“I command ten thousand polearms,” he said. “I don’t need to quote Mencius.”
The Emperor chose Option B.
He did not send it. Instead, he cheated. He bribed an examiner.
The Ming became a machine. Corruption? The exam required ethics oaths. Rebellion? Scholars were cheaper to placate than warlords. When the Oirat Horde invaded in 1475, the border generals—now all exam-passing strategists who had studied Sun Tzu—did not charge blindly. They used logistics. Eu4 Examination System
Thus began the —a national reform that would cost the crown 200 administrative power and plunge the court into a decade of bloody intrigue. The First Decree (1445) The mechanic was simple, yet devastating. Any general, any noble, any provincial governor who wished to hold office would no longer be judged by the length of their sword or the age of their lineage. They would sit for the Jinshi examinations. Only those who passed could become Administrators . The game’s tooltip was cold: “Nobles lose influence. Meritocracy gains power. Unlocks new reform tiers.”
The Empire of the Great Ming was a giant with clay feet.
The Empire’s Administrative Efficiency, once +20%, turned into a curse. The bureaucracy was so efficient that it surrendered in an orderly fashion, province by province, complete with tax ledgers. “I command ten thousand polearms,” he said
The Disappointed Scholars rose. They did not fight with swords. They fought with ink. They published seditious pamphlets. They called the Emperor a tyrant. Stability dropped by 2. The Mandate of Heaven began to decay. The final failure of the Examination System was its own success. It produced brilliant governors, but no loyal soldiers.
In the southern province of Jiangxi, a warrior-governor named General Tuo Zilong had ruled for three generations. His father killed pirates; his grandfather built the wall. When the Emperor’s eunuch arrived with the decree that Tuo Zilong must pass the Four Books and Five Classics to keep his post, the General laughed.
A Chronicle from the Forbidden Archives, circa 1620 Instead, he cheated
When a flood destroyed the rice fields of Huguang, the local examiner-turned-governor didn't wait for the capital. He enacted the Tiao Tiao Liang tax reform, shifting the burden from the drowned fields to the silk merchants. The event pop-up read: “Local Talent Solves Crisis.” Options: [Gain 50 Administrative Power] or [Lose 1 Stability]. The Meritocracy chose power.
The Examination System’s hidden mechanic was now in full effect: . Every province’s governor was now a man (and later, secretly, a few women disguised as men) who had memorized 400,000 characters. They didn't just collect taxes; they optimized them.
But the tooltip did not tell the story of the blood.
But the mechanic had a hidden malice: The Fracture (1588) By 1588, the system had become a prison. To maintain the +3 Stability and the -2 National Unrest, the Emperor had to constantly purge the "failed" candidates. The examinations grew absurd. To become a general, one had to write a poem about a boulder. To become an admiral, one had to calculate grain tonnage using a dead language.
It was then that the Grand Secretary, a man history remembers only as "The Reformer of Jiajing," proposed a radical shift. "Your Majesty," he whispered, prostrating himself on the cool marble, "the sword conquers provinces, but the brush governs them. If we do not reward the mind over the bloodline, the Mandate of Heaven will fall."