Chapter 63

A few days later, the Dongtai County Academy was scheduled to hold the county examination, also known as the Licentiate examination. For any scholar, this was the first critical milestone in their life. Passing the county examination would be followed by the Prefectural Examination and the Academic Examination. Success in all three would grant one the official status of a "Sheng yuan" (Licentiate/Xiucai), allowing entry into the state-run Confucian academies at the prefectural, sub-prefectural, or county levels, along with certain privileges—such as being exempt from kneeling before officials, partial exemption from corvée labor, and the right to petition the Magistrate directly regarding public affairs. The county examination primarily consisted of the "eight-legged essay," test-poetry, classical commentary, and policy argumentation. Zhao An was entirely unfamiliar with these, which was why he was puzzled as to why the Prefectural Academy had sent him to Dongtai to supervise the examination.