元代科舉特色新論

Salient Aspects of the Civil Service Examinations in Yuan China: A Reappraisal

科舉制度是中華帝國中期及晚期政治、社會與文化相互連鎖的重要機制。這一制度在漢族王朝時代固然重要，在征服王朝時代亦扮演了特殊角色。元朝是第一個統治全中國的征服王朝。本文擬重新評估元代科舉的特色、影響及其在科舉史中的地位。除去「前言」及「後語」外，本文核心共有五節。第二節討論元代科舉的施行如何與為何長期延誤，並指出其延誤的主要原因為：科舉制度的精神與蒙元政治社會組織的中心原則大相抵觸。第三節論述元朝科舉的規模及其政治侷限，指出當時科舉僅為任官的一個輔助手段，因而錄取進士在近世各朝中總數最少，在政治上產生作用不大。第四節探討元代科舉獨特的族群配額制的意義及後果，此一配額制為當時政治社會現實的忠實反映，原意在保障征服族群──蒙古、色目人──的仕進特權，無意間卻加速蒙古、色目人漢化。第五節討論元代首創的區域配額及大考區制的意義及影響，指出區域配額有礙於人口繁稠，文化水平較高的南人的錄取，大考區制則不利於偏遠地區的考生。第六節探討考試內容，顯示元代科舉著重經學，尤其獨尊道學，是科舉及文化史上的重要變化，但也指出並未廢除文學。在「後語」中則探討元代科舉對明、清二代的影響。總之，在中國科舉發展史上，元代是一段明顯的變異，也是一個重要轉折。

The civil service examination system was an important mechanism that linked state, society, and culture together during mid- and late-imperial China. This was true not only during dynasties controlled by native Chinese, but also during dynasties of conquest built by nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples from Inner Asia. The Yuan was the first conquest dynasty to rule over the entirety of China, and this paper is a re-appraisal of some of the salient features of the Yuan examination system and the influences of these features on the examination system's development in subsequent dynasties. In addition to the prologue and the epilogue, this paper comprises five core sections. The second section seeks to show how and why the examination system was suspended for a long period early in the Yuan. It explains that the spirit of the examination system was in contradiction with the fundamental principles of the Mongol-Yuan sociopolitical organization. The third section discusses the scale of the Yuan examination system and its political limitations. The system was kept in a very limited scale because it was designed only as a supplementary method in selecting state officials. The fourth section discusses the unique ethnic quota system for the examinations and the implications of this system. The ethnic quota system was originally designed to protect the privileges of the conquest groups in the multi-ethnic society under Mongol rule but inadvertently accelerated the sinicization of these groups as well. The fifth section explores the influence of the Yuan system's regional quotas on examination candidates from different regions. It shows that the quota system created intense competition not only for candidates from South China, which was highly developed culturally, but also for those from remote and backward areas. The sixth section discusses innovations in the Yuan examination curriculum. It shows that the shift in the focus of the exams from belles-lettres to the classics annotated by the Song dynasty Learning of the Way masters was a milestone in the developments of both the civil service examinations and early modem Chinese culture. Nevertheless, it is also revealed that tests on literary ability were not eliminated from the Yuan curriculum. In the epilogue, the influences of the Yuan examination system on the examination systems of the subsequent Ming and Qing dynasties are investigated. It is concluded that the Yuan system was not only a variation but also a turning point in the development of the Chinese civil service examinations.