In the Ming Dynasty, both the Confucian household and Shengyuan (生员, official school students) systems implemented in the Yuan Dynasty were retained, but the former had lost the function as delineating the object of preferential exemption, while the latter was expanded and developed in the early Ming Dynasty, and became the main channel for grassroots Confucian scholars to obtain preferential exemption. The reason for this change is that there are fundamental differences between the social management models of Yuan and Ming Dynasties: In the Yuan dynasty, Confucianism was regarded as a kind of religious culture, while in the Ming Dynasty, Confucianism was promoted as an official political culture, and a corresponding social mobility model was established. The adjustment of the grass-roots Confucian management system in the Ming Dynasty stimulated the emergence of a new and open Confucian privileged class, which led to profound changes in Chinese society since the 14th century.