But you dare to believe that the ancient imperial examination actually looked at the face value!
The imperial examination system in the Tang Dynasty was not perfect, so the scandal of the imperial examination in the Tang Dynasty appeared.
In the Tang Dynasty, those who took the imperial examinations were not very attractive or looked weird, so they were likely to fall into Sun Shan. According to the records in the Book of the New Tang Dynasty and Selected Records of the Tang Dynasty, "there are four ways to choose candidates: one day, the body looks rich and gorgeous; Two days to talk, four days to judge, both arts and sciences. " Namely: first, the figure should be tall and handsome; Second, strong language skills and eloquence; Third, calligraphy should be neat and beautiful; The third is articles on art, science and talents. Among these four assessment criteria, appearance trumps eloquence, calligraphy and literary talent, ranking first, which shows the importance of face value to examination selection. Luo Yin, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, tried many times because of his unsatisfactory appearance, which is known in history as "ten tries are not the first". Contemporary poet and poetess, Humanism, also failed many times because of her appearance. Until six years ago, Xian Tong won the country, and because of his appearance, he failed many times in the Jinshi exam.
There were two famous figures in the Tang Dynasty who failed the list because of their looks. One is Zhong Kui and the other is Huang Chao.
That is to say, Zhong Kui died of shame and indignation because he was ugly and didn't get into Jinshi. Later, Li Longji was ill for a long time. One night, he dreamed that a strange-looking man caught a child, gouged out his eyes and ate him. The big fellow claimed that he was "Zhong Kui, a scholar who missed the palace exam". When the emperor woke up, he immediately recovered. Therefore, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty ordered Wu Daozi to make a picture of Zhong Kui catching ghosts in his dream and hang it in his palace to ward off evil spirits. From then on, Zhong Kui became the immortal who destroyed ghosts in the town house.
Zhong Kui became immortal, but Huang Chao was different. Huang Chao was very angry when he knew that he had not been admitted to Jinshi because of his looks. Huang Chao was angry, and the consequences were terrible. So Huang Chao formed a peasant army. It directly dealt a heavy blow to the Tang Dynasty, and then the Tang Dynasty perished. Huang Chao also left a famous poem < < gt > Waiting for September 8th in the autumn of the lunar calendar.
Not only in the Tang dynasty, but also in the Ming dynasty, emperors often did this, and they changed the number one scholar to see which one was not pleasing to the eye.
In the first imperial examination in the Ming Dynasty, a candidate who was originally the top scholar lost the top scholar because of his ugly appearance, and was replaced by an excellent candidate. The person who happened to bump into the top scholar is called Wu Bozong. He was born in a big family of scholarly family. His father is a juren and wants his son to be admitted to Jinshi. He was strict with him when he was very young. Of course, he lived up to expectations and won the first place in the provincial examination.
In the second year, he took an exam in Beijing, trying to compare with scholars from all over the world, but for various reasons, he got 24, which was an awkward position. Then he took a court exam, which was related to his own fate. After the exam, the examiner reviewed the papers one by one and ranked them. The first name was Chong Guo, so Zhu Yuanzhang asked the examiner to call this person up. Zhu Yuanzhang was surprised and ugly when he saw himself, so he let him go.
Because this selected scholar represents the image of a country, what should I do if I go abroad after it is too ugly? Finally, Zhu Yuanzhang asked the examiner to call all the candidates up. He looked at them one by one and picked out this person. He was Wu Bozong. In this way, he became the top scholar in the Ming Dynasty with his own face value, and the man named Chong Guo gave him the second place. But in this way, the scholar's literary talent is also very good. After all, he is also the first scholar in the province, and there is nothing to be picky about.
But he also has a particularly remarkable personality. When I arrived at the palace, a prime minister tried to win him over many times. Why didn't he go? After all, he is the top scholar appointed by the emperor. How can he approach you casually? So the prime minister was very angry and evacuated him to the emperor's hometown and left the capital, but the champion tried his best to complain to the prime minister and finally vacated the position of the prime minister.
Zhu Yuanzhang saw that he was really a talent, so he was recalled to Beijing to arrange a new official position, but the top scholar disliked that the official position was too small, so Zhu Yuanzhang gave him a bigger official position, but she was still not satisfied and sent him to the northwest. Zhu Yuanzhang breathed a sigh of relief and transferred it back to Beijing. This time, the champion was satisfied and did his job in a down-to-earth manner, and gradually he was qualified for the position of a college student in Wuyingdian.
So in this era, knowledge is the only way out.