relatives of officials (Chaffee, 1985: 15–23). These and other preferential paths
for families already in the elite remained and even expanded in the Sung; but
a sequence of more openly competitive examinations developed alongside
them. The most important route went from local prefectural examinations
(conferring the degree of chü-jen) to the metropolitan examinations, from
whose graduates (chin-shih) officials were selected.
Competitiveness also accelerated drastically, with the first big crunch coin-
ciding with the Neo-Confucian movement. The system had begun to expand
early in the Sung. Between 977 and 992, the number of candidates for the
metropolitan examination grew from 5,000 to 17,000. At the prefectural
qualifying examinations, there were between 20,000 and 30,000 candidates in
the early decades after 1000 c.e., and 80,000 around 1100, burgeoning to
400,000 near the end of the dynasty around 1250 (Chaffee, 1985: 35–36,
50–53). At the end of the funnel, however, the numbers of chin-shih who were
recruited in each round of examinations averaged fewer than 200 (Chaffee,
1985: 16). Quotas were set for the lower examination as well, and these
became increasingly restrictive. In the years between 1005 and 1026, 40 to 50
percent of candidates were awarded the chü-jen degree; but this figure began
to drop sharply in the 1030s and 1040s, falling to 10 percent in 1066. This
was the period when the early Neo-Confucian movement was forming, as well
as the time of various reform movements, leading right up to the Wang An-shih
reforms in 1069. Reforms increased competitiveness still further; by the South-
ern Sung, ratios had fallen another quantum leap, to 1 in 100 in 1156 and 1
in 200 in 1275. This enormous competitiveness was to continue in the Ming
and Ch’ing dynasties, making preparation for repeated examinations virtually
a lifetime pursuit of the gentry class.
Gentry politics and social organization came to center increasingly on issues
of access to education or alternate routes to office. There were struggles over
the content of the examinations; various factions of “reformers” pushed for
emphasis on the Confucian classics, poetic style, relevance to governmental
policy, or specialized subjects such as technical and scientific fields. Within this
struggle, the Neo-Confucians tended to take an extreme position: they were
opposed to the examination system per se as a method of selecting officials,
since its formal, anonymous procedures and its emphasis on written scholar-
ship ruled out the selection of men on the basis of their demonstrated moral
qualities such as loyalty and filial piety. Chang Tsai advocated instead recruit-
ment from the kin of illustrious families as a method of applying Confucian
values. The Neo-Confucians represent a split in the Confucian ranks, dividing
those who emphasized their qualifications as literati from those stressing the
moral content of their familistic ideology.
Nevertheless, all these factions depended on the changes in the organization
Revolutions: Buddhist and Neo-Confucian China • 303