Abstract: During the Xianfeng and Tongzhi reigns, the Qing court enacted a policy of enlarging the imperial examination quotas in return for contributions in order to extract more resources from localities. This policy was implemented to alleviate the financial crisis created by the Taiping Rebellion and other large scale peasant revolts. At the same time the central government also empowered local authorities to increase the enrollees for the local examinations and the number of examinations at the provincial level to repay the contributors. Raising these quotas created greater interest in obtaining degrees; however, the availability of seats for these two exams was not considered so precious that people were willing to donate blindly to increase them. At the peak of this policy’s implementation we find local governments, with the central government’s eager encouragement, utilized a variety of methods and expenditures to increase quotas. Although the central government set limits and guarded against a runaway increase in quotas, the damage to the quota system had already occurred. In twenty years the rate of growth in the number of enrollees in the exam was astonishing. In the interplay between the central and the local Governments, the local governments conveyed its loyalty and the central government rewarded this loyalty. In this way the system for distributing examination quota was changed.

摘要： 晚清咸同年间,为缓解因太平军及各地风起云涌的农民起义所造成的财政危机,清廷制定并颁布了"捐输增广科举名额"政策,以此从地方榨取资源,并以增加院试学额、乡试中额的形式对地方予以报偿。虽然尽可能多地获取名额意味着将得到更多的利益,但学额、中额还没有珍贵到有人愿意捐钱为桑梓换取的程度。在科举名额增广的大潮中我们看到的情况却是,地方利用各种名目、各种开销来奏请增加名额,中央在其间也起到推波助澜的作用。虽然清廷为了防止名额增加的失控,对增加的最大量作出了限定,但对名额制度的伤害已经造成。在二十多年的时间里,科举录取名额增长惊人。地方和朝廷的交换表现为,地方向朝廷输诚,朝廷给予地方馈赠,如此改变了科举名额分配制度。