A Deliberation on the Date and Number of Participants at the Palace Imperial Examination in the Second Year of Jianwen Emperor of Ming Dynasty

For political reasons, in the history of imperial examinations in Ming dynasty, the palace examination in the second year of Jianwen Emperor became a perplex puzzle. March the 1 st of the lunar year was the date for palace examination, which had been set by Emperor Hongwu in his 17 th year of reign, and carried out regularly in his subsequent years. But March the 1 st of the second year of Jianwen Emperor fell on a solar eclipse, so the examination was postponed to the next day. The participants, besides the 109 men who succeeded in the February examination, included a man named Guo Zhi, who succeeded in the examination in the 30 th year of Hongwu Emperor. So the total number of participants was 110.