The Civil Service Exam in China - MOON AREA HIGH SCHOOL
The Civil Service Exam in China
The Imperial examination was an examination system in Imperial China designed to select the best administrative officials for the state's bureaucracy. This system had a huge influence on both society and culture in Imperial China and was directly responsible for the creation of a class of scholar-bureaucrats irrespective of their family pedigree.
Established in CE 605 during the Sui Dynasty, the imperial examinations developed and matured during the Tang Dynasty, continuing until their 1905 abolition under the Qing Dynasty, a history (with brief interruptions, e.g. at the beginning of the Yuan dynasty) of 1,300 years. The modern examination system for selecting civil service staff also indirectly evolved from the imperial one.
Theoretically, any male adult in China, regardless of his wealth or social status, could become a high-ranking government official by passing the imperial examination, although under some dynasties members of the merchant class were excluded, and it was not until the Song dynasty that a majority of civil servants came into their positions via the examination system. Moreover, since the process of studying for the examination tended to be time-consuming and costly (if tutors were hired), most of the candidates came from the numerically small but relatively wealthy land-owning gentry. However, there are vast numbers of examples in Chinese history in which individuals moved from a low social status to political prominence through success in imperial examination. Under some dynasties the imperial examinations were basically abolished and official posts were oftentimes simply sold, which increased corruption and undermined public morale.
In late imperial China, the examination system and associated methods of recruitment to the central bureaucracy were major mechanisms by which the central government captured and held the loyalty of local-level elites. Their loyalty, in turn, ensured the integration of the Chinese state, and countered tendencies toward regional autonomy and the breakup of the centralized system. The examination system distributed its prizes according to provincial and prefectural quotas, which meant that imperial officials were recruited from the whole country, in numbers roughly proportional to each province's population. Elite individuals all over China, even in the disadvantaged peripheral regions, had a chance at succeeding in the examinations and achieving the rewards and emoluments office brought.
Exam Time
The doors are sealed. Soldiers stand guard from watchtowers. Trembling men, young and old, sit in their cells and read the themes the examiners have selected:
“He who is sincere will be intelligent and the intelligent man will be faithful. In carrying out benevolence, there are no rules.”
The fate of the men depends on the answers they compose for such essays topics.
For more than 2,000 years, scholars endured the agony of the civil service exams. People from any class could take the exams, but only the cleverest and best-educated succeeded.
Candidates had to pass grueling exams at the local and provincial levels before they could take the imperial civil service test. To pass, they had to know the more than 400,000 characters in the Confucian texts by heart. They also had to be able to compose elegant poetic essays, know military strategy, taxation laws, and have an understanding of geography and agriculture.
At exam time, candidates gathered in the “examination hall,” which was actually rows and rows of mud-brick cells. Each cell was barely the height of an average-size man. Candidates brought their own bedding as well as enough food and fuel for the three-day ordeal.
Before candidates entered their cells, guards searched them and their belongings. Day and night, soldiers remained on the lookout for cheating. A cheater brought dishonor not only on himself but also on his family and his tutor.
Was it worth it? One scholar, Ye Shih, wrote of his feelings: “Beginning with childhood, all of a man’s study is centered on one aim alone: to emerge successfully from the three days’ examinations, and all he has in his mind is what success can bring to him in terms of power, influence, and prestige.”
Although Ye Shih was critical of the exams, most candidates accepted them. Those who failed returned again and again. One candidate finally succeeded at the age of 83.
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The decoration of two cranes on his chest are a "rank badge" that indicate he was a civil official of the first rank.
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