Copywriter|Aquatic smoker
Editor|Aquatic Smoker
preface
In the satirical novel "Ru Lin Gaiden" of the Ming Dynasty, Fan Jin, who went crazy after Zhongju, was used as a negative teaching material to satirize the ugliness of readers under the imperial examination system.
But if we put ourselves in our shoes, we would be even crazier if we changed it!
If nothing else, think about how old Fan Jin was at that time, 50 years old!
What is this concept? At that time, it was basically the age when the coffin could be prepared for the earth!
Then, the dream that has been working hard for more than 30 years came true, who did this change? Who is not happy?
And this beautiful dream is not ordinary, Fan Jin people are Zhongju, do you know what Zhongju meant to readers in ancient times?
1. The past and present of the imperial examination system
Although the imperial examination system in modern China is not a decadent thing that hindered China's social development, the former imperial examination system represented the most advanced official evaluation mechanism in the world.
This is not an exaggeration!
Before the Warring States, Chinese and European societies generally chose officials as relatives, what officials they wanted to be, what officials they could be, they all saw their origins and who their fathers were?
Your origin has already determined the upper limit of your life in the officialdom, of course, the premise is that you have to give a good birth.
Such an official selection system is the "Shiqing Shilu system."
The eldest son of the Son of Heaven, the Son of Heaven, and the other sons went to the local princes.
The eldest son of the princes succeeded to the throne of the princes, and the other sons went to become ministers.
The eldest son of the doctor became the doctor, and the other sons became the doctor.
Shi's eldest son became a scholar, and the other sons became countrymen.
From top to bottom, all official titles were rounded by the blood nobles.
However, this began to change during the Sengoku period.
In order to better enhance the people's sense of identity with the country, but also to improve the combat effectiveness of the army and the vitality of the country, Shang Martingale proposed the system of awarding military merit and appointing people on merit.
Specifically, how big an official you can be, it depends on how many enemy heads you can cut off on the battlefield and how many benefits you bring to the country!
After Shang Martingale changed the law, even the prince of the Qin Dynasty, without merit, could not be ordained by a knight!
It was precisely by relying on the military merit system that the Qin State, which had always been despised by the people of the Six Kingdoms, was able to win the war to dominate the world and sweep the blood nobles into the historical garbage heap.
The same was true of the early Western Han Dynasty, which inherited the system of the Qin state.
But the question is, when history comes to a more peaceful unified dynasty, where are there so many particles of the military industry?
As a result, the system of selecting officials was changed to a talent system selected by the local government: filial piety.
It sounds great to have local officials select talent, but who is the talent in the minds of local officials? This question is worth considering, because talent can also be manufactured.
I don't know if everyone remembers Kong Rong Rang pear?
It is said that who did not let things when they were children, but why can people make pears become allusions? Because the Kong Rong family is good! Therefore, even if it is a pear, it can make a celebrity and become a talent in the eyes of the imperial court.
As expected, the local filial piety quota was almost controlled by the collusion between officials and the local Hao family, and derived the family family and the nine-pin zhongzheng system.
Cao Wei in the Three Kingdoms period was a typical nine-product zhongzheng system, what to look at when selecting officials? Look at the origin and look at the family ranking.
I don't know if everyone is familiar with this scene, wait, look at the family origin, isn't this the Shiqing Shilu system?
In fact, it is really similar, except that it was originally called a blood nobleman, and now it is called Shuxiang Mendi, or a scholarly valve.
The nine-product zhongzheng system directly brought the chaos of the eight kings to Huaxia, and the five chaotic hua almost completely collapsed the Chinese civilization!
But because the nine-pin zhongzheng system is too fragrant, even if Emperor Wen of Sui has the intention to suppress the family gate, he can only open a small opening and start to implement the imperial examination system.
Why is it a small opening? Because in the Sui Dynasty, the number of people admitted to the imperial examination system at a time was only twenty or thirty.
It was not until the Song Dynasty that the imperial examination system became the mainstream of official selection.
Although the imperial examination system has such or such drawbacks, it is already a great improvement compared to the previous nine-grade zhengzheng system.
Is the imperial examination system a good mix?
Of course, it's not easy to mix at all.
Second, it is difficult to climb the road of the imperial examination
Since the Song Dynasty, the vast majority of ancient readers wanted to become officials and had to take the imperial examination, but do you know how difficult the imperial examination is?
First, let's talk about the examination level of the imperial examination, and the rank of the person among the participants in the imperial examination.
The imperial examination in the Ming Dynasty was divided into four levels, from the lowest to the highest: children's examination, township examination, meeting examination, and palace examination, all of which were taken once every three years.
Among them, the children's examination is presided over by the local school official, probably belongs to the county-level examination, and if you pass the exam, you can get the identity of the child, although the identity of the child does not have any privileges, but it is a necessary condition for the test show.
Unlike what everyone thinks, Xiucai is actually not easy to test at all.
Children must pass the three examinations of the county, prefectural and academic examinations before they can become talents, and the last examination is generally the special responsibility of provincial officials.
Fortunately, these three exams are generally completed within one year, and you will not be allowed to wait three years for each exam.
As for why the show is so taken seriously?
Because if you pass the Xiucai exam, then congratulations, from now on you can call yourself a scholar and enter the house of Dr. Qingliu.
And after becoming a showman, you will have a series of privileges, such as exemption from taxes, exemption from conscription, and non-kneeling treatment that makes ordinary people envious.
As long as you can be admitted to Xiucai, to be honest, your family will not be poor.
If nothing else, the exemption from taxes and conscription alone will cause countless people to squeeze their heads and hang their land under your door to avoid paying taxes.
Therefore, after Fan Jin took the Zhongxiucai exam, his butcher father-in-law dared to scold him, which was very unreasonable.
A butcher dares to scold Xiucai, I'm afraid you think the county board's board is too light, right?
Well, go on to say, after you pass the Xiucai exam, you can continue to take the exam, every three years, the Ministry of Rites of the imperial court will directly send people to hold township examinations in provincial capitals, and if you pass the exam, you will raise people.
According to the smoothest situation of the exam, three years for children, three years for Xiucai, and three years for raising people, which is nine years.
Moving on, people have the opportunity to go to Jingshi every three years to participate in the examination, and those who pass the examination are tributes.
For Gongshi, I think everyone will feel relatively unfamiliar.
It is also normal to be strange, because the gongshi are not in the official hierarchy, and obtaining the gongshi only means that you can participate in the temple examination.
The examination and the palace examination are also connected, and after passing the examination, you can participate in the palace examination presided over by the emperor himself, and if you pass, you will enter the shi.
The so-called champions, list eyes, and tanhua are the top three of Jinshi.
Therefore, it is actually not easy to be able to raise people in the exam.
What kind of official can that person do? What are the benefits?
3. The welfare of raising people
I am very sorry to tell all comrades, if you pass the exam, report to the Ministry of Officials and ask for an official.
Then I'm sorry, you probably can't be an official, and even if you can be an official, you may only be able to start from the ninth grade.
For example, the famous Hai Rui Hai Gangfeng, after he was raised in his 40s, he only got a teaching position from the ninth pin.
That's all a huge bargain!
As for the reason, if you think about it, you can understand that when the dynasty is on the right track, there is never a shortage of people who want to become officials, only the pit that can fill the turnip.
Every three years, 300 students are admitted to the temple examination, but the question is, can there be these 300 pits for them every three years?
The answer, of course, is no.
Do you know why they are all jinshi, and do they have to divide one, two, three?
Because only the first and second class can guarantee that if they want to become officials, they can be appointed immediately, but they are generally awarded Hanlin bachelors and the like, which belong to no fixed number of secretarial positions.
If you want to become a powerful official such as the prefecture and the prefect, it depends on luck and ability.
As for the three top jinshi want to become an official, what to do? It's not completely impossible, as long as you're willing to accept the transfer.
Theoretically, when a Jin Shi is appointed to an officer, he should start with eight grades, and the first three in the first class can start with six grades.
As for the ninth grade official, it was the old man who raised people.
Therefore, for the comrades of the top three ranks, if they are willing to aggrieved themselves and roll up people, they can also be a ninth-grade official first.
What if you don't accept the downgrade?
Then wait at home, start in three years, there is no cap, many jinshi may wait until death, but they have not been able to wait for their appointment certificate.
For this reason, many Jin Shi who have low grades and no background at home can only tearfully top the position of lifting people.
Anyway, the official level assessment is once every three years, if each big exam is good, from the ninth grade to the seventh grade, that is, nine years.
Although it has been a little longer, it is better than sitting on a cold bench all the time at home, no matter how small the official is, he is also an official.
But when the warriors come down and raise people to "grab their jobs", what should they do with them?
Lao Tzu worked hard to get into the exam, and in the end he still couldn't become an official, so didn't Lao Tzu take the exam in vain?
Don't worry, even if you can't become an official, if you become a lifter, all kinds of benefits are still indispensable.
First of all, after becoming a person, you will have extrajudicial privileges, as long as it is not a heinous crime, generally no official government will trouble you.
And since ancient times, all the methods of sudden wealth have been written in the criminal law.
Ordinary masters with extrajudicial privileges can bully and dominate the market, use shoddy charging, buy and sell by force, and even cripple people.
Remember Kong Yiji, who was beaten into a cripple by Ding Juren?
Don't say that you crippled your leg, or beat your leg to death, it's not a thing!
In addition to being able to run amok, people also have economic privileges, not only can they be exempt from tax exemption and military service, but they can also collect rural taxes in lieu of county orders.
Yes, that's right, because the ancient imperial power did not go to the countryside, the exchange between the county prince and the rural area was mainly carried out through the meritorious people and show talents, including the collection of taxes and the levy of the people's husbands.
That is to say, when Fan Jin becomes a lifter, then in his township, who pays how much tax to the state every year, and who does how much work for the state? These Fan Jin said it!
Who dares to upset Lao Tzu? Lao Tzu dared you to pay all the taxes of the whole township!
So you know why the butcher's father-in-law is so afraid to become the son-in-law of lifting people?
Really provoked the son-in-law, his son-in-law dared to let his father-in-law do nothing else this year, just go to the state to do servitude.
Of course, if you are a little self-motivated and do not have an official position, you can also go to the county office to work as a staff member, county official, master and so on.
These seemingly lowly officials have the great advantage of being able to do it for decades.
The county order is a three-year assessment, and a county order will be transferred to other places after six years in the local area, but these low-level officials in the county can do it to death!
What does this mean? This means that in the county gate, it is these officials who really talk and count!
Because as soon as the foreign county order took office, his eyes were black, and he didn't know what the situation was in the county, and he was even more confused about taxation.
Who can he rely on? You can only rely on these old officials in the Yamen.
Moreover, even if these county commanders know that these old officials are not clean in their hands, but think that they will leave after three or six years of work, will they be awkward with these old officials?
Alas, to be kind to others is to be kind to oneself, brother is just a hurried passer-by, why make trouble with the local land snake?
As a result, in the late Chinese feudal dynasty, during the Ming and Qing dynasties, many county orders and prefectural seals became decorations.
Even the Xianfeng Emperor said:
"It is not the rolling public secretary in the court who rules the world with Xu today, but the little official in the county!"
Therefore, in ancient times, it was difficult to show off his might in the officialdom, but he could indeed be domineering in the local area.
epilogue
Fan Jin is lucky, after all, he passed the exam, and his family can rely on the privileges brought by lifting people to change their fate.
But how many people can embark on the road to heaven of the imperial examination? What about those losers?
This kind of game for the few, built at the expense of the majority, really should be abandoned.