Abstract: As a group of lower degree holders，.shengyaan，received scholarly honors and held special privileges in the Qing dynasty，but when they faced humiliating punishments，they frequently responded with“examination strikes.”In local Chinese society，officials avoided provoking and humiliating these lower degree holders，but inappropriate punishments from local officials still caused some protests. The Qing court’s punishment of these protests also underwent a transition from severity to leniency that reflected the declining ability of the Qing to control society. By the nineteenth century with the decline of Qing power, local elites recorded these activities and began supporting examination strikes. It can be said that the Qing court made acquiesced in the face of this nineteenth century activism.