Imperial China: Lesson 15 Section 3

Song emperors relied on civil service exam to choose people to rule the bureaucracy.

The Song dynasty created a meritocracy of scholar-officials who successfully completed civil service exams.

Neo-Confucianism influenced the exams and combined Confucianism with elements of traditional Chinese religions of Buddhism and Daoism.

Confucian scholar Zhu Xi published The Four Books as the basis of study for civil service exams.

The five basic relationships of Confucius are

ruler and subject

father and son

older sibling and younger sibling

husband and wife

friend and friend (the only one where one is not above the other.

In the five relationships....

Those ABOVE should be kind to those BELOW.

Those BELOW should respect and obey those ABOVE.

Subjects must be loyal to their rulers

Song emperors believed that scholar-officials who had studied Confucius would be rational, moral, and able to maintain order.

Under the Song, people from the lower classes could attend state-sponsored schools and become eligible to take the exams.

Exams required essays and poetry about political and social problems in China.

To prevent cheating, Candidates were locked in small rooms for several days.