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One of the oldest examples of a civil service based on meritocracy is the Imperial bureaucracy of China, which can be traced as far back as the Qin Dynasty (221–207 BC). During the Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 AD) the xiaolian system of recommendation by superiors for appointments to office was established. In the areas of administration, especially in the military, appointments would be based solely on merit. After the fall of the Han Dynasty, the Chinese bureaucracy would regress into a semi-merit system known as the Nine-rank system, yet in this system noble birthright became the most significant prerequisite for one to gain access to more authoritative posts. This system was reversed during the short-lived Sui Dynasty (581–618), which initiated a civil service bureaucracy recruited by written examinations and recommendation. The following Tang Dynasty (618–907) would adopt the same measures of drafting officials, and would decreasingly rely upon aristocratic recommendations and more and more upon promotion based on the written examinations. However, the civil service examinations were practiced on a much smaller scale in comparison to the stronger, centralized bureaucracy of the Song Dynasty (960–1279). In response to the regional military rule of jiedushi and loss of civil authority during the late Tang period and Five Dynasties (907–960), the Song emperors were eager to implement a system where civil officials would owe their social prestige to the central court and gain their salaries strictly from the central government. This ideal was not fully achieved since many scholar officials were affluent landowners and partook in many anonymous business affairs in an age of economic revolution in China. Nonetheless, gaining a degree through three levels of examination — prefectural exams, provincial exams, and the prestigious palace exams — was a far more desirable goal in society than becoming a merchant. This was because the mercantile class was traditionally regarded with some disdain by the scholar official class. This class of state bureaucrats in the Song period were far less aristocratic than their Tang predecessors. The examinations were carefully structured in order to ensure people of lesser means than candidates born into wealthy, landowning families were given a greater chance at passing the exams and gaining an official degree. This included the employment of a bureau of copyists who would rewrite all of the candidate's exams in order to mask one's handwriting and therefore make all candidates anonymous and unable to employ favoritism by graders of the exams who might be associated to them and recognize their handwriting. The advent of widespread printing in the Song period allowed many more candidates of the exams access to required Confucian texts which could be utilized in passing the exams.