As one of the important systems of modern society, civil servants retire after reaching a certain age and enjoy the financial support of the state. In fact, this system is not a product of modern economic society, the retirement system has been produced in the Zhou Dynasty in China, and slowly developed into a national customization.
The word retirement first appeared in the Tang and Song dynasties. The Tang Dynasty essayist Han Yu's "Fuzhi Fu Order" has a sentence "Retire from residence and write "Fuzhi Fu"" in it. During the Han Dynasty, the retirement of officials was called "Zhishi". By the time of the Qing Dynasty, the retirement of officials was divided into many situations, such as: retiring after being promoted to a post; retiring after making mistakes and being punished by the emperor; and retiring at the age of retirement.
Today, we will talk about the retirement system for officials during the Qing Dynasty.
In terms of the retirement age of officials, according to the system stipulations of the Qianlong period, all officials aged fifty-five or above in each department, Shangshu, Shilang, etc., must be carefully distinguished to confirm whether they have really reached the retirement age. The latest retirement age for officials is seventy years old, and if they do not retire at the age of seventy, they will be forced to retire by order of the higher authorities.
However, the requirement to retire at the age of seventy is only a rough range for some high-ranking officials who hold great power. It can be said that in many cases, whether an official wants to retire has a lot to do with the official's energy; the emperor's attitude toward him; and the relationship with the superior official.
Moreover, during the Qing Dynasty, if an official wanted to retire, under normal circumstances, the official needed to explain the reason to the higher authority on his own, and only after obtaining approval could he retire. Officials of three pins and above can directly submit a "Zhishi Recital" to the emperor, and the Jing officials of four pins and below must ask the emperor to play through the department to which the official belongs, Shangshu, or Shilang.
Foreign officials, on the other hand, need to pass the supervision and review of the officials to obtain approval.
Usually, if an official's retirement request was approved, it was necessary to immediately liquidate the expenses to fill the vacancy, and then ask the emperor for his will, and then find someone else to fill the official position.
However, there were also special circumstances, during the Qianlong period, Qianlong used reasons such as "praising the merits of university non-commissioned officers" and "Xuanli has a year" to retain some officials who wanted to retire, and retained their official positions for these officials for a month. Through this method, Qianlong showed the state's concern for the old minister, and even if the minister was about to retire, the state would not forget to care for him.
From the perspective of the treatment of officials after retirement, the retirement of officials can be divided into two types:
One is to retire according to age under the retirement system;
The other is the retirement of former officials, which in layman's terms is to retain the original official positions and grade honors of retired officials.
As for the original official position, a separate provision was made.
Generally speaking, if officials at this level, such as university scholars and shangshu, retain their original official positions and retire, they can give them preferential treatment for all their original official positions after returning to their hometowns. If a serving official is examined and retires by virtue of his or her original rank, he will be given half of his or her original official position. If it is an official who has been ordered to retire by a higher authority, they will not be given a lute.
Although the Qing Dynasty made such detailed regulations on the existence or non-existence of officials after retirement, these are not absolute. If the emperor is extra gracious, then the official may change the absence of Feng Lu into a Feng Lu, and half of the Feng Lu into all Of Qi Lu. After some officials retired from the official field, the emperor would consider giving the official the grace of promotion to titles and promotion ranks in order to reward his contributions to the imperial court during his tenure.
For example, during Yongzheng's reign, Chen Yuanlong, a university scholar, felt that he was too old to take on heavy responsibilities, so he asked for retirement. The Yongzheng Emperor felt that Chen Yuanlong was a man who worked diligently and made great contributions to the imperial court, and remembered that Chen Yuanlong was an old minister during the Kangxi period. Therefore, the Yongzheng Emperor posthumously awarded Chen Yuanlong the title of Crown Prince Taifu and allowed him to retire from his original official position. This is an example of an official's promotion to a higher rank after retirement.
In addition, there are cases where retired officials are promoted to titles and ranks, and conversely, there are also cases where officials are considered by the emperor to be too proud and deliberately sloppy when they request retirement, and then they are punished and punished. For example, in the fifth year of Qianlong, Wei Tingzhen, who was then serving as the Shangshu of the Staff Department, asked for retirement because of the old and frail. However, Qianlong believed that he had held this official position for such a long time, and had not made any outstanding political achievements or made any major contributions to the imperial court. Therefore, he was ordered to be dismissed from his official post and sent back to his place of origin.
It is not uncommon for an emperor to retire like this.
Orders, on the other hand, contain the meaning of punishing others. At this time, the age and physical condition of the official were not the main reasons for his retirement. This kind of retirement is very different from the self-retirement of officials in essence. For example, during the Yongzheng period, the Yongzheng Emperor discovered that there were phenomena such as forming parties and engaging in private interests in some of the following departments, so he ordered some officials to strictly investigate this matter, and once they were found to have such a phenomenon, they would be disarmed and returned to the field.
Among them, demobilized officials are ordered to retire. In this case, because the official has made a mistake, he naturally cannot enjoy the treatment of Feng Lu and so on.
In addition, there is a special situation, that is, when an official is impeached by another minister for making a mistake, the emperor will let him retire instead of punishing him in order to save the official's face. Retired officials, after approval, do not leave immediately. They must connect with their men before leaving, and then they can leave.
However, some officials were exceptions, and although they were retired, they would return to the official arena when the emperor needed them.
To sum up: if the emperor does not need it, the official will retire; if the emperor needs it, the official will return to the court to continue to serve the country.
Resources:
[Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, Official I, Qing Dynasty Civil Official System, Records of Emperor Shizong of the Qing Dynasty, Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, Volume 10, And The Chronicle of Emperor Gaozong]