Talent selection system in Tang Dynasty

The Tang dynasty was an era of talented people, but the criteria for selecting talents in the Tang dynasty were a bit strange. The Selected Records of the Tang Dynasty put forward the criteria for selecting talents: one day, a magnificent body; The second is to use words, that is, to use words correctly; Three books, namely the beauty of law; The four judgments are excellent in arts and sciences. These four criteria are: the first is to look at looks, the second is to look at language expression ability, the third is to look at calligraphy, and the fourth is to look at articles.

Selecting people by this standard will definitely make some talented and ugly people lose the election. In fact, these four standards have really made some talented and ugly people suffer a lot, leaving a famous saying, "Drink today and get drunk tomorrow." "After a hundred flowers make honey, who will work hard for whom?" Luo Yin, a famous poet in the late Tang Dynasty, probably belongs to this kind of loser.

According to the Southern New Book, Luo Yin's poems are well written, but they are difficult to look at, so they are tried and tested. How hard is it for him to show up? An example is given in the book: At that time, Luo Yin's famous sentences were not only circulated in the streets, but also spread to the boudoir. Zheng Yi, a former prime minister, has a little daughter who likes Luo Yin's poems very much and even wants to marry him.

But Zheng Yi is a prime minister who can punt in his stomach. He neither agrees with nor opposes his daughter's naive idea. Instead, when Luo Yin came to visit, she asked her daughter to observe her idol through the curtain. The result of this observation through the curtain is like "from ruin" in online dating now. From then on, Miss Zheng stopped reading Luo Yin's poems, let alone wanted to marry him.

It is precisely because Luo Yin is so ugly that it is no wonder that Luo Yin tried again and again according to the selection criteria of the Tang Dynasty. With such selection criteria, we can understand why Zhong Kui, who is both talented and handsome, was killed by mistake in the imperial examination, and why Du Fu, a poet, repeatedly quoted literati, which may be related to the poet's lack of rich physical appearance, because the physical characteristics of the poet are not clearly recorded in the book.

Should officials in the Tang Dynasty be selected according to the "Four Cardinal Principles" to be handsome and dignified? Of course not!

From the Book of the New Tang Dynasty, we can know that some officials look like ghosts, such as Qilu in the middle Tang Dynasty.