Civil Examinations And Rural Society In Song China

Armed vagrant groups set up the regime of Five Dynasties and Sung Dynasties. Vagrant separated themselves from the rural society, so Five Dynasties and Sung Dynasties regime lose systemic contact with rural society clan too. Scholar-bureaucrat class or depended on the regime of Five Dynasties, or develop themselves in rural society. Rural society operate based on themselves in Five Dynasties and Sung Dynasties.Sung Dynasties expand power authority by civil examinations, considered civil examinations as a means to prevent political rebellion. Civil examinations induced the members of rural society to leave their families, so rural society couldn't adapt well to the examination system. But civil examinations would bring rural family a lot of resource beyond village, so rural families fall over themselves for civil examinations.Under the pretext of "officials from grass roots", Sung Dynasties wanted to unify scholars' ideology by a kind of "school-selection" system. This plan failed. But when the civil examinations combined Confucianism, it became an integrative system of autocratic regime and rural society, even if an ill integrative system. Reestablishment of this integrative system is the sticking point of Tang-Song Transition, and Gentry is the product of the integrative system.