An evaluation of the Examination System

FromChina’s Examination Hellby Ichisada Miyazaki

Discussion questions:

1. What was the purpose of the examination Civil service exam? How did it changed from the T’ang to the Sung dynasty?

2. Which were the problems of the examination system during the Sung and T’ang dynasties?

3. Is there anything about this examination that surprises or seems familiar to you? What? Why?

The purpose of instituting the examinations, some fourteen hundred years ago under the Sui rulers, was to strike a blow against government by the hereditary aristocracy, which had prevailed until then, and to establish in its place an imperial autocracy. The period of disunion lasting from the third to the sixth century was the golden age of the Chinese aristocracy: during that time it controlled political offices in central and local governments…

The important point in China, as in /japan, was that the power of the aristocracy seriously constrained the emperor’s power to appoint officials. He could not employ men simply on the basis of their ability, since any imperial initiative to depart from traditional personnel policy evoked a sharp counterattack from the aristocratic officials. This was the situation when the Sui emperor, exploiting the fact that he had reestablished order and that his authority was at its height, ended the power of the aristocracy to become officials merely by virtue of family status. He achieved this revolution when he enacted the examination system (and provided that only its graduates were to be considered qualified to hold government office), kept at hand a reserve of such officials, and made it a rule to use only them to fill to their vacancies in central and local government as they occurred. This was the origin of the examination.

The Sui dynasty was soon replaced by the T’ang, which for the most part continued the policies of its predecessor. Actually, as the T’ang was in the process of winning control over China, a new group of aristocrats appeared who hoped to transmit their privileges descendants. To deal with this problem the emperor used the examination system and favored itschin-shih
[1]
trying to place them in importantposts so that he could run the government as he wished. The consequence was strife between the aristocrats and thechin-shih,with the contest gradually turning in favor of the latter. Since those who gained office and simply through their parentage were not highly regarded, either by the imperial government or by society at large, career-minded aristocrats, too, seem to have found it necessary to enter officialdom through the examination system. Their acceptance of this hard fact meant a real defeat for the aristocracy.

The T’ang can be regarded as a period of transition from the aristocratic government inherited from the time of the Six Dynasties to the purely bureaucratic government of the future regimes. The examination system made a large contribution to what was certainly a great advance for China’s society, and in this respect its immense significance in Chinese history cannot be denied. Furthermore, that change was begun fourteen hundred years ago, at about the time when Europe the feudal system had scarcely been formed. In comparison, the examination system was immeasurably progressive, containing as it did a superb idea the equal of which could not be found anywhere else in the world at that time.

This is not to say that T’ang examination system was without defects. First, the number of those who passes through it was extremely small. In parts this was an inevitable result of the limited diffusion of China’s literary culture at a time when printing had not yet become practical and hand-copied books were still both rare and expensive, thus restricting the number of men able to pursue scholarly studies. Furthermore, because the historical and economic roots of the new bureaucratic system were still shallow, matters did not always go smoothly and sometimes there were harsh factional conflicts among officials. The development of those conflicts indicates that they were caused by the examination system itself and constituted a second serious defect.

As has been indicated, a master-disciple relationship between the examiner and the men he passed was established, much like that between a political leader and his henchmen, while the men who passed the examination in the same year considered one another as classmates and helped one another forever after. When such combinations became too strong, factions were born.

These two defects of the examination system were eliminated during the Sung regime. For one thing, the number of men who were granted degrees suddenly rose, indicating a similar rise in the number of candidates. This was made possible by the increase in productive power and the consequent accumulation of wealth, which was the underlying reason that Chinese society changed so greatly from the T’ang period to the Sung. A new class appeared in China, comparable to the bourgeoisie[2]in early modern Europe. In China this newly risen class concentrated hard on scholarship, and with the custom of this group, publishers prospered mightily. The classic books of Buddhism and Confucianism were printed; the collected writings of contemporaries and their discourses and essays on current topics were published; and the government issued an official gazette, so that in a sense China entered upon an age of mass communications. As a result learning was so widespread that candidates for the examinations came from virtually every part of the land, and the government could freely pick the best among them to form a reserve of officials.

In the Sung dynasty the system of conducting the examinations every three years was established. Since about three hundred men were selected each time, the government obtained an average of one hundred men a year who were qualified for the highest government positions. Thus the most important positions in government were occupied bychin-shih, and no longer were there conflicts between men who differed in their preparatory backgrounds, such as those betweenchin-shihand non-chin-shihthat had arisen in the T’ang period.

Another improvement made during the Sung period was the establishment of the palace examination as the apex of the normal examination sequence. Under the T’ang emperors the conduct of the examination sequence. Under the T’ang emperors the conduct of the examination was completely entrusted to officials, but this does not mean that emperors neglected them, because they were held by imperial order. It even happened that Empress Wu (r. 684-705) herself conducted the examinations in an attempt to win popularity….

The position of the emperor in the political system changed greatly from T’ang times to Sung. No longer did the emperor consult on matters of high state policy with two or three great ministers deep in the interior of the palace, far removed from actual administrators. Now he was an autocrat, directly supervising all important departments of government and giving instructions about every aspect of government. Even minor matters of personnel needed imperial sanction. Now the emperor resembled the pivot of a fan, without which the various ribs of government would fall apart and be scattered. The creation of the palace examination as the final examination, given directly under the emperor’s personal supervision, went hand in hand with this changed in his function in the nation’s political machinery and was a necessary step in the strengthening of imperial autocracy.

Thus, the examination system changed, along with Chinese society as a whole. Created to meet an essential need, it changed in response to that society’s demand. It was most effective in those early stages when, first in the T’ang period, it was used by the emperor to suppress the power of the aristocracy, and then later, in the Sung period, when the cooperation of young officials with thechin-shihwas essential for the establishment of imperial autocracy. Therefore, in the early Sung yearschin-shihenjoyed very rapid promotion; this was especially true of the first-placechin-shih, not a few of whom rose to the position of chief councilor in fewer than ten years.