WORLD RELIGIONS

Detailed explanation-1: -Feb 4, 960 CE: Song Dynasty Established in China. On February 4, 960, Zhao Kuangyin became Taizu, the first emperor of the Song Dynasty, which ruled China for more than 300 years.

Detailed explanation-2: -Beginning in the late tenth century, in the early Northern Song, the government bureaucracy was staffed entirely by scholar-officials chosen through a civil examination system. The highest degree, the jinshi (“presented scholar”), was awarded as the culmination of a three-stage process.

Detailed explanation-3: -The imperial examinations were a civil service examination system to select scholar-officials for the state bureaucracy in imperial China. Although there were imperial exams as early as the Han dynasty, the system became the major path to office only in the mid-Tang dynasty, and remained so until its abolition in 1905.

Detailed explanation-4: -Most scholars came from the landholding class, but they acquired prestige from their learning and political clout by serving in office. In a society in which most people were illiterate, scholar-officials stood out by virtue of their reading and writing skills.