Juren

The imperial examination (科舉, kējǔ) was an examination system in Imperial China designed to select the best administrative officials for the state's bureaucracy. This system had a huge influence on both society and culture in Imperial China and was partly responsible for changes in the power structure of the Tang and Song Dynasties that would hold long after their dissolution. The system assisted in the replacement of what had been relatively few aristocratic families with a more diffuse and populous class of typically rural-dwelling, landowning scholar-bureaucrats, organized into clans. Neighboring Asian countries such as Vietnam, Korea, Japan and Ryūkyū also implemented similar systems, both to draw in their top national talent and to maintain a tight grip on that talent's time, resources, and ideological goals.