Chapter 26 Examination System in Chinese History-3

three Sui and Tang were unified, and this system was completely abolished.At that time, there were also those who advocated the restoration of the Han Dynasty's township elections and Li elections, and still handed over the power of inspection and election to the chief executives of various places.However, in the Han Dynasty, this system had disadvantages.The election of the local governor was not true, the rich and powerful were entrusted, and the government was indiscriminately promoted. Therefore, after the election, the government had to go through another examination and inspection.How about abolishing the formalities of the chief inspector, making it completely open, allowing people from all over the country to judge their intelligence, report freely, and go directly to the government for examination and employment?This is the origin of the official transition from the electoral system to the examination system in Chinese history.If we consider the Han Dynasty as the leading period of the examination system in Chinese history, then the Sui and Tang Dynasties are the establishment period of the examination system in Chinese history.In the Han Dynasty, elections were accompanied by examinations, while in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, elections were completely replaced by examinations.

However, in the Tang Dynasty, the employment of personnel was not based solely on examinations, and there was still a school background.However, the school accepts employment on a yearly basis, and all of them graduate when they reach the end of the year.The examination is an open election, and there may be those who take the examination forever but are not selected.Therefore, society attaches great importance to examinations and not to schools.Talented people compete to stand out in the examinations, so the school system is gradually not favored by talented people.In the Tang Dynasty, the examination was divided into two steps. First, the Ministry of Rites took the main examination. After being admitted, if you failed to become an official, you had to pass the examination by the Ministry of Officials before you were officially recruited.Since the examination is to acquire talents, it is difficult to rely on the strengths of a day. Therefore, the examination in the Tang Dynasty was extremely liberal.When candidates go to the central government, they often bring their daily poems and essays with them. Among the chief executives of the central government, they are famous for their academic articles and are the most important ones at that time, such as Han Changli and his like.This work is called the public volume. If you are an academic celebrity among the central officials, if you have outstanding talents, you will be admitted when the exam is released.

The examinations in the Tang Dynasty mainly selected well-known people.There are also examiners who are self-restraining and modest, thinking that for this exam, the examinees do not know much about their daily knowledge and articles, and they can entrust others to draw up the list, which was called "Tong Bang" in the Tang Dynasty.The most famous ones, such as Yuan Shu's application, the examiner Du Huangshang kindly drafted the list, and Yuan Shu listed himself as the number one champion.You should know that the national examination is originally for seeking talents.Officials who serve the government, if they are sure that there are outstanding people among the candidates, they will first extend their reputation, which is not the same as doing private business.The chief examiner, Gou Ziwen, is not familiar with the newcomers in the academic world, and entrusting others to determine the rankings does not mean that he is irresponsible.Traditional Chinese politics is maintained and presided over by a moral spirit, and various systems are established based on a certain spirit behind it.It is because the government has a genuine spirit of seeking talents that the election system and examination system emerged and established.If the government doesn't have this spirit at all, how can there be such a system?

The origin of modern Western democratic politics was precisely because the government at that time did not pay attention to people's sentiments and wanted to collect money. The people asked the government to allow taxpayers to elect representatives, review the budget, pass the tax amount, and review their final accounts. This is how it is deduced. party politics.The Chinese government, since the Han Dynasty, has paid attention to seeking talents from all over the country to participate in politics together.Moreover, the entire government is organized by the talents obtained from this generation.Except for the emperor, all the people in the government, from the prime minister down, were all elected through examinations from various places.Therefore, some people in the Tang Dynasty said that the minister of the Ministry of Rites was more important than the prime minister.Because the prime minister must also be admitted through the national public examination, and then be promoted through the ranks to become a prime minister.The right to take the exam is in the hands of the minister of the Ministry of Rites. Without the hands of the minister of the Ministry of Rites, he will never be able to enter an official career or become a prime minister.Doesn't this mean that the minister of the Ministry of Rites has more weight than the prime minister?If you don't understand the traditional spirit of China and talk about its system in vain, you will definitely not understand the truth and true meaning of these various systems.By the same token, if we do not have the spirit of Westerners and copy their systems out of thin air, we will never be able to achieve the same results as their systems.

Examinations in the Tang Dynasty mainly focused on poetry and prose, and there are various reasons for this level.First of all, like the countermeasures of the Han Dynasty, he asked questions about the outline of real politics.However, political issues have a scope. Exams are held every year, and applicants can try to prepare for it.There are endless topics in poems and fu, and the clumsiness of workmanship is easy to see. Although it is romantic, we can not only see the depth of its utterance, but also measure the level of its mind.Zhu Qingxu's poem "Shangzhangshuibu": "Last night, the red candles were stopped in the bridal chamber, and I worshiped my uncle and aunt before Xiaotang. After putting on makeup, I asked my husband and son-in-law in a low voice, whether the thrush is deep or not?" A little poem is attached.But how romantic the idea is, how noble the wording is.Poetry and prose was one of the best intellectual and psychological tests at that time.

There were two most important subjects in the imperial examinations in the Tang Dynasty: one was the Jinshi subject, which mainly focused on poetry and prose.One is Mingjing, which examines the meaning of the scriptures.But the test is only sticking scriptures and ink meanings.Pasting the scriptures is to paste a few words out of the scriptures and make them fill in.Mo Yi asked questions about the upper and lower sentences of the scriptures, or the Chinese language of the annotations, and asked them to answer.This is also a kind of test.However, once you study the classics, the number of words is limited, and you can recite them in a few years, and it is not easy to distinguish between superior and inferior, and to determine talents.In general, the Jinshi examination in the Tang Dynasty was aimed at seeking real talents.Examining the scriptures is designed to reward people for reading the scriptures.Scholars are like the virtuous in the Han Dynasty, and Mingjing is like the filial piety in the Han Dynasty.The society of the Tang Dynasty attached great importance to Jinshi, and the Jinshi department became the trend of talents, while Mingjing was looked down upon by people.Talented people tend to go to the Jinshi department, and the natural government can only reuse Jinshi.Because of the continuation of this system, the society’s favorites are all concentrated in the rhythm of poetry and prose. The so-called: "Familiar anthology, full of scholars; poor anthology, half scholar." This is the trend of the situation, and it is not the government's intention to use this Useless poems and literary arts are used to waste people's energy and bury talents.Later generations were puzzled, and said by themselves.This has nothing to do with the original intention of implementing the system at that time.

However, the examination system in the Tang Dynasty also had its flaws.In the Han Dynasty, one should be educated at the national university first, then the practice results of the local service, and then take the examination after the inspection, so as to find talents, there are three steps.In the Tang Dynasty, only one examination was used, which was not as precise as the Han people.However, in the early Tang Dynasty, the Damendi was very powerful, and the children were raised in the Damendi. They not only received strict family etiquette, such as Liu's family precepts, but also had political common sense, such as the example of Wang's green box handed down in the Southern Dynasties. , It is easy for young people of this generation to take the exam and become useful.The examination system is only a system for selecting talents, not a system for cultivating talents.After this system has been implemented for a long time, civilian society, poor children, living in monasteries, ten years of cold windows, can also jump to the top.Gradually, the family status declined, and the entire government was transferred to the hands of civilian society.However, these common people did not have the etiquette of family traditions, let alone political common sense. Once they rise up and enter politics only by relying on poetry and rhythm, first, they are not proficient in political affairs, and second, they have no foundation in morality. Therefore, Jinshi was frivolous, which was criticized at that time.You should know that under the family education, there is an additional examination, so see the benefits of the examination.Now that the family background is declining, and there is no education and training, how can we select real talents only by examinations?It can be seen that only relying on a certain system without the coordination and connection of other systems, it is difficult for this system to be very effective.

Moreover, this system has been implemented for a long time, and more and more people apply for elections, but the number of admissions is limited, and the number of people who are awarded officials and rewards is even more limited.As a result, the number of people who took the test was a hundred times that of those who were admitted, and the number of people who were admitted was ten times that of those who became officials.As a result, the wind of running and competing became more and more fierce, forming parties and dividing friends, and each establishing a family, so there was a party struggle between Niu and Li in the Tang Dynasty.At that time, due to the background of party struggle, because of political openness, it aroused political enthusiasm in the society, so he turned to the personnel faction to find a way out.Li Deyu is one of the people who represent the power of family status. He strongly opposed the application and advocated that the government should use the children of the family status, and should not exclusively select frivolous and unrooted Jinshi.It cannot be said that he did not aim at the disadvantages of the times when he made this discussion at the time.However, the examination system, after all, is an open government, and it is what the public favors, and the power of family status will eventually collapse under the blow of this system.Li Deyu himself is a son of aristocrats. Although he has outstanding talents and has indeed made achievements in politics, how can he completely overthrow the system because of the abuse of the system?

Complementing the examination system in the Tang Dynasty, there was another method of performance appraisal for officials, which was called the examination class in the Han Dynasty, and the merit test in the Tang Dynasty.In the Tang Dynasty, talents were cultivated by family status, talents were selected by examinations, and talents were recruited by the merit examination system.All talents who pass the examination and are recruited have an objective merit examination system to be promoted and dismissed based on their merits.This system, from the Han to the Tang, was developed to be extremely detailed and applied to an extremely high level. This is a great political miracle in the Tang Dynasty.Due to the decline of family status, there is no place for talents to be cultivated, and there are many scholars, and they are divided into groups and parties, and it is difficult to strictly implement the examinations. Therefore, only relying on the examinations can neither select real talents nor make good use of them. They are warlords outside The separatist regime was a crony struggle for power inside, and the talents were frivolous and could not bear the actual big responsibility. The Tang Dynasty finally declined under such circumstances.