The Study On The Aftermath Exams For The Abolition Of Imperial Examination In Late Qing Dynasty

In 1905,the Qing Dynasty announced the abolition of Imperial Examination.However,there were hundreds of thousands of traditional intellectuals who aimed at Imperial Examination in the country.How to reset them had become an urgent problem to be solved after the abolition of Imperial Examination.The government designed a series of aftermath exams for this purpose,including an exam for the Ju-ren and five kinds of Gong-sheng,and two other exams for the Sheng-yuan.The aftermath exams were held five times in all,and provided nearly 2,000 candidates with political opportunities.It can be said that aftermath exams partly played the role of Imperial Examination.The existing studies have given high attention to the impact of the abolition of imperial examination system,but there are fewer achievements about the aftermath exams.Actually,the Qing government was thoughtful about the aftermath exams,and provided relatively generous treatments for those who passed the royal examination.Therefore,not only those traditional intellectuals,but also many people who received new education were attracted to it.Of course,the actual effectiveness of the aftermath exams cannot be simply equal with the official treatment given by the government.The congestionof the officialdom in late Qing Dynasty and the fierce competition had greatly affected the political opportunity privided by the aftermath exams to be turned into an actual official position.Since there are relatively few existing academic studies on this subject,firstly,this paper tries to make a clearer summary of the basic information of the aftermath exams,such as the time,places and processes of those exams,the contents of the exam questions,and the qualification restrictions.Secondly,the information of candidates is relatively scattered.It is necessary to sort out their career experiences after they passed the royal examination.On the basis of these two steps,the author tries to compare the similarities and differences between the aftermath exams and Imperial Examination,and evaluate their actual functions.