Chapter I: Official Positions in the Pre-Qin Period
Section 4: The Emergence of a Dictatorship - The Spring and Autumn Warring States Official System
The tenth king of the Zhou Dynasty, Ji Hu, that is, King Li of Zhou, brought fatal wounds to the Zhou Dynasty because of his greed for money and profits. His chancellor, Rong Yigong, implemented a patent policy, which not only aroused the dissatisfaction of the nobles, but also aroused the anger of the people. By 841 BC, the rage had turned into a riot, and King Li fled. This greatly damaged the dynasty's vitality. And his successor, Himemiya Ne, was an unruly playboy who was once known as the "Prince of Beacon Theatre". From then on, the princely states began to have different aspirations. By 771 BC, the northern nomadic Inuyasha had attacked Hojing and plundered it. The dynasty could no longer be called a lonely widow in the ruined Hojing, so it moved its capital to Luoyang, which was called "Eastern Zhou" in history.
This was a major turning point in the era, when the situation of the old dynasty dominating the world came to an end, and the political situation of the collapse of the liturgy came. The feudal states understood that the glory and power of the King of Zhou had become a thing of the past and would never return. From then on, between feudal states and feudal states, deception and fire were endless, and wars continued unceasingly, until 221 BC, when Qin Shi Huang unified China. It was a time of bloodshed, killing and intrigue, but also an era of creating glory and pushing the wheel of history forward.
Secular authority has been broken, and the divine light of liturgy has ceased to emerge. In order to compete for land and population, the various fiefdoms have been fighting each other for a long time. The monarchs of the fiefdoms faced not only the threat of being annexed by their neighbors at any time, but also the dilemma of being driven away and killed by other political forces in the country at any time. In order to survive, the monarchs of various countries continue to carry out drastic reforms of their internal affairs, and naturally, the bureaucracy as a core part of the political system is bound to undergo rapid changes.
First, the patriarchal system of patronage based on patriarchal kinship gradually disintegrated. Before the Spring and Autumn Period, after the secretaries of state who ruled in the royal family and the princely states were all the great nobles of the Zhou royal family appointed by the King of Zhou, their sons and grandchildren could inherit their posts and enjoy their duties forever, not only did the princes have no right to remove and replace, but even the King of Zhou could not move at will. And they often manipulate the military and political power of a country, so that they form a trend of tail power, and the princes are subject to their restraint, and even become vain monarchs in name only, so that they are easily expelled and killed. Of course, the princes of various countries did not want to tie their hands, and they quoted a large number of non-Shiqing scholars to serve in the organs of power, such as the use of Guan Zhong by the Duke of Qi Huan, and the use of The Duke of Qin Mu for the use of five sheepskins in exchange for the Hundred Mile Xi. At the same time, it carried out ruthless attacks on the Shiqing clan in his own country, such as after the Jin Dynasty came to power, "kill all the princes" and "be a Jin wugong clan". The sons of other monarchs other than the crown prince were not allowed to hold official positions in the capital, nor were they given fiefs, or even expelled from the country. After a period of time, the system of secretaries of state gradually disintegrated.
Secondly, in terms of the official system, it also changed from an aristocratic hereditary system to a bureaucratic system. Before the Spring and Autumn Period, the official positions of the doctors were hereditary, and the fathers died and the sons succeeded, often forming an entangled aristocratic power, sometimes affecting the domestic situation and seriously threatening the position of the monarch. After successive struggles, the monarch gradually regained power in his hands, and the officials of all countries were appointed by the monarch, and they only ate and could not be hereditary without fiefs. In this way all officials became slaves of the monarch, who could be replaced and appointed at any time, and the power of officials did not come from the land and armor as before, but from the monarch, and thus the monarch's centralization was strengthened.
Once again, the division of civil and military duties was established. In the early Spring and Autumn Period, the secretaries of state of various countries had great power, they handled state affairs in peacetime, commanded troops to requisition in wartime, and ruled both the military and the people, and they were extremely powerful. In 403 BC, after the three families of Zhao, Han, and Wei were divided into Jin, while setting up generals, there was a "phase" to handle government affairs, but the change was not obvious. It was not until the Qin State Shang Martingale changed the law that the two positions of civil and military affairs were gradually separated, such as Lou Huan and Fan Sui, who successively served in the Qin State, who were both civilian posts and did not exercise military control, and Bai Qi and others were in charge of military affairs. It reflects the necessary division of labor between the military and the administration of the state, and at the same time is an important means for the monarch to control his subordinates. Because of the separation of civil and military duties, the powers of the ministers are dispersed, and they can contain each other, effectively preventing and stopping the ministers from seizing power and respecting themselves. At the same time, it also adapted to the complex political situation at that time, making it a talent of culture and martial arts.
Finally, the establishment of the local county system. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, it was a system of dividing land and dividing feudalism, and once the royal power was weakened, the local princes would take the opportunity to sit on the throne and divide one side. By the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the feudal system was gradually replaced by the county system, and the purpose was also to effectively control the localities and strengthen the central government's rule. The county orders are all local officials appointed by the monarch and can be replaced at any time, so that the local separatist forces are eliminated, and the monarch's decrees can reach all parts of the country through layers of organs, thus establishing absolute politics over the localities.
The evolution of the official system during the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period could not be completed overnight. Due to the conflict of political interests, the conservative slave owners and aristocrats were not willing to withdraw from the stage of history, and they were always launching a rampant counterattack, so the history of bloody conflicts was endless. For example, the most significant reform of the official system, the movement to change the law, has also taken more than a hundred years to stabilize. Moreover, most of the people who presided over the change of the law during this period could not end well, such as Wu Qi of the Chu State being pierced by random arrows, and the Shang Martin of the Qin State being punished by the car splitting, these bloody facts all explain the madness of the slave owners and nobles and the arduousness of the change of the law. Thus, the feudal autocratic system established by various countries inevitably carried the remnants of the aristocratic system, and the relatively perfect one was completed in the hands of Qin Shi Huang.