Amid the blood and flames of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, a new dynasty, the Great Song, was taking its first unsteady steps. It brought an end to an age of military strongmen ruling the realm and enshrined “esteeming civil officials and restraining the military” as state policy. The civil service examinations became the brightest beacon of this era of civil governance, opening a golden road to the court for talented scholars from humble families. This story focuses on the group that stood at the pinnacle of the examination system over the three hundred years of the two Song dynasties, embodying the peak of literary achievement: the top scholars. They were not only heaven-blessed prodigies whose names topped the golden palace lists, but also witnesses and participants in the dynasty’s rise and fall, and even its founders and sacrificial victims.
