Sui, Tang and Song Dynasties

When Yang Di was in the Sui Dynasty, the imperial examination was divided into two subjects, one was Mingjing and the other was Shi Zhuan. Although the number of examinees in the Tang Dynasty increased greatly, Ming Jing and Jinshi were still the main subjects for selecting officials? The main contents of the Ming Classics exam are sticking to the classics and meaning. Sticking classics is a bit like filling in the blanks in modern exams. In general exams, a sentence is extracted from the classics to cover up the words that several candidates need to fill in. As for Mo Yi, there are some questions and answers about the Bible. Examining Jinshi requires candidates to write poems, poems on specific themes, and sometimes classics. After Tang Gaozong, the position of Jinshi gradually surpassed Oak Classics and became the only important subject in the imperial examination. The main reason for this phenomenon is that Jinshi candidates need to be creative, while Mingjing can only be admitted if they are familiar with books. Moreover, the selection criteria for Jinshi are very strict, and the number of people admitted is often only one-third of that of Mingjing. At that time, there was a saying: "thirty years to study classics, fifty years to learn", which shows the difficulty of learning. In addition, in the era of Wu Zetian, a martial arts examination was set up to select military commanders. The contents of most imperial examinations in the Song Dynasty are not much different from those in the Tang Dynasty. However, when Wang Anshi was in power, he reformed the imperial examination system, canceled the examinations of Confucian classics, Mohism and poetry, and focused on Confucian classics (explaining Confucian classics), theory (commenting on the current situation) and strategy (proposing solutions to the current disadvantages). However, Su Shi and others strongly protested the political reform.

Yuan dynasty (1206- 1368)

Although the imperial examination in Yuan Dynasty had little influence on its own rule, its content changed greatly. First of all, the imperial examination is no longer divided into subjects, only Jinshi. The assigned reading materials for the second exam have been changed. According to the new regulations, if the content of the fine arts examination includes four books, Zhu's notes on the four books will be the main basis? These two changes did not disappear with the Yuan Dynasty, but became the basis of the eight-part essay in Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Ming and Qing dynasties

In the Ming and Qing imperial examinations, the content proposition of the book was the main topic in the rural examination and the final examination, requiring candidates to explain Confucian classics in the language of the ancients, "speak for the saints" and answer with eight-part essays. Eight-part essay has many formal requirements, that is, it pays attention to form. Only to the last level of the imperial examination? Palace exam, used to determine the ranking, will be changed to ask questions during the exam. But what do candidates often answer? It doesn't matter. Emperors in the Qing Dynasty tried it-their books decided the ranking of court exams. Those who are keen on the imperial examination know all the four books and five classics, and other knowledge has become "miscellaneous", and many scholars don't understand it at all. In the satirical novel The Scholars, a joke was recorded: someone joked to the scholar of Quercus Chao: "If Su Shi from Sichuan comes to take the exam, the article will only be sixth." -The narrator said, "Su Shi's article is not good, so it's just as well not to be admitted." It turned out that he didn't know who Su Shi was. As for the contents of the Four Books and Five Classics, the imperial examination only requires us to make beautiful articles with gorgeous words according to the ideas of our predecessors. Do not seek independent thinking, do not seek innovation. Under the requirement of eight-part essay, the practical knowledge and talents of candidates are ignored. Therefore, many candidates give up the four books and five classics to study eight-part essay, which is called "pasting" to cope with the exam. At that time, some people called stereotyped writing a "stepping stone", which means that after success, you can throw it away like throwing your shoes. Some people have compared stereotyped writing to "opium" and "foot-binding", which are considered as the three major evils that poison China people? Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, two apprentices who advocated the abolition of the imperial examination in the late Qing Dynasty, are a pair of talents and exam results? A typical example of similarity. Liang Qichao was a scholar at the age of twelve, and at the age of seventeen, he was called Shenzhang, which was regarded as the pride of the imperial examination. However, Liang Qichao admitted that "I don't know the so-called classics and history", and when he met Kang Youwei, he found that he knew nothing about it. Instead, he had to worship the old scholar Kang Youwei as a teacher. On the contrary, Kang has a scholarly family and a family, and he has been familiar with the ancient and modern classics of the subset of classics and history since he was a child. Although Kang Youwei is famous in Guangdong, he became a scholar at the age of sixteen. After obtaining the status of Gong Sheng, he failed to sell after six rural examinations and was frustrated for twenty years. /kloc-at the age of 0/6, I was lucky enough to win a prize, and I was able to go to Beijing with my apprentice Liang Qichao to catch the exam. I finally got the first place in the exam and became the top student in high school.