Zha Siting Examination Case

In 1726, Zha Siting, a high-ranking imperial scholar, served as chief examiner for the Jiangxi provincial civil service examination. He set an essay question containing the phrase "Wei min suo zhi" (维民所止), a classical excerpt meaning "where the people rest." Accusers alleged that the characters "Wei" and "Zhi" visually resembled the characters for "Yongzheng" (the reigning emperor's era name) with the top strokes removed, implying decapitation and regicide. The Yongzheng Emperor declared this an act of treasonous sedition. Zha Siting was arrested and his home searched, where diaries critical of the court were found. He died in prison awaiting trial. Posthumously, his corpse was mutilated and publicly displayed. His sons were executed or exiled, and his family members were enslaved. This became one of the most notorious literary inquisitions of the Qing dynasty.

Zha Siting was posthumously sentenced to death by dismemberment and exposure of his head. His sons were executed or banished to penal servitude, and his family properties were confiscated. His household members were enslaved and exiled to the frontier.

Whether the examination question truly encoded a regicidal threat, and the legitimacy of using literary interpretation as capital evidence, reflecting the tension between imperial authority and intellectual freedom.

The case intensified the climate of terror among the scholar-official class, severely curtailed intellectual expression, and institutionalized the Qing dynasty's practice of literary inquisition to suppress dissent and consolidate autocratic rule.