也谈中晚唐五代别头试与子弟之争

Additional Examinations and Frictions for Interests of Descendants during Mid-and Late-Tang and the Five Dynasties

中晚唐新旧士族斗争不断。在子弟登科问题上,双方利用一些科场事件制造事端,以获得各自子弟登科的最大利益。随着党争的强弱分化,代表科举出身的新官僚牛党全胜,子弟问题逐渐变成了官僚阶层内部利益分割的问题,从而逐渐淡化。唐末五代的战乱对新旧士族官僚打击最大,子弟在科举考试中的优势地位随之被消弱,科举考试逐渐向公平、公正的方向发展。

The middle and late Tang dynasty （618 -907 ） witnessed the constant frictions between hereditary bureaucrats and newly-rising officials. In the course of imperial examinations, both parties would try to make trouble for each other through certain events that took place therein, so as to secure maximal benefits for their own descendants in receiving government degrees and positions. With the change in powers of the two parties, the latter one, which represented officials selected in imperial examinations, finally won out. The selection and appointment of government officials among the descendants became, then, an issue of how the bu- reaucratic class distributed its benefits and interests within itself, and was less and less noted. The social turbulences caused by wars throughout the late Tang and the following Five Dynasties （907 -960） were the heav- iest strike against the bureaucracy, old and new, and, with the bureaucratic descendants＇ privilege in imperial examinations being undermined, the examinations tended to be more equitable and just.