Why are there regional differences in imperial examinations in Ming Dynasty?

In order to ensure that students in every province can enjoy equal opportunities to go to college, there is a great difference between the north and the south in China's college entrance examination, and many provinces will make their own questions and draw their own lines. But in fact, there are differences between the north and the south in the exam, which also existed in ancient times. A typical example is the rules and regulations of the North-South examination papers in the Ming Dynasty.

During the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, the political, economic and cultural center of the whole country was completely in the south. In addition, the imperial examination system in Ming Dynasty adopted stereotyped writing to select scholars, and the examination questions were limited to "Four Books and Five Classics". However, since the Jingkang Rebellion, the northern region was greatly influenced by the Jin and Yuan dynasties, and wars continued.

Even in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Lu Yu and other places became uninhabited, and then there was the "migration of Hong Tong Sophora japonica", which led to the great advantage of the southern Neo-Confucianism in the imperial examination system.

By the first year of Hongxi (1425), Yang Shiqi, a former cabinet scholar, clearly put forward the idea of "north-south scroll". It was put forward that the imperial examination system should select Jinshi according to the different employment ratio between the north and the south, and then unify the court examination, which was approved by Emperor Renzong. He ordered that "from today's imperial examination, the south will get six points and the north four points". It means that the number of Jinshi is six-tenths in the south and six-tenths in the north.

From the perspective of popularizing and perfecting the imperial examination system and promoting national unity and stability, the rules and regulations of the imperial examination system in the north and south of the Ming Dynasty are very worthy of recognition, which ensured that the scholars in the two cities and thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty could join the ruling group in relatively equal, thus achieving the actual effect of "ruling the world by scholars".

Its influence can be said to be very long-term, which is attributed to the fact that not only the Qing Dynasty inherited and improved this rule and system, but also the current college entrance examination marking rules and regulations can be seen.