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contemporary biographies of officials who passed them, we can see that they had a strong Confucian content and included practical displays of military skills, which would certainly have included archery on foot and on horseback.
The Confucian Base of the Tang examination system
The chapters in the 'Tong Dian' on the Tang Examination system say explicitly that "The method of offering up officers (shi) in the Great Tang basically followed the Sui system." (Tong Dian: Cap. 15. Xuanju 5.) Nevertheless, you cannot read more than a practical, military objective into the words of Li Shimin when he re-established military training in 622. (Jiu Tang Shu: Taizong Benji. Selby: 9A.)
The establishment of the Military Examination System (wu ke ju) by Wu Zetian in 702 coincided with the publication of an archery manual (attributed to Wang Ju) (Selby: 9B) intended to prepare those taking the official examinations. It draws directly on the Confucian ‘Archery Classic', and can be said to be a practical elaboration of technique of the 'Classic'. There can be no doubt those undertaking the military examinations in the Sui and Tang period understood that they were continuing the overall structure and objectives expressed in the Confucian classic: submission, expression of the inner self and competition within limits approved by Confucian orthodoxy.
Thus decorum, elegance of movement and deference to one's peers were to the fore. The Tang text stresses that 'archery' is ritual archery, which needs to be expressed with grace and restraint, in order to ‘hit' the target (that is, accord with ritual). Although Wang Ju's text is based in practical archery method, only the terse comments on horseback archery could be regarded as utilitarian military method. The rest is a refined ritual event.
Certain current versions of Japanese Kyudo ritual archery (raisha), while using equipment radically different from that used in China, follow the movements in the Tang Classic of Wang Ju step-by-step.
Cultural and acquired archery skills
The development of archery in military and hunting practice after