A Query About Li Bai "Not Condescending to Take the Imperial Examinations

The introduction of imperial examination system in the Sui Dynasty brought and end to the system of families of power dominating entirely official selections,a system which was adopted since the Wei Jin period,This resulted in a less distinctive differentiation between hereditary family and common people.But in the meantime the Sui authority stipulated that a person with handicraft industry or business background should not be allowed to pursue an official career.Other policies were also made to discriminate these kinds of families.During the Tang Dynasty,the old Sui′s methods of selecting officials were mostly followed and the distinguishing line between official,peasant,handicraftsman and businessman was still very rigid.In spite of the fact that the imperial examination system made it accessible for poor scholars to pursue official careers,to a man from an industrial or business family,the door was still closed.According to what Fan Chuanzheng disclosed,on the one hand,Li Bai was unable to provide genealogical tree evidence to prove that he was not from such a family for the verification purpose by the Board of Revenue.On the other hand,it was an irrefutable fact that the Board of Revenue could not have the original document concerning Li Bai′s family′s social standing.It was because he could not write imperial examination on the account of his family background that Li Bai was able to get rid of the bondage of examination oriented education of that time and of the fetters of the Confucian schools.Thus he could develop is unruly character to its full extent.To say that Li Bai considered writing imperial examination unworthy of doing is to put effect before cause.\;