The Chinese Civil Examinations

>> Disclaimer: So far the working note is based on this article.1

  • How did the Chinese Civil Examinations spread toward the west and how did it change the political landscape of the west?
  • The bureaucratic problem created because of the civil service system? Or Civil service system can be seperated from the bureaucratic structure of the Chinese political system?
  • The problem created because of the Civil Exam? E.g., talented people wasted their talents to become bureaucrats. (Even though people in China like to say they have a competitive margin in management due to its long tradition of managing a huge empire, modern management didn’t emerge from China either).
  • Even though there were scholars like Huang Zongxi in Chinese pre-modern history, he never questioned the legitimacy of the emperor. Does the lack of questioning higher authority in Chinese history have anything to do with the Chinese civil exam system? (Or putting the civil exam system in a bigger context, the Confucious society)

History of Chinese Civil Examinations

  • Including information from Qianmu’s Analysis of the political system of Dynastic China

The foundation: Zhou Dynasty (ca. 1100–256 BCE)

Although many believed that the Zhou Dynasty wrote texts that served as the foundation for the system of civil service examinations, it has since been shown that these texts were reconstructions written in the first centuries BCE. The Zhou Dynasty is part of the Three Dynasties of Antiquity, which is seen as a golden age in which the key elements of civilization were created and served as models for later Chinese polities. Therefore, the institutional history of the civil service examinations predates the Three Dynasties.

Han Dynasty?

Sui(581-618) and Tang(618-907): the pattern for later dynasties were established by Empress Wu

The examinations were used to both promote and assign posts to those already serving, as well as to those who had been recommended for office.

The civil examinations were institutionalized during this period of time. One of the reasons the emperors love this system is it helps to reduce the power of aristocratic families who had strong political power in the previous five centuries.

This motive can be best seen in the reign of Empress Wu, who claimed the thrown after oversaw two of her sons. She relied on the examinations to recruit more new officials than any of her predecessors. Successful examination candidates attained the highest positions in the bureaucracy, allowing Empress Wu to gain more control over her reign.

Song (960-1276): the examination process becomes competitive

  • New rulers opted to select officials based on a competitive process and not solely on family pedigree or wealth.

  • pushed the use of the examinations further as part of the rulers’ attempt to curb the power of the regional military commanders and powerful families

  • In the early period, still more people entered the officialdom2 through recommendations from powerful patrons or inheriting positions from family connections than from examinations.

  • The number of candidates attending the Song qualifying prefectural examinations3 increased from 20k to 400k from early 11th century to mid-13th century, by the end, the estimated population is about 50m.

After Song

  • The exams were the most important way to get a job in the government. People who did the best on the exams got the best jobs.

  • The number of candidates grew at exponential rates, and the overall numbers continues to increase during Ming(1368-1644) and Qing dynasty(1644-1911). The increase in the number of candidates corresponds to the demographic trend.

  • By 1850, the number of candidates for the local examinations had increased to about 2m out of a population of 430m.

  • However, during the period when the state coffers were depleted (As in Qing dynasty), to take the exams, people had to prove that they had a good family background. As more and more people took the exams and competed for official positions, more people received titles and jobs through their family connections or by buying them instead of getting them through the exams.

The impact of the Civil Service Exam on Chinese political, social and intellectual life in pre-twentieth-century China

On Social Reproduction4 and Social Mobility

There were quantitative research suggesting the number of successful examination candidates, over 50% in the Southern Song, 49.5% in the Ming and 37.6% in the Qing came from families with no immediate patrilineal forefathers in the bureaucracy. However, even though the examinations were supposed to be open to everyone, many people were excluded from taking them, such as monks and priests, beggars, sons of prostitutes, craftsmen, clerks, and merchants. Also, even if someone managed to take the exams, their success was still strongly influenced by their family background. This means that if someone’s family was wealthy and powerful, they had a better chance of doing well in the exams. So, even though the exams were supposed to offer people a chance to move up in society, it was still very hard for people from underprivileged backgrounds to do this.

On Creating New Social Group

The civil exam system creates demands for instructions on how to prepare for the various genre tests. People who happen to meet the demands tend to be those who prepared for it themselves. This creates a self-sustaining loop and creates the empire-wide social group “literati”.5 This was called ’early modern literate industriousness’6 which means that these people worked hard to become educated.

What did the Europeans learn from the Chinese Civil Examination system?

  1. This article has a brief section on the historical development of China’s civil exam system. The interesting part is the investigation of the curriculum of the exam but the article doesn’t really have a critical analysis on why it keeps on attracting more candidates despite the declining odds of success. ↩︎

  2. Officialdom is the collective body of officials and government agents that operate within a system of government, typically with the purpose of carrying out administrative tasks and enforcing laws and regulations. ↩︎

  3. Prefectural examinations refer to examinations administered at the prefectural level, which are the highest level of examinations administered at the provincial level and which require candidates to travel to the provincial and metropolitan centers of political power. These examinations are the final step in the examination process and are typically administered and evaluated by the imperial court or bureaucracy. ↩︎

  4. the examinations were supposed to be open to everyone, many people were excluded from taking them, such as monks and priests, beggars, sons of prostitutes, craftsmen, clerks, and merchants. It also says that even if someone managed to take the exams, their success was still strongly influenced by their family background. This means that if someone’s family was wealthy and powerful, they had a better chance of doing well in the exams. So, even though the exams were supposed to offer people a chance to move up in society, it was still very hard for people from underprivileged backgrounds to do this. ↩︎

  5. The literati were a special group of people who were not just literate, but also had a lot of knowledge about written and physical cultures, languages, and social customs. This group was connected to each other in a way that was unique compared to other groups in Chinese history. People who took part in the exams were part of this group. As the wealth of the Chinese territories increased, especially in the southeast, more people wanted to take the exams. But the Chinese government wanted to keep the number of people who passed the exams low, so the chances of passing were very slim. In some places, only 1 in 200 people managed to pass the exams. This was much harder than any modern exam or grant competition. ↩︎

  6. A term coined by Des Forges, a French literary scholar and historian. She is best known for her work on early modern literature and culture, specifically ↩︎

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