Subscribe to free Email Newsletter

In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the branch tested was only one and the contents tested were limited to “the Four Books”, namely the great Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean, the Analects of Confucius and Mencius and “the Five Classics”, namely, the Book of Songs, the Book of History, the Book of Changes, the Book of Rites and the Spring and Autumn Annuals. All the candidates had to write a composition explaining ideas from those books in a rigid form and structure, which was called Eight Part Essay. To start with, two sentences should be used to tell the main idea of the title, which was called “to clear the topic”. Then it should be followed by several sentences to clarify the meaning of the topic, which was called “to continue the topic”. The remaining part had to carry on discussions on the topic in the form of parallelism and antithesis, which was rigidly restricted. The ideas must tally with the ideas from the Four Books and the Five Classics. Liberal ideas were not accepted.

The examination was held once every three years. It had four levels: the county examination, the provincial examination, the academy examination and the palace examination. Only when one passed the lower level examination were they qualified to attend the next examination. All the candidates for the county examination were called tongsheng. Those who passed were called Xiucai. Those who passed the provincial, the academy and the palace examinations were called Juren, Gongshi and Jinshi respectively. The first three of Jinshi were ranked Zhuangyuan, bangyan and tanhua respectively. All the jinshi would be given a post by the emperor and their names would be engraved on the tablets.

Historic Role

Only a minority of participants in imperial examinations eventually entered officialdom. But the system fostered an intellectual element within the populace that in turn propelled cultural and social progress in ancient China. During the 1,300 years the imperial examination system was in force it nurtured a zeal for learning that boosted development of government-run and private schools around the country. The keju produced more than 100,000 jinshi and millions of juren. Most of the famous administrators, politicians, thinkers and military strategists in Chinese history originated in the keju ranks.