The imperial examination of the Song Dynasty and the imperial examination of the Ming and Qing dynasties were completely different from each other in terms of examination methods and examination subjects.

In terms of examination methods, the imperial examination in the Ming and Qing dynasties was divided into three levels: the hospital examination, the township examination, and the general examination. The township test is taken in the province; The general examination is an examination at the central level, and you need to go to the capital to take the exam.

It is very different from the imperial examination method of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the imperial examination of the Song Dynasty only has two levels of the solution test and the provincial examination, among which, the solution test is the state test, which is tested in the state city; The provincial examination is the examination at the central level, and the examination location is also in the capital.

In addition to the great difference in the way of examination, the content of the imperial examination in the Song Dynasty was also very different from that of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The content of the imperial examination in the Ming and Qing dynasties was mainly to test the eight-strand essay, the so-called eight-strand essay, that is, there is a fixed format of argumentative essays, writing the eight-strand essay such a style, it is simple to say, difficult to say, the simplicity lies in the fact that the stylistic format of the eight-strand essay is fixed, as long as you practice it, you will basically write, and its difficulty lies in the fact that the examination questions are often very biased, and sometimes it is biased, so that half of the candidates can not think of how to write.

Compared with the eight-strand text of the imperial examination in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the content of the imperial examination in the Song Dynasty is incomparably rich, and its difficulty is far from being comparable to the imperial examination in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The imperial examination in the Song Dynasty, whether it was a state-level examination or a provincial-level examination at the central level, included four examination contents, which were poetry, scriptures, theories, and strategies.

Poetry is a subject, as the name suggests, it tests the ability to write poems and songs, and the ability to write poems and songs is the so-called literary style.

When the Great Song Dynasty was just established, the subject of poetry and fu had an incomparable importance in the other three subjects of the four subjects of the imperial examination.

However, with the continuous progress of time, over time, the "managers" of the Great Song Dynasty found that those "literary heroes" who were selected by the imperial court as officials because of their outstanding literary talents were almost all administrative "imbeciles", although they were good at writing poems and lyrics, but they could only boast about them, and when they started to do practical things for the well-being of the people, they were basically "idiots", they belonged to the kind of officials who only used their mouths and did not use their hands to command blindly, and the common people lived under their management, so ......

Because those great literati officials with outstanding literary talents seem too "rubbish" in their daily administration, therefore, since Sima Guang reformed the content of the imperial examination, the status of the subject of poetry and fu in the overall four subjects has plummeted, and now, there is such a situation, that is, the more outstanding the literary talent, the lower the probability of being admitted.

Therefore, in the past 30 years after Sima Guang's reform of the rule of officials, there are very few candidates to study poetry and poetry in depth, and it is also because of this that after Sima Guang's death, the entire Song Dynasty, the so-called great poets and great poets, almost extinct, only some capable people who write prose remain.

After the decline of the subject of poetry, the status of these three subjects in the imperial examination, such as classics, theories, and strategies, began to rise in a straight line.

The three subjects of scripture and righteousness, theory, and strategy are all tested for writing argumentative essays, but the "test points" of these three subjects are slightly different.

In the course of Jingyi, the test is the candidate's degree of study of the "Four Books and Five Classics", and when testing the meaning of the scriptures, the questioner will choose a sentence or a word from the "Four Books and Five Classics" as the topic, so that the candidate can explain his "profound" righteousness.

Of course, the subject of examining the scriptures and righteousness is suspected of patting the sycophants of the ancient sages, and the so-called "exposition of righteousness" is not just touting over and over how great the thoughts of the ancient sages are, the more fleshy the candidates tout, the more they have no bottom line, the more "explicit", and the better they are in the test, this is almost the "unspoken rule" of the subject of the examination of the scriptures.

On this subject, the test is also to write argumentative essays, compared to the "obscure" sage of the ancient sages in the subject of Jingyi, on this subject, it is directly hands-on.

On this subject, candidates are required to use the style of argumentative essays to evaluate an ancient celebrity, of course, this so-called ancient celebrity, isn't it the ancient sage, if you want to get a high score in this subject, or the "unspoken rule", as long as you can desperately blow this ancient celebrity, that ......

The last subject in the imperial examination of the Song Dynasty - policy, is the most technical subject, and the previous two purely sycophant subjects are different, this subject is a test of the candidate's ability to solve practical problems, which is equivalent to the "argument" in the modern civil service examination.

In the examination of this subject, the questioner will put the most difficult current affairs problem to solve in the current imperial court as the test paper, and ask the candidates to use the style of argumentative essay to write out their solution to this problem.

In general, among the four subjects of the imperial examination in the Song Dynasty, the most difficult and the most "capable" is the policy department, and after Sima Guang reformed the rule of officials, the importance of the policy department in the entire four subjects of the imperial examination has completely crushed the other three subjects.

It can be said that even if the candidate has a feeling of "" in the first three subjects, as long as he is in the last subject and does very well, then he has a sixty percent chance of entering the school, and this subject is the lifeblood of the candidates, who stands tall, sees far, and has a strong ability to solve practical problems, then, he ......

Of course, in the entire Great Song Dynasty now, the person who stands tallest and sees the farthest should be Lu Yu, after all, he comes from the modern era of the information explosion, and after the "baptism" of endless information, his vision is no longer comparable to the people of the Song Dynasty in the agricultural era.

However, even if Lu Yu was so "tall" in this era, when he listened to the big exam questions given by Li Jing, the senior of the "County School Black Boss", he instantly felt like crying.

In the four subjects of poetry, scripture and righteousness, theory, and strategy, Li Jing asked the county students to write a poem with the title of Wuyafeng; Take the word "university" as the title and discuss its meaning; Comment on the life of Confucius's grandson, Zisi; Then with the title of "How to deal with the invasion of the Northwest Tubo Kingdom and the Western Xia Kingdom", they wrote down their respective countermeasures.

"These four questions, if you write them slowly, it is not difficult, but if you finish writing them within an hour, you will ......" After carefully reading the four "fierce questions" from Li Jing in his heart, Lu Yu "scolded" him in his heart and said: "Is this old guy a psychopath, does he take pleasure in torturing students......"

Just when Lu Yu secretly scolded Li Jing, the "black boss of the county school", the county school students who were also "shocked" by the four "ruthless questions" got up one after another......