Talent selection has always been a top priority, and the way of talent selection has been changing with the changes of history.

what did the western Zhou dynasty mainly adopt? Village election? As the name implies, the talent selection system is to inspect and recommend from the countryside, and what was advocated during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period? Choose talents and abilities? That is, select talented people to lead everyone.

what was the main official selection system adopted in the Han dynasty? Procuratorial system? ，? Procuratorial system? What are the main subjects? Ju xiaolian? , that is? Promote the virtuous by officials? Therefore, before the Sui Dynasty, it was basically dependent on the recommendation of government officials to become an official in the DPRK. The disadvantage of this electoral system is that it is difficult for poor people to produce expensive children.

in the sui dynasty, what did emperor Yangdi do? Ten subjects to take the doctor? Among them, the subject of literary talent and beauty is considered as the later Jinshi subject, which is also the embryonic form of the imperial examination system. During the reign of Wu Zetian in the Tang Dynasty, the imperial examination system was further improved. In order to cultivate her own power, Wu Zetian initiated palace examination. Since then, the imperial examination system has been the main way to select talents in each dynasty and generation.

Portrait of Imperial Examination

After Zhu Yuanzhang established Daming, he was in urgent need of a large number of talents to manage the country and develop the national economy. For this reason, Zhu Yuanzhang held the provincial examination in the third year of Hongwu (A.D. 137), and in the second year (A.D. 1371), the subject was also called the first subject in the history of the Ming Dynasty.

However, the imperial examination system only lasted for four years in the early Ming Dynasty. In the sixth year of Hongwu (AD 1373), Zhu Yuanzhang announced the temporary abolition of the imperial examination system, and it was not until the seventeenth year of Hongwu (AD 1384) that the imperial examination system was resumed. Why did Zhu Yuanzhang abolish the imperial examination system that had been implemented since the Sui and Tang Dynasties? Is there any deep-seated reason for this? The reason why Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the imperial examination system

In 1352, after receiving a letter from his childhood friend Tang He, Zhu Yuanzhang was invited to join the Red Scarf Army in Guo Zixing. After joining the Red Scarf Army in Guo Zixing, Zhu Yuanzhang stood out in the army with his own ability and married Ma Shi, the adopted daughter of Guo Zixing.

Portrait of Zhu Yuanzhang

After Guo Zixing's death, Zhu Yuanzhang became the actual leader of the whole rebel army. After years of fighting in the south, he defeated the separatist forces in Chen Youliang, Zhang Shicheng, Fang Guozhen and other places, unified the vast territory south of the Yangtze River basin, and then ordered the general Xu Da to lead a great army to the north to sweep away the forces of the Yuan Dynasty in the north.

in the process of sweeping away all forces, Zhu Yuanzhang knew the importance of talents to his great achievements, so he ordered many times to recommend talents. When attacking Huizhou, Zhu Sheng, recommended by his general Deng Yu, came to Zhu Yuanzhang's army to offer advice to Zhu Yuanzhang from now on. Zhu Sheng then recommended Liu Bowen, Ye Chen and others to Zhu Yuanzhang, and Liu Bowen later became the first strategist under Zhu Yuanzhang, known as Zhang Liang under Zhu Yuanzhang.

After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the country was in a state of great need, and Zhu Yuanzhang's demand for talents became more urgent. Therefore, while adopting the recommendation system, the imperial examination system implemented from the Sui and Tang Dynasties also entered Zhu Yuanzhang's consideration range, and in the third year of Hongwu (AD 137), he held a rural examination to select talents.

Zhu Yuanzhang's stills

From the third year of Hongwu to the sixth year of Hongwu, the Ming Dynasty held many township examinations and selected many talents for the Ming Dynasty, but at the same time, Zhu Yuanzhang also keenly discovered many problems existing in the imperial examination system.

Judging from Zhu Yuanzhang's original intention of carrying out the imperial examination, Zhu Yuanzhang hoped to select some statesmen for his own use through the imperial examination. However, the contents of imperial examinations are all subsets of classics and history. Although these candidates' articles are well written, they generally lack the administrative ability that needs to be exercised in practice. At most, these candidates can only be used as national administrative reserve talents. Zhu Yuanzhang was disappointed with this and ordered the temporary abolition of the imperial examination. Talent selection mode after the abolition of the imperial examination system

After the imperial examination system was temporarily abolished, talent selection had to continue for the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang adopted the old method of recommendation system in the war years to select all kinds of talents needed by the country.

Zhu Yuanzhang's stills

Under the recommendation system at that time, the recommended subjects were mainly divided into the following eight subjects, which were:

smart and upright, virtuous and founder, filial piety (a person who respects his parents and works hard at farming), Confucian scholars (a person who is proficient in religious rites and music), filial piety, scholar, talent and old age. At the same time, due to the low requirements of the recommenders (only one of the eight recommended subjects needs to be met), this will inevitably lead to not all the recommended talents, but also a large number of mediocre talents.

In view of the above disadvantages of the current recommendation system, Zhu Yuanzhang reformed the recommendation system, changing the original eight subjects into six subjects, which are:

being conscientious, practicing writing, being familiar with the meaning of books, being handsome in character, being skillful in management, and being organized in words

The main difference between recommending six subjects and recommending eight subjects is that you only need to meet one of them. The candidates are divided into upper, middle and lower levels. The upper candidates are recommended to be officials, while the lower candidates are optional or even not selected, which will reduce the probability of mediocrity of the recommended candidates.

Restoration of the Imperial Examination Stills

After the imperial examination system was temporarily abolished by Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Yuanzhang followed his old wartime methods and adopted the recommendation system to select talents. During the war years, the recommendation system was only used on a small scale, and its disadvantages were not shown. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the country was in a state of great need, and the number of talents needed increased geometrically. At this time, the disadvantages of the recommendation system were infinitely magnified.

under the recommendation system, there is no way to guarantee the quality of the recommended talents, although the recommendation system was later reformed from eight subjects to six subjects. However, the matching degree between a person and the six recommended subjects is still artificially determined, and there is no corresponding assessment for the candidates, and there is a lack of corresponding objective evaluation criteria.

Therefore, after ten years' precipitation, Zhu Yuanzhang announced the resumption of the imperial examination system in the 17th year of Hongwu, and held a scientific examination in the same year. This subject did not disappoint Zhu Yuanzhang, and a large number of nobles of Daming emerged through this subject. Among them, Huang Zicheng, who suggested that Emperor Jianwen should cut his vassal, and two most famous ministers in the early Ming Dynasty, Xia Yuanji and Zhou Yi, were also selected in this subject. While restoring the imperial examination system, Zhu Yuanzhang did not abolish the recommendation system, but the two systems were in parallel. However, according to Zhu Yuanzhang's instructions, the subsequent recommendation system needed to be added to the examination process at the same time, so the recommendation system actually existed in name only.

summary of stills of Emperor Jianwen

When Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, the imperial examination system, which originated in Sui and Tang Dynasties, had been implemented in the Central Plains for 8 years. Although Zhu Yuanzhang found that the talents selected by the imperial examination system lacked administrative experience in the early years of the People's Republic of China, so he abolished the imperial examination system for ten years, after repeated practice and comparing the advantages and disadvantages between the imperial examination system and the recommendation system, he finally chose the imperial examination system as the final way to select talents in the Ming Dynasty. China has a famous saying? Practice is the only criterion for testing truth? Zhu Yuanzhang can be regarded as a firm practitioner of this famous saying.