thereby he was able successively to rise in rank until we read of a special examination in 1843 at the Yüan Ming Yüan palace in the presence of the emperor himself, where out of one hundred and twenty-three members of the academy, Tsêng was ranked in the sixth place, at the head of the second group. This gave him the chance to enter into a high office in the academy. In his letters home he tells his parents that he is the third Hunanese to achieve this honor during the Ch'ing Dynasty.[1]
In the same year he was sent to Ssuch'uan as examiner, and during that year and the following received honorary titles and duties in the palace. None of these flattering promotions brought him much financial advantage, and even the thousand taels which he received as an honorarium for the examinership at Ch'engtu was spent to aid poor relatives. His annual expenses amounted, in the year 1842, to about six hundred taels, and were probably about the same in the other years.[2] In Ssuch'uan Tsêng found the social side of his task most irksome. In addition to the duties that fell to him as an examiner he complains that he had to do too much entertaining; that he was called on to write scrolls on which he inscribed flattering comparisons between Hunan and Ssuch'uan; that many came to borrow money, and whether they sought or received much or little or none, there was endless palaver; and that endless calls were to be made and received.[3] Long before this Tsêng had complained of the irksomeness of social intercourse at Peking, where he was comparatively free from the need of doing more than he cared to, and had resolved only to seek friendship with those who could help him correct his faults and go forward to a better life, not to call on men of rank simply to gain a favorable reputation.[4] Therefore the inescapable
