This article examines the civil service examinations and its evolvement and transmission in the late imperial China．It argues that civil examinations in late imperial China marked the most traveled and political intersections between politics，society，economy，and intellectual life，and enabled the social and cultural reproduction in the pre-modern China．It goes on exploring the demise of the traditional learning and its replacement by the modern schools and shows the complexity in this series of historical events．The end of the imperial civil examination also meant the unraveling of the social，political，and cultural nexus of classical literati values，elite status and Chinese dynastic imperial power．