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China, a History

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Bee Cha
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« Reply #150 on: December 08, 2007, 05:20:22 pm »

Following the example from the Sui Dynasty, the Tang abandoned the nine-rank system in favor of a large civil service system. The Tang drafted learned and skilled students of Confucian studies who had passed standardized exams, and appointed them as state bureaucrats in the local, provincial, and central government (see imperial examination). There were two types of exams that were given, mingjing ('illuminating the classics examination') and jinshi ('presented scholar examination'). The mingjing was based upon the Confucian classics, and tested the student's knowledge of a broad variety of texts. The jinshi tested a student's literary abilities in writing essay-style responses to questions on matters of governance and politics, as well as their skills in composing poetry. Candidates were also judged on their skills of deportment, appearance, speech, and level of skill in calligraphy, all of which were subjective criteria that allowed the already wealthy members of society to be chosen over ones of more modest means who were unable to be educated in rhetoric or fanciful writing skills. Indeed there was a disproportionate amount of civil officials coming from aristocratic as opposed to non-aristocratic families. Nonetheless, these exams differed from the exams given by previous dynasties, in that they were open to all (male) citizens of all classes, not just those wealthy enough to receive a recommendation. In order to promote widespread Confucian education, the Tang government established state-run schools and issued standard versions of the Five Classics with selected commentaries.

This competitive procedure was designed to draw the best talent into government. But perhaps an even greater consideration for the Tang rulers, aware that imperial dependence on powerful aristocratic families and warlords would have destabilizing consequences, was to create a body of career officials having no autonomous territorial or functional power base. The Tang law code ensured equal division of inherited property amongst legitimate heirs, allowing a bit of social mobility and preventing the families of powerful court officials in becoming landed nobility through primogeniture. As it turned out, these scholar-officials acquired status in their local communities and in family ties, and shared values that connected them to the imperial court. From Tang times until the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, scholar-officials functioned often as intermediaries between the grassroots level and the government. Yet the potential of a widespread examination system was not fully realized until the Song Dynasty (960-1279), where the merit-driven scholar official largely shed his aristocratic habits and embodied more or less the modern concept of an educated bureaucrat. As historian Patricia Ebrey states of the Song period scholar-officials:

“ The examination system, used only on a small scale in Sui and Tang times, played a central role in the fashioning of this new elite. The early Song emperors, concerned above all to avoid domination of the government by military men, greatly expanded the civil service examination system and the government school system. ”

Nevertheless, the Sui and Tang dynasties institutionalized and set the foundations for the civil service system and this new elite class of exam-drafted scholar-officials.

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