In the pre-Qin period, the system of hereditary officials was adopted to select officials, that is, the system of aristocrats being officials for generations. Coming from a family, this is the premise of being an official.
The Han Dynasty selected talents and adopted the inspection system, which mainly considered two aspects: one was filial piety (filial piety and honesty), and the other was Maocai (Xiucai). Only by satisfying these two points can we be qualified to be officials.
Among them, the weight of filial piety is heavier, and most of the filial piety comes from the Confucian children of the aristocratic family, so it is still not free from the control of the family family.
In the Three Kingdoms period, the world was in chaos, at this time Cao Cao took a different path, in order to unify the country, he adopted a meritocratic way to select officials, as long as you have talent, you can come to me as an official, if you don't have talent, even if it is the son of the Heavenly King Laozi, don't want to be an official.
Cao Cao's behavior seriously violated the interests of the clans. Therefore, Cao Cao was opposed by many family clans, such as Confucius's descendant Kong Rong and Yang Xiu in the Hongnong Yang clan, all of whom were killed by Cao Cao for excuses.
Cao Cao's strength is strong, and the rivers and mountains are all fought down by him, so he naturally has no fear. But after his death, Cao Pi succeeded to the throne, and the trouble came.
Cao Pi did not have many military achievements and insufficient prestige, and it was not easy for him to inherit the throne and usurp the throne by the way. If you continue to fight with the family family, is it not looking for death?
In order to stabilize his position, Cao Pi chose to compromise with the family clan. Among Cao Pi's four friends, Chen Qun was from the Yingchuan Chen clan, and Sima Yi's family was an official for generations. With the assistance of Chen Qun, Cao Pi chose to adopt the Nine Pins Zhongzheng system to select officials, which was a complete abandonment of his father's ambitions.
First, what is the nine-product zhongzheng system?
Changing the soup without changing the medicine, the nine-pin zhongzheng system, in fact, is another form of the inspection system. Since Cao Pi had already bowed to the family, he naturally chose the old way of the inspection system, after all, this thing was still very useful to the family.
However, since Cao Cao abolished this system, as a son, it is a bit too much to restore it completely. For this reason, they changed the form of the inspection system and changed its name, so that it would be easier for the people of the world to accept it.
The nine products are the nine levels of talents, from high to low: up, up, up, up, middle, down, down, down, down, down.
So the question is, who is going to give these grades to talents? This is the role of Zhongzheng.
The state set up a large and central official, selected by situ, one of the three dukes, who was mainly responsible for judging talents in the state.
The county set up a small zhongzheng official, who was selected by the state's large zhongzheng official and approved by Situ. They are primarily responsible for judging talent within the county.
After the selection of the big and small officials, the imperial court would distribute them with a kind of talent questionnaire. There are nine levels of talent on it, and they can rate them according to their own standards and write reviews.
Generally, the form is first selected by Xiao Zhongzheng, and then the form is handed over to The Grand Zhongzheng, who reviews it again and then submits the form to the imperial court. According to these ranks, the imperial court then awarded or dismissed the corresponding talents.
One of the advantages of this is that the system of selecting talents has been improved. In the past, Cao Cao's discernment was clear, and he could easily see who had the ability and who was incompetent. However, the future monarchs could not all be as capable and energetic as Cao Cao, so the matter of selecting talents had to be institutionalized.
Second, it satisfies the family, but restricts the royal family and the cold door.
The biggest beneficiary of the nine-pin system is naturally the family clan. Why? Because the candidates in the right size are generally people in these family families, these people are naturally fertile and do not flow into the fields of outsiders.
The children of their own family are naturally upper-class talents, and as for the three talents without doors and no sects, even if you are talented, you can only get a middle or lower level.
Sometimes I worry that things are too ostentatious, and everyone will still think of another way, that is, you choose my child, I choose his child, and he chooses your son. Turning around like this, no one has anything to say, right?
In this way, the clans of the family not only monopolized the officialdom again, but also clung to the group and held the power of the government to the death. Not only are there no way out for the han disciples, but even the royal family must be restricted.
For example, during the Cao Wei period, after the death of the Wei Ming Emperor Cao Rui, the emperors of Cao Wei basically became decorations. The Sima family relied not only on force, but also on the huge network of relationships of the family, and instantly grasped the supreme power.
After Sima Yan replaced Cao Wei and established the Jin Dynasty, only 20 years later, the world was in chaos. The family clans occupy the vast majority of social resources, even if the world is in chaos, they are still mixed.
During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the Sima family produced 11 emperors, of which only 1 was Sima Shao, the Emperor of jinming, and was not a puppet (Sima Yao, emperor of xiaowu, counted half of them). The other 10, including sima rui, the founding prince of the country, were all puppet emperors.
So where did the imperial power of the Eastern Jin Dynasty go? Nature fell into the hands of the family clan.
First, the earliest Langya Wang clan. Wang Dao, Wang Dun, Wang Kuang, and others supported Sima Rui to the south to establish the Eastern Jin Dynasty, after which Wang Dao was in charge of the lord and Wang Dun was outside, and the two people jointly controlled the overall situation of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and overthrew Sima Rui.
Second, the Yingchuan Yu clan. After the death of Sima Shao, the emperor of the Jin Dynasty, the foreign forces represented by Yu Liang and Yu Bing became the empress dowager with his sister Yu Wenjun, thus controlling the imperial government and overshadowing the emperor of the Sima family.
Third, the Huan clan of the Kingdom of Chen. This is even more famous, Huan Wen led troops to capture Shu land, from then on to control the government, and many times northern expeditions, and even thought of adding Jiu Xi to usurp the throne, it can be said that the power was tilted for a while, and 4 emperors were successively vacated: Sima Pi, the Emperor of Jin, Sima Yi, the Emperor of Jin, Sima Yu, the Emperor of Jin, and Sima Yao, the Emperor of Jin.
Fourth, Chen Jun's Xie clan. Xie An prevented Huan Wen from claiming the title of emperor. In the Battle of Shuishui, Xie An and Xie Xuan defeated more than 800,000 Former Qin troops with 80,000 Northern Fu soldiers, once again saving the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Therefore, it was easier for the Xie family to overhead Sima Yao. If they had not taken the initiative to withdraw later, Sima Yao would not have been able to take power at all.
The result is terrible, but it's a bloody fact. These clans, relying on the Nine Pins Zhongzheng system, a means of selecting officials, firmly held the power to select middle and high-ranking officials in the hands of their own families.
For example, the famous Scholar Saint Wang Xizhi, he did not need to work his career at all, practicing writing at home every day, or could he achieve the high position of a general of the Right Army? Because he was from the Langya Wang clan, he was Wang Dao's cousin.
Third, the Southern and Northern Dynasties made substantial efforts to suppress the shijia.
The result of the Nine Pins Zhongzheng System is that there is no cold door in the upper grade and no scholar clan (or clan or shi clan or shi clan) in the lower grade. If this dead cycle continues, then the emperor will not have the final say, but these door valve families will have the final say!
To this end, during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, certain efforts were made to this.
In the Northern Dynasty, the Northern Wei Emperor Taiwu Tuoba Tao, with a big wave of his hand, with the help of the prison of national history, swept away the Qinghe Cui clan, the Fanyang Lu clan, the Taiyuan Guo clan, and the Hedong Liu clan, and all the immediate family members were destroyed, leaving only some side branches.
In the Southern Dynasty, after the cosmic general Hou Jing betrayed Eastern Wei, he chose to submit to Xiao Yan, the Emperor of Liangwu. Hou Jing asked Emperor Wu of Liang to marry a woman from the Xie family, but emperor Wu of Liang refused to do so because of his low status. After that, Hou Jing was furious and launched a rebellion, not only destroying Emperor Wu of Liang, but also wiping out the Langya Wang clan, the Chen Junxi clan and other clans, killing all men and rewarding all women to their soldiers.
Unfortunately, this kind of simple armed killing is difficult to eliminate all the military groups, because you can't find any reason to catch them all. And if you do, the consequence is that no one will help you run the country anymore!
Those in power must consider the stability of society, and although the family is hateful, the family holds the power to select officials at all levels, and their children are also officials in various places. If they are swept away, they will inevitably be exhausted, and only those in power will suffer in the end.
Fourth, the imperial examination system was a major challenge, and the Sui Emperor paid a terrible price for it.
Obviously, it is not advisable to suppress it by force. For this reason, in the late Southern and Northern Dynasties, some people came up with other ways to select officials, that is, the imperial examination system.
The imperial examination system is to select officials through examinations, which is obviously much fairer and more just than the inspection system and the nine-pin zhongzheng system, and at the same time gives the children of the cold door more opportunities for promotion.
In the past, if the children of the Cold Gate wanted to become high officials, there was no other way but to join the army and fight with their lives on the battlefield. Nowadays, it is different, everyone can learn knowledge, in the examination room, and those children of the family to fight for the same place as the official.
Who initiated the examination system is currently unclear. Some people say that Northern Qi had a system of examinations, some people said that it was founded by Yang Jian, the Emperor of Sui Wen, and some people said that it was founded by Yang Guang, the Emperor of Sui Dynasty.
In any case, Yang Guang, the Sui Dynasty Emperor, played a crucial role in the promotion of the imperial examination system. In fact, during the period of his father, Emperor Wen of Sui, Yang Jian, he was already aware of the influence of the family on imperial power, but unfortunately, Emperor Wen of Sui was the founding prince of the country, and he could not bear to attack those meritorious groups, especially the Guanlong group, which was the old foundation of Yang Jian's family.
The Sui Dynasty Emperor Yang Guang did not have so many scruples, he destroyed a large number of meritorious groups, and incidentally suppressed a wave of clans including the Guan Long clique. Vigorously promoting the imperial examination has seriously limited the power of the clans, which can cause fire to these clans.
Yang Guang hopes that through just a dozen years of hard work, he will complete the high-level reshuffle and gradually get rid of his dependence on the Guan Long Group, which has backfired.
The Guanlong clique simply abandoned the Sui Dynasty emperor Yang Guang and instead defected to Li Yuan, who was also from the Guanlong clique. Li Yuan is from the Li clan of Longxi, and if he wants to start a business, he naturally has to shoot the ass of the Guanlong Group.
Therefore, Yang Guang, the Sui Dynasty Emperor, used the tragic price of the subjugation of the country in exchange for the result of suppressing the family. Some people say that this is not worth it, but can the Sui Emperor give up doing so? Of course not.
If he gave up doing so, in the future his descendants would still be constrained by these clans, and even set aside. Of course, he was a little anxious, and it was completely possible to achieve his goal step by step for several generations, but the Sui Emperor wanted to eat a fat man in one bite.
Summary: It was only in the Song Dynasty that the threat of the family was completely freed.
The Tang Dynasty also started with the Guanlong clique, so the Tang emperor was still constrained by the Guanlong clique. For example, Li Shimin's brother-in-law, Changsun Wuji, is one of the typical leaders of the Guan Long clique.
During the Wu Zetian period, the eldest son Wuji was destroyed, and in order to deal with the family clan, he focused on promoting the imperial examination system, and even created martial arts, in order to select more talents from the cold door.
Unfortunately, throughout the Tang Dynasty, the suppression of the clan of the family was not enough. They seemed to see the results of the Sui Emperor, so they didn't dare to shake off their arms and let go of their steps.
Until the end of the Tang Dynasty, a Yellow Nest Uprising made the family completely desperate. After Huang Chao captured Luoyang and Chang'an, he planned to invite members of the Shijia clan to become officials, but the people did not give face. Huang Chao was furious about this and cut the family members as a dish, without giving any face.
This was not enough, after Huang Chao's younger brother Zhu Wen took power, he further swept away the clans that hindered him from claiming the title of emperor. From then on, the clans were honest, the main force was destroyed, and the rest of the people were not in the climate.
References: Book of Jin, Old Book of Tang