execution of 5 high-ranking officials. He also abolished the Zhida paper notes and coins issued by the court of Khayishan; and restored the Zhongtong and Zhiyuan notes as the only official currency. The bureaucracy was trimmed to the 1293 level and new high offices were reduced to the original status they had had in Kublai's reign. The various public building projects of Khayisan were halted. He made Li Meng and Zhang Kui grand councillors in addition to appointing others including Mongols and Semuren (a caste of assorted peoples from Central Asia and the west). The Office of Market Taxes, which was set up to supervise merchants, was abolished with the attempt at abolition by the Semuren. The most prominent reform he made was the reintroduction of the imperial examination system for public officials similar to the one in previous dynasties of China. The imperial examination system, though had repeated been debated during Kublai's reign, had not put into effect until this time. It was now based entirely on Neo-Confucianism, which was thus established as the state philosophy of China for many centuries ever since. A race-based quotas were set for these examinations, allowing a certain number of both Mongol and Han Chinese to enter the government as civil officials. For example, starting in 1313 examinations were introduced for prospective officials – testing their knowledge on significant historical works – in 1315 300 appointments went to the court, with an extra quarter of the positions being given to non-Han Chinese people. Codification of the law was another area in which Ayurbarwada's efforts to reform the Yuan Dynasty produced the desired results. In the same month that he was enthroned in 1311, he instructed the Zhongshu Sheng to systematize the codes and regulations promulgated since the beginning of Kublai's reign. This compilation and editing was completed in 1316, though the process of reviewing the collection was not completely until 1323, under his son and successor Shidibala, who formally promulgated it under the title Da Yuan Tong Zhi (Chinese: 大元通制, "the comprehensive institutions of the Great Yuan"). In some ways the new code also reflected certain Mongolian customs and the institutional features peculiar to the Mongol dynasty in the history of China. He believed that the Mongol elites and the Semuren had to learn from Confucian political philosophy and Chinese historical experience in order to govern China. During the reign of Ayurbarwada, a