Lang Department, the Lang Department has a large number of people, so there is no need to seek outsiders. Therefore, the irregular elections and temporary elections of virtuous and talented talents will gradually become rare. Only regular elections are held every year, that is, Xiaolian One item became the only way to become an official in the Han Dynasty.This evolution had to be established in the Eastern Han Dynasty.

During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the Taixue system was newly established, and doctors of the Five Classics were established. Talents from the county and country, who were over 18 years old, had to be sent to Taixue as doctoral students.More than one year, that is, the exam.Branch A is a Lang, and Branch B is still returning to the original county as an official.If there are achievements in the administration of officials, they still have the hope of being promoted every year, and then enter the Lang's office in the name of filial piety.Therefore, in the official career in the Han Dynasty, one should first receive national education, and after graduation, transfer to the local government to serve. Only by virtue of their actual performance can they be eligible for election.

However, elections in the Han Dynasty were different from today's Western election systems. In the West, they were elected by the people, but in the Han Dynasty they were elected by officials.The magistrate must take into account public opinion and local material expectations, but the real election power is in the hands of the magistrate. This section is an important difference between Chinese and Western elections.However, under the traditional Chinese political theory, it also has its own position.Since the government is responsible for the people, and the people who actually participate in the government are all selected talents from all over the country, the government and the people have long been integrated, and the government is composed of the people in society.In theory, it cannot be said that a line of officials is unreliable.Official elections and popular elections have different procedures, and their purpose is to obtain talented people, so there is no difference.China is a vast rural country, directly elected by the people, there were various inconveniences at that time.Delegate its authority to the chiefs of various places, and let them consider public opinion and recommend talents.If the election is favoritism and incompetent, the government has its own responsibility to impeach.The government is made up of the people, and the government and the people are one.How do you say that the people are definitely yes, and the government is definitely not; popular elections must be reliable, but official elections must be unreliable; those in opposition can be trusted, but those in government cannot be trusted.Therefore, as far as traditional Chinese political theory is concerned, official elections in the Han Dynasty also had their own merits.

However, in the Han Dynasty, the county-state elections became the only proper way to become an official by the Eastern Han Dynasty. There were many contestants, and abuses were inevitable, so the government had to gradually impose restrictions.The first is the quota. In each county, those with a registered permanent residence of more than 200,000 will be given one Xiaolian, two for those with a household registration of more than 400,000, five for those with a household registration of more than one million, and one for those with a household registration of less than 200,000 every two years.Later, there was a system of limited years, and those who did not reach the prescribed age were not allowed to be elected.Afterwards, there will be another examination to check the education of the candidates.If so, the word filial piety and honesty became a name for obtaining the qualifications to participate in politics at that time, and it no longer corresponds to the original meaning of rewarding filial sons and honest officials.

The above is the outline of the electoral system in the Han Dynasty, and the examination system was established accordingly, such as the countermeasures for the virtuous, such as the imperial student examination, such as the official examination after Xiaolian was elected.However, this kind of examination is only an incidental item in the electoral system.The section about the selection of Xiaolian candidates who should be subject to government examinations was created by Zuo Xiong, a fashion book at that time.There were many opponents successively.However, because Zuo Xiong finally insisted on this new system, he saw that he had recorded a real talent, so this system was finally followed, and it was abolished without opposition.