page_title: Four occupations
section_title: Scholar-Officials
hierarchical_section_title: Four occupations / The shī (士) / Scholar-Officials
caption_attribution_description: English: Civil service exam candidates gather around the wall where results had been posted. Artwork by Qiu Ying (&#20167;&#33521; c.1540). en:Qiu Ying painted this image of candidates who had taken the en:civil service exams as the waited at the wall where officials would post the scores. --en:User:Fresheneesz This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason: This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer. You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States. This file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights. The official position taken by the Wikimedia Foundation is that "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain".This photographic reproduction is therefore also considered to be in the public domain in the United States. In other jurisdictions, re-use of this content may be restricted; see Reuse of PD-Art photographs for details. File Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons..org by Spencer195
context_page_description: The four occupations or "four categories of the people" was an occupation classification used in ancient China by either Confucian or Legalist scholars as far back as the late Zhou dynasty and is considered a central part of the fengjian social structure. These were the shi, the nong, the gong, and the shang.
  The four occupations were not always arranged in this order. The four categories were not socioeconomic classes; wealth and standing did not correspond to these categories, nor were they hereditary.
  The system did not factor in all social groups present in premodern Chinese society, and its broad categories were more an idealization than a practical reality. The commercialization of Chinese society in the Song and Ming periods further blurred the lines between these four occupations. The definition of the identity of the shi class changed over time—from warriors, to aristocratic scholars, and finally to scholar-bureaucrats. There was also a gradual fusion of the wealthy merchant and landholding gentry classes, culminating in the late Ming Dynasty.
  In some manner this system of social order was adopted throughout the Chinese cultural sphere.
context_section_description: Under Duke Xiao of Qin and the chief minister and reformer Shang Yang (d. 338 BC), the ancient State of Qin was transformed by a new meritocratic yet harsh philosophy of Legalism. This philosophy stressed stern punishments for those who disobeyed the publicly known laws while rewarding those who labored for the state and strove diligently to obey the laws. It was a means to diminish the power of the nobility, and was another force behind the transformation of the shi class from warrior-aristocrats into merit-driven officials. When the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) unified China under the Legalist system, the emperor assigned administration to dedicated officials rather than nobility, ending feudalism in China, replacing it with a centralized, bureaucratic government. The form of government created by the first emperor and his advisors was used by later dynasties to structure their own government. Under this system, the government thrived, as talented individuals could be more easily identified in the transformed society. However, the Qin became infamous for its oppressive measures, and so collapsed into a state of civil war after the death of the Emperor.
  The victor of this war was Liu Bang, who initiated four centuries of unification of China proper under the Han dynasty (202 BC–AD 220). In 165 BC, Emperor Wen introduced the first method of recruitment to civil service through examinations, while Emperor Wu (r. 141–87 BC), cemented the ideology of Confucius into mainstream governance installed a system of recommendation and nomination in government service known as xiaolian, and a national academy whereby officials would select candidates to take part in an examination of the Confucian classics, from which Emperor Wu would select officials.
  In the Sui dynasty (581–618) and the subsequent Tang dynasty (618–907) the shi class would begin to present itself by means of the fully standardized civil service examination system, of partial recruitment of those who passed standard exams and earned an official degree. Yet recruitment by recommendations to office was still prominent in both dynasties. It was not until the Song dynasty (960–1279) that the recruitment of those who passed the exams and earned degrees was given greater emphasis and significantly expanded. The shi class also became less aristocratic and more bureaucratic due to the highly competitive nature of the exams during the Song period.
  Beyond serving in the administration and the judiciary, scholar-officials also provided government-funded social services, such as prefectural or county schools, free-of-charge public hospitals, retirement homes and paupers' graveyards. Scholars such as Shen Kuo (1031–1095) and Su Song (1020–1101) dabbled in every known field of science, mathematics, music and statecraft, while others like Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) or Zeng Gong (1019–1083)  pioneered ideas in early epigraphy, archeology and philology.
  From the 11th to 13th centuries, the number of exam candidates participating in taking the exams increased dramatically from merely 30,000 to 400,000 by the dynasty's end. Widespread printing through woodblock and movable type enhanced the spread of knowledge amongst the literate in society, enabling more people to become candidates and competitors vying for a prestigious degree. With a dramatically expanding population matching a growing amount of gentry, while the number of official posts remained constant, the graduates who were not appointed to government would provide critical services in local communities, such as funding public works, running private schools, aiding in tax collection, maintaining order, or writing local gazetteers.
caption: Candidates gathering around the wall where the results are posted. This announcement was known as   "releasing the roll" (放榜). (c. 1540, by Qiu Ying)
exif: {}