Yang Jian created a system of examination for officials, with the aim of discovering officials with outstanding political achievements and eliminating unqualified officials. Of course, Yang Jian's achievements in the rule of officials also lie in the strict supervision of officials and severe punishment of officials' illegal behavior.
Yang Jian knew that reward and punishment are clearly the foundation of rule, rewards must not be excessive, and punishments must be just. In July of the third year of Renshou (603), Yang Jian summed up the experience of historical chaos and said:
Since the decline of the king's road, the style of the people is weak, and the upper can not be just, and the lower must follow the private law to hope for the time. The top and bottom are blinded by each other, the ruler loses righteousness, and if righteousness is lost, the government is obedient, and the government is poor. If the wind of virtue is difficult to follow, and it is easy to pursue the track of virtue, those who let it end, and those who rest do not take office, then everyone will be slaughtered with gold, and the scourge of humiliation will be unpredictable.
Yang Jian's remarks are that the rise and fall of chaos lies in winning the hearts of the people, and to win the hearts of the people, "justice" must be the first, and unfair rewards and punishments will lead to divorce from morality. Yang Jian attaches great importance to this
For example, Zhang Wei was the founding hero of the Sui Dynasty, and when he quelled Wang Qian's Rebellion, he entered Shuzhong with a vanguard army, broke Wang Qian's army, and was appreciated by Yang Jian, and the official went to Hebei Province to serve as a servant, and later transferred to the governor of Qingzhou. Zhang Wei's personal advantages were prominent, but his shortcomings were equally prominent, he was proud of his achievements, bought a large number of properties in his jurisdiction, and even sent domestic slaves to sell aloe roots everywhere, taking the opportunity to plunder the people.
Yang Jian did not protect him after learning this, and was held accountable according to the relevant laws and regulations, and removed him from office.
Later, Yang Jian summoned Zhang Wei when he worshipped Mount Tai through Luoyang, and he still remembered the removal of him from official position that year, and Yang Jian even said to Zhang Wei bitterly, "Since there is the world, every commission is a heavy town, it can be said that it is a red heart, why not practice fame and practice, only profit is to see?" Straight lonely and destitute." It can be seen that he regrets Zhang Wei.
Yang Jian also showed no mercy to those around him who violated the law, for example, Li Yuantong was born as Yang Jian's family slave, and he served by Yang Jian's side since he was a child, and was deeply favored by Yang Jian, but when he followed King Qin Xiao out of the town and prefecture, he was not strict with himself, could not do public self-discipline, and embezzled and corrupted with King Qin Xiao, so King Qin Xiao was eventually convicted, and he was also implicated.
It was precisely because Yang Jian set an example and did not favor the old ministry that the supervision of officials by the imperial court supervision agency could not be concerned about personnel background, so the supervision work was strictly implemented.
For example, during the Renshou period, Yang Su was very afraid of him by virtue of his favor, and the officials were very afraid of him, and Liang Pi, who was the secretary of Dali at the time, directly impeached Yang Su to Yang Jian, accusing him of "not being loyal in any private way, and being a relative of Jinxian, a son of Bule, and a prefecture and a county." If nothing happens in the world, there will be a different picture, and the four seas will be the beginning of disaster. Husbands and traitors are in good hands, and there are graduals."
Yang Jian was furious after reading the impeachment recital and personally rebuked Liang Pi, but Liang Pi was completely unafraid, and made a generous statement in front of Yang Jian, saying that Yang Su was spoiled and acted as a blessing in power, and innocently killed the generals stationed at the border pass. This caused Yang Jian to be wary of Yang Su, and then began to gradually distance himself from Yang Su.
In addition to being pro-noble, the prime minister of the dynasty is also within the scope of supervision, so let alone the officials of the imperial court, so the officials on weekdays regulate themselves in their words and deeds in accordance with the supervision standards, and dare not be too indulgent.
After Ping Chen, Yang Jian once personally went to Yang Guang's mansion to banquet the ministers, and during the banquet, Yu Qingze and Yang Su competed with each other, and even attacked each other, very disfigured, and Yushi impeached the two on the spot, and Yang Jian reprimanded these two people.
Therefore, every time Yang Jian proposed to feast on the ministers, Yu Qing asked Yang Jian not to let the imperial history be present, and only after Yang Jian took the imperial history away, the ministers dared to feast and drink. The banquet of the high-level is still like this, not to mention the usual words and deeds.
For local officials, Yang Jian often sent central officials to conduct inspections, and used the inspection situation as the criterion for the promotion and demotion of local officials. For example, in February of the first year of the emperor (581), just after the establishment of the Sui Dynasty, Yang Jian sent special envoys to inspect the provinces, and in the sixth year of the emperor (586), Suwei, then the minister of civil affairs, was the special envoy to inspect all parts of Shandong, and after Pingchen, the tenth (590), fifteenth (595), seventeenth (597), and first year of Renshou (601) all sent special envoys to inspect various places.
The envoys sent by Yang Jian were basically all imperial historians, or the chief officials of Taiwan Province. For example, Liu Yu and Huangfu are the imperial history of the secretary, Yang Shangxi is the secretary of the Henan Province Xingtai Military Department, Changsun Chi is the official attendant, Yang Jian even uses Yu Qingze and Su Wei as the prime minister as inspection ambassadors, these people represent the power and authority of the central government, after going to various places, not only listen to the reports of officials, but also inspect the people's situation, in-depth understanding of the local governance situation, as Yang Jian's eyes and ears in the locality, sometimes also responsible for special affairs, generally to visit officials' performance, recommend talents as the main duty, so Yang Jian sometimes just sends ambassadors to depose Sheng.
From the perspective of local officials, the ambassadors of the province and the deposed Sheng had an important impact on promotion, for example, Zhao Zhuo served as the driver of Qi Prefecture, and the evaluation was the best for four consecutive years, and Liang Zigong, the envoy of the festival, reported his deeds, and Yang Jian was overjoyed when he learned about it, and immediately praised him and transferred him to the post of Beijing official; Gongsun Jingmao was also promoted to the post of Assassin of Zizhou (淄州, in present-day Zibo, Shandong) because of the kind words of the governor Yang Ji.
But for those officials who do not abide by the law or even commit evil, the ambassador can indeed play a certain deterrent effect.
For example, because of his excellent work in the Criminal Department, Huangfu was appointed by Yang Jian as the secretary of the imperial history, and the ministers were very jealous of him, and later appointed as the ambassador of Henan Province; After continuous inspections and covert visits, he found that more than 200 local governors Shi Liuyu were corrupt and violated the law, so he played Yang Jian to impeach these officials. Yang Jian praised him when he found out, and later appointed him to patrol the nineteen prefectures of Taiyuan Province in the early years of Renshou.
With Yang Jian's strong support, most of these inspection officials can enforce the law impartially and do a good job in supervision, which makes those feudal officials or clan princes have some scruples.
In the first year of Renshou (601), Xin Zhengyi was appointed as the ambassador of Yangzhou Dao, and Yang Xi, the king of Yuzhang, was the governor of Yangzhou at that time, he was worried that his subordinates would be impeached by Xin Zhengyi for breaking the law, so he rushed to Xin Gongyi before he entered the jurisdiction, and welcomed him from afar, hoping that he would not be too truthful during the inspection, but Xin Zhengyi flatly refused, his reason was that "Fengzhao did not dare to be selfish", and after entering Yangzhou, he would enforce the law impartially and supervise. During Yang Jian's reign, many corrupt officials were brought to justice under the impeachment of supervisory officials.
Of course, officials who perform supervision duties are also supervised by other officials, and during Yang Jian's reign, officials performed supervision duties with each other. For example, after Ping Chen, Southern Chen sent Xiao Maha to ask his son to return to Jiangnan to recover the family property when his wife was critically ill, and Yushi ignored this.
When the fashion book Zuo Cheng Yuanshou immediately played the impeachment of the imperial history, believing that Xiao Maha ignored his wife's serious illness and let his son go out to collect wealth, this is an act of valuing profit over righteousness, which does not conform to the rules of filial piety to rule the world, and the supervision official actually did not impeach them, which was completely derelict in his duty, he asked Yang Jian to send these people to Dali Temple for trial, and Yang Jian deeply agreed after reading the recital.
Yuan Shou pointed out in the recital: "The official of imperial history, righteous picketing, straight rope is not lifted, and the constitution is sent", which is very consistent with Yang Jian's opinion. Once, someone reported to Yang Jian that the imperial supervisor had not impeached the military attaché who was not properly dressed and sworded at the court, and Yang Jian immediately rebuked him and ordered the samurai in front of the palace to pull the supervisor out and behead.
Obviously, Yang Jian regards the supervision officials as eagle dogs with eyes and ears, and his supervision is also very strict. In order to prevent supervision officials from slack, Yang Jian deliberately allowed hundreds of officials to supervise them, which established a system of mutual supervision of officials to ensure the stable and efficient operation of the state apparatus.
In addition to the supervision system, Yang Jian also created a public record system to comprehensively supervise the administrative processes of administrative organs at all levels. Shangshu Niuhong, who had been puzzled by the phenomenon that government officials had multiplied, but the handling of government affairs was becoming more and more procrastinating, he asked Liu Xuan, a famous confucian, who believed that the reason for this phenomenon was that local officials did not have relatively independent administrative power, which discouraged local officials.
It is clear that Liu Xuan yearned for the model of local officials to rule one side and had a desire to restore the social legacy of the great families of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, so he was naturally dissatisfied with the bureaucracy vigorously promoted by the Sui Dynasty.
Yang Jian's creation of the official record system, which matched the system of appointing local officials by the central imperial court, was a new measure to avoid long-term social division, and it was well implemented in the actual process. In the early years of the emperor's reign, Yang Jian saw that the records of Shangshu Province were very complicated, and felt that there must be something tricky in them, so he asked Yu Zhongwen to investigate specifically, and found that many records were forged.
Therefore, through Liu Xuan's words, it can also be seen that the document system established by Yang Jian invisibly plays an important supervisory role in the exercise of power by officials, making the administrative process of officials more standardized and reasonable, and the resulting increase in functional departments and staff is also a manifestation of the Sui Dynasty's gradual improvement of social management.
Of course, no matter what system Yang Jian established, or how to supervise officials, as well as various restrictions on local officials, in addition to allowing the normal operation of the imperial court, Yang Jian never forgot the fact that he changed the personnel appointment and removal system of local officials.
In April of the fourth year of the emperor's reign (584), Yang Jian issued a rule: "The chief of the history of assassination of parents and sons has been in the fifteenth year, and he shall not be an official." In the 14th year of the founding of the emperor, the object of this restriction was further expanded to include "foreign officials who have already attained nine grades, and parents and children who have been on the fifteenth year, and they are not allowed to be appointed officials."
First, these regulations are to restrict local officials and their subordinates from holding office for a long time, resulting in the formation of traitors and the complicity of local forces over time; Second, it is necessary to prevent officials from acting as a bully at the local level. In addition, there are regulations such as "in the history of assassination, every year and every twilight of the dynasty, he takes exams" and "the county order is not allowed to leave the country without reason", it can be said that the discipline of officials is relatively strict.
This derives another aspect of supervision over officials, that is, in addition to supervising their administrative law enforcement, political style and discipline, loyalty and integrity, etc., they must also supervise officials' conduct and private life. For example, the aforementioned Shangzhu Guo Zheng Yi, because he lived apart from his mother, was impeached by the imperial history, and as a result, he was removed from the people.
The son of the Great Situ Wang Yi was Yang Jian's son-in-law, who married Yang Jian's fifth daughter, and soon Wang Yi's son died of illness, and Wang Yi, in the name of the princess's youth, asked for her filial piety in advance, and was also brought to justice. From these two examples, it can be seen that the supervision of officials has involved all aspects of himself, and even Gao Xi, who Yang Jian trusts the most, and when his son Gao Dehong was made the Duke of Yingguo, his application to erect a halberd behind the door to show his dignity was rejected by Yang Jian.
Monitoring of officials' conduct and private lives is often premised on the promotion of chastity and thrift. As we said earlier, Yang Jian and Empress Dugu themselves lived a thrifty life, and jointly swore that there were no children of women other than the children born to the two, which was equivalent to the emperor and empress taking the lead in practicing monogamy, which surprised the government and the public at that time
Empress Dugu even used this as a standard for measuring the conduct of officials, as a judgment of the loyalty of her courtiers, and also deeply influenced Yang Jian.
Empress Dugu particularly hated officials taking concubines, and the "Sui Shu Houfei Document Dugu Empress Biography" recorded: "If you see that kings and courtiers have concubines, they will persuade them to rebuke them", and many ministers suffered from it. For example, Di Shiwen's cousin was quite graceful and was also a concubine of Northern Qi, and after the fall of Northern Qi, she was rewarded with the meritorious minister Sun Yan as a wife.
Changsun Yan was elated, but his wife, who was left out in the cold, was very jealous. After the establishment of the Sui Dynasty, Changsun Yan's wife knew that Empress Dugu hated men very much, so she met Empress Dugu and cried to her, and Empress Dugu immediately forced Changsun Yan's "Northern Qi concubine" to be expelled from the house.
It is worth mentioning that the deposition of Gao Xi and the replacement of the crown prince that later led to the chaos of the Sui Dynasty were all triggered by concubinage, and the issue of the life style of officials at that time became the political discipline of the imperial court and also became the trigger for political events.
Since conduct and life style have become the scope of supervision of officials, those officials who perform supervision duties will inevitably become staunch defenders of ethics and morality, represented by Shi Li Chen, a scholar during the founding emperor.
At that time, women remarried quite commonly, and this situation was quite evident in the bureaucracy and aristocratic families, especially the remarriage of concubines and maids left behind after the death of their children and grandchildren.
Li Chen sighed at this, believing that this was a sign of indecency, so Shangshu denounced and asked for a ban, which was supported by the aforementioned famous Confucian Liu Xuan.
The Sui Shu Liu Xuan Biography records that this incident was originally aimed at "customs and late customs, and women have no discipline", which shows that it was not only aimed at marrying fathers and grandparents, but also remarriage in general.
After reviewing Li Chen's text, Yang Jian greatly agreed, so he issued an edict in June of the sixteenth year of the emperor's reign (596): "Wife above ninth rank and concubine above fifth rank shall not be remarried if the husband dies." ”
Later, during the reign of Yang Guang, the Sui Emperor, this provision was officially made a law. In addition, in advocating thrift and thrift, guarding against luxury, and changing official exaggeration, Li Chen once spoke bluntly, which was deeply praised by Yang Jian, and the "Sui Shu Li Chen Biography" commented that he was "promulgated to the world before and after, and the four seas are quietly facing the wind, and deeply reforming its shortcomings."
The above examples can reflect the emphasis on traditional etiquette and Confucian theory and morality since the establishment of the Sui Dynasty. The Wei and Jin dynasties were in turmoil for more than two hundred years, Confucian etiquette laws were seriously damaged, coupled with the influx of ethnic minority customs into the Central Plains, especially in the northern regions, social morality changed greatly, and the bitter spirit of troubled times made decadence a common phenomenon, and then material desires flowed. Therefore, after the establishment of the Sui Dynasty, when the great unification gradually took shape, the transformation of national ideology was put on the agenda.
First of all, it is necessary to remove the decadent extravagance in order to talk about inspiring people, and then shape an ideology suitable for unification, so Yang Jian wants to hold high the banner of Confucian ethics, stimulate the hidden moral idealism in people's hearts, and then create momentum for the construction of a new country, and also provide a theoretical basis for eliminating the accumulated shortcomings of officialdom, with far-reaching intentions.
The "Sui Shu Liu Yu Biography" recorded: "After the Sui Cheng funeral, the customs deteriorated, and Yu was corrected by many people, and it was very praised. ”
Second, from another point of view, elevating ethics to a political perspective, and using this to strictly monitor officials, is aimed at the decadent and extravagant tendencies that have long developed in society. This is not only a one-sided idea of suppressing officials, not only to save the times, but also because moralism is a powerful means of consolidating centralized power, and even reaching the level of impersonality and dehumanization in the process, which will produce accumulated shortcomings.
In the "Sui Shu Liu Xuan Biography", it is said that "in the life of Gaozu (Yang Jian), there were many villains with swords and pens, and he was old and adulterous, and he was also the result of it", and this record reflects the accumulated shortcomings covered by the brilliance of moralism. But as long as it is conducive to centralization, it will be approved by the rulers, and in this respect all generations of rulers have been the same.
After the establishment of the Sui Dynasty, Yang Jian used the means to promote moralism and administrative supervision in order to move forward normally for the new dynasty and consolidate the centralized system, which are also two sharp swords.
In the early years of the emperor's reign, Yang Jian once had a banquet with core members of the imperial court, such as Yang Xiong the King of Ande, Shangzhu Guoyuanxi, Changsun Yan, Li Chong, Zuo Servant Gao Xi, Neishi Yu Qingze, and He Ruobi, the governor of Wuzhou, during which Yang Jian said the following:
In the past in the Zhou Dynasty, preparations were made to show sincerity, but bitter suspicion caused chills. If this is the case, why should he be concerned? Righteousness is righteousness, and grace is father and son. When he shared the end of luck with the public, the crime was not conspiracy, and he did not ask anything.
Yang Jian revealed that he had suffered from suspicion in the Northern Zhou Dynasty and knew the consequences of people's disappointment, so after becoming emperor, he was determined to save the shortcomings of the times, so he made an appointment with the courtiers to work together to share the final luck. In fact, due to the customs left over from the gate politics in the Northern Zhou Dynasty, as well as Yang Jian's own weak power base, it was impossible for Yang Jian's statement to the ministers to really be achieved.
When the Sui Dynasty was first established, Yang Jian always paid attention to the movements of his camp while fighting against the old political forces.
Under the ancient autocratic centralized system, the monarch most hoped that there would only be a vertical relationship between monarchs and subjects, and the most vigilant was the horizontal relationship between the group of subjects, once the horizontal relationship increased, it would make the monarch sleep uneasy, regarded as a group that threatened his power, and was called "friends" throughout the ages. Successive rulers have made friends the object of strict supervision and severe punishment, even the emperor's confidants.
In the early years of the Sui Dynasty, because the political situation was unstable, the political struggle implied torrents, and Gao Xi, as a minister whom Yang Jian absolutely trusted, offered him a lot of tricks, and helped introduce talents, helping Yang Jian quickly build a core bureaucratic team loyal to the new dynasty.
At that time, the power of the elders and heavy ministers from the Northern Zhou regime was still very large, and Gao Xi and other nouveau riche had to rely on the authority of the emperor to gain a foothold in the imperial court, which was the internal reason why Yang Jian fully supported them.
Despite this, Yang Jian secretly prevented Gao Xi from becoming bigger from the beginning, and when someone secretly reported to Yang Jian that Gao Xi had formed a party, Yang Jian did not hesitate to interrogate Yang Xiong at all. Even Gao Xi, who was fully loyal, was suspected, which showed how strict Yang Jian's guards against his courtiers were.
With Yang Jian's actions, the term "friends" became a term used by different political forces to attack each other, and it often worked.
For example, after Ping Chen, Yang Jian asked Tai Changqing Niu Hong to preside over the formulation of the music law, and Su Ku, the son of Prime Minister Su Wei and Dr. He Tuo of Guozi, who participated in the cultivation, disagreed, and the two quarreled. Yang Jian then asked the hundred officials to vote, and the overwhelming majority of the people supported Su Kui, and He Tuo was very angry, and in order to vent his anger, he exposed Su Wei and Shangshu Lu Kai of the Ministry of Rites, Xue Daoheng, Shangshu Youcheng Wang Hong, and Li Tonghe, the Gonggong Attendant, and the party for personal gain.
The change from disagreement on Xiu Le to a dispute between friends and parties was something that no one expected, and Yang Jian was precisely the one who lost his mind when he heard the word "friends", and he immediately ordered Yang Xiu and Yu Qing, the kings of Shu, to investigate.
After a detailed investigation by Yang Xiu and Yu Qingze, a huge group of friends was revealed, and Su Wei eventually dismissed the official and degraded, implicating hundreds of officials and celebrities.
In order to guard against the decline of imperial power caused by political intrigue, the monarch also constantly monitored the dealings between his courtiers, and the slightest carelessness would be punished.
The level of precaution against ministers can be seen from the aforementioned provision that "prefectural orders do not leave the country without reason".
As for the correspondence between the prince of the clan and the ministers, it was the most taboo, and later when Yang Xuan felt the chaos, Yuwen Shu led the army to suppress the rebellion, passing through Heyang (present-day Mengnan County, Henan Province), and sent a letter to Yang Hao, the king of Qin, who was then the governor of Heyang, wanting to join him, but Yang Hao was impeached and finally deposed on charges of secret communication.
It can be seen from this that there has always been a rule within the Sui Dynasty that the princes of the clan are not allowed to associate with ministers.
In the early years of the emperor's reign, Yang Jian wanted to establish the authority of the crown prince Yang Yong and specially explained to the ministers of the central government: "Shu also knows the truth and sincerity, and the prince is specially paid, and it is advisable to pay respects to the prince, and gradually love each other." However, when the hundred officials really paid homage to the prince, Yang Jian was jealous and doubled his guard against this, which also became the factor behind Yang Yong's deposition.
Later, Yang Jian simply stipulated that all ministers were not allowed to submit to the prince to the north, in order to prevent the emergence of new political forces and stifle all signs of threatening imperial power in the cradle.
On the whole, during Yang Jian's reign, most of the ministers who had close dealings with the prince did not have good results. Hou Mo Chen Ying was subordinate to the Prince Yang Jun during the Ping Chen period, and later served as the assassin of Yingzhou, and had considerable achievements in governing the region, but because of his close relationship with Yang Jun, he was eventually removed from office.
Yuan Yi was Yang Jian's entrepreneurial merit, and was implicated because Yang Xiu, the king of Shu, was deposed for his crimes; Shi Liuyu, the scholar of Gangzheng Bu'a, received the "Collection of Zhi Dao" written by Li Wenbo from Boling and was passed on, but Yang Xiu, the king of Shu, came to ask for it, and Liu Yu had to present the book, and Yang Xiu rewarded him with ten handmaids in return.
It was because of this incident that after Yang Xiu, the king of Shu, was convicted, Liu Yu was charged with "transporting princes with internal ministers", and removed officials for the people and distributed frontiers. At that time, there were many such situations, and even the subordinate officials of the royal palace were implicated, causing people to avoid entering the royal palace as subordinate officials as much as possible.
In fact, under a totalitarian system, cracking down on crimes that endanger state power and practicing authoritarianism are not easy to distinguish. In the early years of the emperor, Yang Jian had already adopted some abnormal practices, allowing people on the left and right to monitor inside and outside, and sometimes because of some minor mistakes, he would be punished with serious crimes, and even beat people in the court, using terrorist means to establish his authority.
At that time, only Gao Xi, Su Wei and other relatively close people dared to speak directly, so that these behaviors were controlled to a considerable extent. However, unconventional investigative methods are still adopted for officials to violate the law and commit crimes.
For example, deliberately sending people to bribe officials, and immediately beheading them for public display once they are confirmed, this practice of deliberately luring officials to commit crimes, no one seemed to raise objections at the time, but it laid the foundation for the future arbitrary autocracy of Yang Guang, the emperor of Sui.
Of course, the Sui Dynasty was not without forethought, and some people saw the harm of high-pressure politics, but through the Li Delin incident we mentioned earlier, we can see that the steadily advancing political strategy is not suitable for Yang Jian's taste.
Let's not discuss whether the steady strategy was suitable for the political environment of the time, paranoid people like Su Wei rejected the moderate strategy, so the Sui Dynasty has always practiced highly centralized radical politics, and although it has achieved many initial achievements, it has also paid a heavy price for it.
When Yang Jian, the absolute authority, fell, the Sui Emperor Yang Guang continued this strategy, and by that time the Great Sui Dynasty had begun to overcast clouds.
During Yang Jian's reign, when the monarchical dictatorship continued to breed and spread in the national body after the turmoil, most people did not notice its shortcomings, and even praised and contributed to it, especially when the country experienced more than two hundred years of turmoil and ushered in a truly peaceful and prosperous era, and everyone was bathed in the glory of national unity and prosperity.