An official in a costume drama
When reading history books or watching costume dramas, it is often seen that so-and-so is promoted to a positive number of products or from several products. This can't help but make people wonder: Obviously it is in the same official product, why should it be distinguished between positive and historical? Is it just a matter of distinguishing between positive and negative relationships? But many of the same character and official do not have a relationship between the head and vice, and they are not even in the same office! Why?
First, the birth of official products - the Law of Nine Officials and People
If we want to solve the problem of positive and subordinate, we must first understand what is an official product? In ancient times, official products can be traced back to the late Han and early Wei dynasties. In the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, the Biography of Wu Zhi Lu Su records a passage in which Lu Su advised Sun Quan not to surrender to Cao Cao before the Battle of Chibi: "To the opinion of the people, the desire to mislead the general is insufficient and the plot is important. Jinsu can greet the ears, such as a general, not also. Why? Now Su greets Cao, and Cao Dang returns to the township party with Su, and tastes his name, and does not lose his next Cao. Among them, the "pin its name" shows that at that time, a system of appraisal of characters had been implemented at the grass-roots level of counties and counties. As for how the quality evaluation level in this system was distinguished at that time, it is still unknown whether the process of quality evaluation was controlled by the township or the county or the Zhongzheng. In the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Wei Zhi, Chen Qun's Biography", it is recorded that Chen Qun was ordered by Cao Pi to institutionalize the Nine Pins Official's Law and promote it throughout the country in the first year of Yankang (220).
Lu Su
What is the Nine Pins Official's Law? It was a system of selecting officials that combined talent evaluation with the appointment of officials at that time. It appoints talents by dividing people's talents into nine products, and finds talents to match for official positions. But at this time, some people will ask: "Isn't this the nine-product system?" How is it the Nine Pins Official Law? In fact, this is not the case, Chen Changqi's "Wei Jin Jiupin Guanren Law Re-exploration" put forward the view that the Jiupin Zhongzheng system is not the Jiupin Guanren Law. Mr. Chen Changqi believes that the Jiupin Zhongzheng system is essentially a part of the Jiupin Official Personnel Law, and in the design of the Jiupin Official Personnel Law, the operation of the system is divided into two steps: "Nine Pin Identification Talents" and "Nine Pin Appointment Talents". Because ancient and modern scholars paid more attention to the Nine Pins, they mistakenly regarded the Nine Pins Zhongzheng system as the Nine Pins Official Personnel Law.
Back to this article, why did Cao Pi ask Chen Qun to institutionalize and promote the Nine Pins Official Law? Was it a censorship system established to absorb Later Han officials into the Court of the Wei Dynasty? In fact, this statement is not valid, because as early as the Cao Cao period, a lot of work had been done to replace the Later Han. At that time, the Later Han Dynasty had already died in name only, and the officials of the Later Han court had actually been replaced by Cao Cao's men. Those who did not listen to Cao Cao were also transferred or dismissed by Cao Cao, so it was superfluous to conduct additional official censorship during the Cao Pi period. Mr. Chen Changqi believes that the promulgation of the Nine Pins Official's Law may be a codification of Cao Cao's "meritocracy" for talent screening.
Cao Cao in the film and television drama
During the Two Han Dynasties, the system of inspection and examination has always been used in the system of selecting officials, but because the government at that time paid more attention to morality between morality and talent, it has been difficult to obtain more capable talents. The introduction of the Nine Pins Official's Law is a reversal of the past, advocating "meritocracy" when virtue and talent cannot be combined, and appointing people's talents after grading them into grades. It's just a pity that the original intention of the establishment of the Nine Pins Official Personnel Law is good, but there is too much room for manipulation in terms of implementation. After the introduction of the Nine Pins Official Law, some family door valves controlled the channels of appraisal, and thus there was a situation of "no cold door in the upper grade, no nobles in the lower grade". The emergence of the later examination system was not a complete negation of the Nine Pins Official Personnel Law, and the design of "Nine Pins Appointing Talents" was retained. It is only because the development of each dynasty is different, so the grade of some officials is different.
Cao Cao was a meritocracy
Second, the emergence of positive and subordinate and the similarities and differences therein
In fact, in ancient times, the grading of nine products was not exactly the difference between positive and subordinate: the nine-pin grading in the Northern Wei to Tang Dynasties was based on the division of nine products into positive and subordinate, from the four products and below, and then divided into upper and lower official ranks, such as four products and four products, and the four products were divided into four products and four products, and the four products were divided into four products and four products. Therefore, during this period, there were 30 subdivisions of official ranks. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was completely divided into positive and subordinate, so the official rank in the Ming and Qing dynasties was 18 ranks.
List of Grades of Qing Dynasty Officials (Partial)
Why did the ancients refine so many grades in the nine products? One of the reasons is to give officials more opportunities for promotion. If the officials were only roughly divided into nine grades, the gap between the ranks between the officials would not be large, and the imperial court would be prone to problems such as too many officials of the same rank, chaos at the upper and lower levels, and narrow room for the promotion of officials when sealing officials. At the same time, on the issue of promotion, only dividing into nine products can easily make officials promote too quickly, resulting in the breeding of officials' pride and complacency, which affects their enthusiasm to a certain extent. Assuming that everyone deserves a promotion because of due diligence, under the accumulation of time, if you agree to the promotion, it will lead to the redundancy of the management and the burden of the officials at the bottom (just like a company has 100 people, of which 90 people are promoted to general manager because of merit, only 10 people are left to work at the bottom, and everyone has a headache). If only a few people are promoted, to a certain extent, it will cause dissatisfaction among some people who have worked hard but have not been promoted. When these people do not see the hope of rising, the work will be slack, and even the idea of rebellion will breed, which is "not suffering from widowhood and inequality." After the official products are graded, these problems can be well solved, and those who need to be promoted are promoted to varying degrees according to merit, and are reasonably distributed in each grade, which can meet the needs of promotion and solve the problem of enthusiasm. At this time, some people will definitely think that the more the grades of official products, the better! In fact, it is not, first of all, each rank of official products also needs to be filled by officials, and the most obvious consequence of too many official classifications is that it is easy to lead to redundant officials. Therefore, a reasonable distribution of grades is the right way, which also reflects that the division of positive and subordinate has never been the so-called division of grades, but should be the distinction between high and low official positions.
The difference between positive and subordinate is not only reflected in rank, but also in the official Feng Lu. According to the level of the position, there is also a difference in the number of Feng Lu, such as for zheng yi pin Tai shi, Tai Fu, Tai Bao Feng Lu is mostly Wanshi, and from the first product of the Shaoshi, Shao Fu, Shao Bao of the Feng Lu will be inferior to the Zheng Yi pin. This makes the material treatment of positions with equal positions, powers and responsibilities basically the same, and there will be gaps in those that are not equal.
The great officials who can achieve zhengyipin are basically the heroes of their time, and their seniority and social status are far from being comparable to ordinary officials. The officials from Yipin lack a trace of background than the officials of Zhengyipin.
Qing Dynasty grade clothing table (partial)
Zheng Yipin and Congyipin are both the peak of the official position, and many times they are empty. Of course, the high position does not necessarily have a weight, even if a certain official is given a pin title, it is mostly an honorary title, and rarely has real power. After all, most of the officials who can achieve this position have a certain degree of social influence, and even affect the rule of the emperor. Most of the official titles of Yipin were false positions in the Ming and Qing dynasties, such as Taifu, Taishi, and Taibao, so the ancient emperors had to deal with some people who were more threatening, mostly promoting them to Yipin officials and using the trick of mingsheng and secretly adjusting.
The image of a Qing Dynasty official
Wen Shijun said
The original purpose of the ancient regime's design and adoption of the nine-pin official system was to divide talents into ranks, and in order to ensure the enthusiasm of officials' work, the difference between positive and subordinate official qualities was designed. Therefore, the relationship between zhenghe and cong is never the relationship between the main and the negative, but the gap between the ranks of officials. Zheng Yipin and Congyipin are the pinnacle of the official qualities of people, but most of the time Yipin actually does not have much real power, but is a symbol of honor.
bibliography
Chen Changqi: The Origin of Official Products, The Commercial Press, 2016.
Li Hong, "The Characteristics and Enlightenment of the Bureaucratic Grade Salary System in Ancient China", Nandu Academy, No. 3, 1993.
Zhou Qun, "Returning the True History to the Nine Pins official Personnel Law: Reading Mr. Chen Changqi Has a Feeling", Trends in Chinese Historical Research, No. 4, 2017.
(Author: Haoran Wenshi Taoyuan)
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