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At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the Yingtian Prefecture was relocated from Changle Road to Fangxiu Mei (today's Fuxi Street). From the early Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, over five hundred years ago, the prefectural government was situated here. The historical examination of the Jiangning Prefecture (renamed Tianfu during the Qing Dynasty) in the Qing Dynasty's "Official Canon" provides a general reference for our hope that Zhu Yunming would serve in Tianfu:
The Yingtian Prefecture was located south of Neqiao. Inside the main gate of the system stood the Yi Gate; beyond the Yi Gate was the Yi Hall, with the Guangji Warehouse on the east, and the Prefect's residences on the left and right. Within the side halls were the official offices and residences of government clerks and professional families; behind lay the Zhong'ai Hall, with the Register Repository on the west, and behind that, the chief examiner’s room and the salary granary. To the north stood the official residence, with one Yi Hall on the east and another on the west, followed by the Yi Hall...
The place where the dream began: after the examination of Tianfu Prefecture.
The provincial examination of Yingtian Prefecture was the most important component among the provincial examinations of the two capitals and thirteen provinces during the Ming Dynasty, and a major center in the history of ancient Chinese imperial examinations. Scholar Pei Jialiang has written a specialized monograph on it. During the Ming Dynasty, over ten thousand scholars were selected through the Tianfu provincial examination, making it a source of pride for other regions.
The regions typically examined under Tianfu Prefecture correspond to today’s Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Anhui. During the Hongwu and Yongle periods, the selection rate was relatively high, reaching 23.22%; the average selection rate across the Ming Dynasty was 7.26%. The Ming court imposed restrictions on the number of examinees four times during the Chenghua, Zhengde, and Jiajing eras. From the fourteenth year of Hongzhi to the fifth year of Zhengde, the number of examinees in the Yingtian provincial examination suddenly surged to over 4,000, and the average selection rate plummeted to just 3.3%, indicating how exceedingly difficult it was for scholars from the Nanjing region to achieve both fame and fortune.
In the autumn of the fifth year of Hongzhi (1492), Zhu Yunming passed the provincial examination and was sent to Yingtian Prefecture. At that time, the elder generation of Wangganping village, upon reading his examination essay, further admired Zhu Yunming, regarding him as a promising talent. Zhu Yunming himself also felt quite self-satisfied, thinking he would go to Beijing the following year to “achieve the highest score and reclaim control of the empire.”
Wang Songji’s “Preface to the Imperial Examination of Yingtian Prefecture” records the situation at the time:
In the seventh month of the fifth year of Hongzhi, the imperial edict was issued by the Right Vice-Marshal, ordering the washing of the horse and the selection of provincial examination candidates for Tianfu. In the afternoon, he resigned; in August, Gui Mao arrived at the prefectural seat, followed by the Yan Prefectural seat, and then entered the locked examination compound. More than 2,300 candidates took the examination at the appropriate time. The list included one hundred and thirty-five individuals. The rise and fall of talent depends on timing. “Gong Yu” was below the fields of Yangzhou’s Tianwei; “Li Zhou” was not among the five eastern administrative districts.