The ancient imperial examination was not as relaxed and casual as filmed in TV series, but was full of all kinds of dangers and tortures. Without a little willpower, it was difficult to persevere.
1. The examination procedure is very complicated
A scholar who wants to pass the layers of selection and eventually become a court official must go through the court examination, the provincial examination, the imperial examination and the palace examination. Only after all passes will he be awarded the corresponding official position by the court.
Academy Examination is a qualification examination, held in counties and governments, and those who pass it are called scholars. Only scholars are eligible to take the selection examination organized by the court.
Provincial examination is held every three years. Those who pass the exam are called Juren. Although they are not formal officials, they also enjoy certain political and economic benefits.
The examination is also held every three years. The examination is called Gongshi. Since the examination is divided into three sessions, each session is three days and two nights, the examination period is 9 days and 6 nights, which is the most tormenting exam.
Finally, the exam was conducted by the emperor himself, called the palace examination or the court examination. The top three were called the top scholar, the second scholar and the Tanhua respectively. The rest of the exams were called Jinshi according to their rankings and officially became officials of the court.
As the saying goes, "No one has ever asked about it for ten years, and one can become famous in one fell swoop." Some people may not be able to finish this process in their entire lives, so Fan Jin went crazy after passing the imperial examination.
2. The safety of the exam is difficult to ensure
Take the imperial examination as an example. Due to the large number of references and insufficient security measures, mass disasters and accidents are often prone to occur.
is located in the Jiangnan Gongyuan in Confucius Temple in Qinhuai District, Nanjing. There are 20,644 examination rooms alone, which can accommodate more than 20,000 candidates for the exam. When so many candidates enter the examination room, they want to enter the venue first, often encounter stampede accidents and the candidates are squeezed into the water next to the road and drowned. Later, under Lin Zexu's management reform, they entered the venue in order in regional order, which was why this situation was improved.
But the disaster still came unexpectedly. In an exam held in 1463, a fire broke out in the tribute school, and the candidates locked in the tribute school basically had nowhere to escape. More than 90 of the more than 200 candidates who took the exam that year were burned to death, with extremely heavy casualties.
1864, the provincial examination that was supposed to be held in the autumn was postponed until November because the tribute school was being repaired. But during the exam, heavy snow suddenly started and the temperature dropped sharply. Because the people taking the exam were all weak scholars, dozens of candidates were frozen to death in the examination room because they could not withstand such drastic temperature changes.
3. The exam process is very painful
First of all, it is a problem of eating and drinking. Although the tribute school serves food twice a day, the food is very poor. Generally, candidates will bring some dry food such as steamed buns, sesame cakes, pastries, etc., and cut them into small pieces to prevent entrainment. The usual food is impossible to bring in, and the exam is autumn, the temperature is still high, and the food is very easy to deteriorate.
Although there are water wells in Gongyuan, the wellhead is small, which prevents candidates from not being able to open the wells. Since the examination is only held once every three years, the well is usually unmanaged, and the quality of the well water is extremely poor, so it is easy to have diarrhea after drinking it. Therefore, most people use bamboo tubes to bring their own drinking water. But the bamboo tube has limited capacity after all, and in the end, it will most likely cause diarrhea if you have to drink water from the well.
In order to solve this problem, during the Tongzhi period, two high platforms were built outside the Gongyuan, which was equivalent to the current water tower. Then people were used to carry the river water to the high platform, and then connected it to each number house with pipes. The problem of drinking water was initially solved.
is followed by a problem of urination and defecation. Urination is not a big problem, just putting a toilet bucket under the exam table can solve it. But it's troublesome when you get bored. First, the "Qugong" sign hanging at the door was handed over to the number officer, and the number officer led the candidates to the toilet to solve the problem. After returning, he stamped a black seal on the candidate's paper, which was called "shit stick" by the candidates. When the officials who were marking the papers saw such test papers, they generally thought it was unlucky and shot the papers in the name of suspected entrainment. Therefore, candidates generally would rather put their stool in their socks than easily want to be covered with "smoked" on the paper. In this way, the smell of the entire examination room can be imagined.
There is also a sleeping problem. Because I had to sleep in the tribute courtyard for 6 nights, each candidate only dropped the test desk board in a room of about one square meter, put it together with the seat board below, and curled it up. Not only was the mosquito bites at night very uncomfortable, but because there was only a wall between the room, if you met a snoring neighbor, you would be offended.
But in order to prevent their ten years of hard study from being wasted, no matter how great the danger is, they will not easily give up this only opportunity that can change their destiny.
Ancient imperial examinations not only test knowledge and knowledge, but also a test of the willpower of candidates. They must work harder than ordinary people to stand out in the fierce competition and realize their dreams.
Compared with the ancient imperial examinations, although thousands of troops cross a single-plank bridge and a game that changes people's destiny, today's candidates are much happier than the ancient candidates.
(Picture source from the Internet, delete if infringement)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-