Written in front: Half of the book is read, can not put down, today continue to read "A Brief Reading of Chinese History".
Look at how the county system established by Qin Shi Huang after the ancient aristocratic society changed and reached perfection.
After Qin Shi Huang unified the six kingdoms, the zhou dynasty's feudal rule ended, and the county system he pioneered inserted the emperor's power to the end, preparing to achieve strong control over society.
But in addition to the frequent peasant uprisings that followed, imperial power was soon challenged by local magnates.
In the middle and late period of the Han Empire, local forces resurrected, and some people fled directly from the control of the government and were controlled by the Powerful Clan.
The whole society entered the "era of the warriors", that is, the "semi-aristocratic society".
Why is the power of the central government weakened?
In fact, because of a major loophole in the system, it is the selection mechanism for officials.
The Sui Dynasty created the imperial examination system, but what about before the Sui Dynasty? What is the use of to select talents?
The Han Dynasty invented the "recommendation system", that is, the local officials recommended talents, and the standards were "filial piety" and "integrity".
Governing the country with virtue, this standard of "virtue" is not quantifiable, and it must be familiar people who know the character, so the selection is concentrated in the small circle of officials.
Even recommending relatives to each other, to the Wei and Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties, has formed a scholar family door valve system, "the upper product has no cold door, the lower product has no scholar clan".
Another reason is that there are advantages to being an official. From the beginning of the Han Dynasty, officials were also able to be immunized from taxation.
In this way, the family members and even the servants of the officials did not have to perform labor.
Therefore, many people will take the initiative to defect to the official's family, such as you cultivate your own land, you have to pay half of the tax to the imperial court, but after defecting to the official, you only need to pay a quarter.
As a result, the family clan has become more and more powerful, with large families that have flourished for hundreds of years.
The clans of the family even have their own armed forces, and the common people are slowly transferring from the central government to the local households, and the central government cannot collect taxes and control them, and the country will naturally split.
During the Three Kingdoms period, the government had a population of 7.67 million, but the population controlled by local magnates was 15.34 million, more than double the government.
During the Wei and Jin dynasties, the power of the Son of Heaven was already to be shared with the warriors.
For example, when Sima Rui established the Eastern Jin Dynasty, when he held the enthronement ceremony, he suddenly stepped down from the throne, took Wang Dao's hand, and forced him to sit on the dragon chair together.
"Wang Ma is in the world", because Sima Rui was able to establish the Eastern Jin Dynasty, mainly relying on the support of the Langya Wang family, a large clan in the north.
It can be said that the imperial power at that time was seriously controlled by the power of the family family.
During the Wei and Jin dynasties, the emperor co-ruled with the upper elites, and by the time of the Tang Dynasty, the county system had been running for more than 800 years, and it could be regarded as having experience.
The Tang monarchs absorbed the political traditions of the Wei and Jin dynasties and created the "system of feudal refutation", that is, the imperial power would be subject to certain constraints.
For example, the emperor's holy will is not decided by the emperor as soon as he slaps his head, but it must be reviewed by the government department, and there is no problem before the holy will can be issued.
The essence of the feudal system is "co-rule by kings and subjects".
For example, Tang Taizong wanted to recruit 18-year-old young people to serve as soldiers, but Wei Zheng resolutely opposed it, and Tang Taizong forcibly issued a decree, and when it was sent to Menxia Province, Wei Zheng insisted on refusing to sign the edict, so the edict was not promulgated and implemented.
Emperor Taizong of Tang also encouraged his ministers to oppose him and further improve the system of advisors.
Once, Tang Taizong got a small falcon, he was playing with it in his hand, this was Wei Zheng to discuss things, Tang Taizong was afraid of being criticized by Wei Zheng for not doing the right thing, so he quickly took the little falcon in his arms.
Wei Zheng saw that there must be something wrong with the emperor's clothes bulging, so he deliberately slowed down his tone of voice.
When he finally finished talking about things and left, Tang Taizong found that the little falcon had suffocated in his arms.
Although there were also "refusals" in the Tang Dynasty, officials who died because of advice were extremely rare.
The advisors were extremely powerful and played a great role in preventing the emperor from making wrong decisions.
Although the Tang Dynasty established a system of repudiation and improved the system of consultation, in the final analysis, the problem of talent selection was not completely solved.
In fact, before the Tang Dynasty, there was a genius who thought of a solution, that is, the Sui Emperor of the Sui Dynasty.
The Sui Dynasty Emperor Yang Guang was a very clever man, and he saw that successive emperors were trying to suppress local forces, but they could not fundamentally solve the problem.
He finally wanted to understand that the family clan could become stronger and stronger, mainly because there was a loophole in the talent selection system.
Therefore, it is necessary to break the framework of employing people and fundamentally shake the foundation of the family family. Thus, the "examination system" was born.
It has to be said that the "examination system" is a rare product of the "modernization" of ancient society, which makes the talents at the bottom stand out, and the scholars lose their monopoly on official positions.
Unfortunately, the system is very good, but unfortunately the Sui Dynasty was short-lived, living only 39 years in total, and there were more than 10 talents recruited through the examination system.
In the Tang Dynasty, the imperial examination system was not fully utilized, and for the entire Tang Dynasty for 289 years, an average of only 22 talents were taken every year, and 90% of the officials still relied on the door.
The family clan was still strong, and Tang Wenzong wanted the crown prince to marry the granddaughter of the chancellor Zheng Qin, but he was disliked, and Zheng Qin preferred to marry his granddaughter to Cui Gao, a minor official of jiupin, because Cui Gao was from the Shi clan.
Tang Wenzong sighed: Our Li family has been emperor for 200 years, and it is still not as good as the high gate of the family!
When will the family be cured?
It's the Song Dynasty!
The Song Dynasty began to implement the imperial examination on a large scale, and regarded the imperial examination as the most important means of selection and management.
In the Song Dynasty, more than 200 people were selected every year, which was 10 times that of the Tang Dynasty.
Of the 71 prime ministers of the Northern Song Dynasty, 64 were born in the imperial examination, while the 23 most famous prime ministers in the Tang Dynasty were basically born into the shi clan.
Mr. Qian Mu, a modern historian, said: Before the Song Dynasty, it can be roughly called ancient China, and after the Song Dynasty, it is for future generations of China.
It is the popularization of the examination system that has made the centralized system truly perfect.
Written at the end: At this moment, it is once again discovered that the centralization of power in ancient China was really the intellectual relay of the emperors.
Except for the emperor himself, no one cared more about whether the emperor was centralized or not.
Follow me, the next articleWe look at how ancient Chinese civilization reached its peak and declined again.