"Old Tang Dynasty Convention" can not be violated?
- "The New Theory of Secret History" No. 4
Damin
Zhejiang Provincial Grain Bureau
Official documents are documents with statutory effect and normative style, official documents issued by statutory authors and have statutory authority and practical enforcement effects, and their production and effectiveness must comply with statutory procedures. After the official documents are drafted, the author himself not only has to make meticulous revisions from the specific content, expression methods, and writing format of the articles, but also organizes special teams to revise important official documents and solicit the opinions of the masses. Before the official documents are officially issued, they must also be submitted to the relevant leaders for review and issuance, and the official documents issued without the leadership review will have no legal effect. Therefore, the revision and review of official documents is not only a very important task, but also an indispensable procedure.
Historically, however, there have been very few secretaries who do not like to be altered by others, even if the emperor and the prime minister have changed the official documents they drafted. To this end, they often cite the "old tang dynasty practice", believing that the revision of the scholar's drafting system is a sign of incompetence, and the person should be immediately removed from his official position.
What is the so-called "old Tang Dynasty practice"? It turned out that this incident was recorded in the New Book of Tang And the Biography of Li Jian, and Li Jian was the initiator of this incident.
Li Jian, the character is straight, this family is poor and unemployed, and he loves to learn and write. After entering the army, he was elected secretary of the provincial school secretary. At the end of the twentieth year of Zhenyuan (804), Tang Dezong wanted to find a few people who wrote well to enrich the ranks of secretaries of the imperial court, and someone recommended Li Jian. Because Tang Dezong was not familiar with Li Jian's situation, he asked the left and right ministers one day: What is this Li Jian? Is it appropriate to have him as a secretary? Zheng Xunyu, the prime minister, replied: "When the minister works in the bureaucracy, he needs to supplement the eight school secretaries, and the other seven have connections and backgrounds, and only Li Jian was selected by his own ability and ability." Emperor Dezong was very happy after hearing this, and immediately promoted Li Jian to zuo shiyi and Hanlin bachelor.
In February of the first year of Yongzhen (805), the ambitious Ziqing Jiedushi envoy and Tongping Zhangshi Li Shigu planned to take advantage of Tang Dezong's death to encroach on the territory of neighboring provinces, so he gathered his generals and sent troops to Cao Prefecture to garrison. After the imperial court learned of the news, it ordered Li Jian to draft an edict to dissuade Li Shigu. Because the wording of the edict was very severe, when Wang Shuwen, a scholar of Hanlin, reviewed it, he planned to make some changes, but Li Jian immediately objected, and Wang Shuwen had no choice but to give up. At that time, Wang Shuwen's power could be described as hot as the sun, and the prime minister had to nod his head and even whisper when he saw him. Li Jian, who has only been a secretary for a few months, dares to oppose his revision of his article in person, which naturally shows that he is not afraid of the powerful, but also shows that he is very confident and quite conceited. Later, Li Jian was dismissed from his post as a Hanlin scholar and demoted to Prince Zhan Shi.
After that, Li Jian was reappointed as the imperial attendant of the palace. It may be that the imperial court needs secretaries, or it may be that Li Jian is indeed a talent and should give full play to his advantages and strengths, in short, Li Jian later used bingbu Langzhong to know the system and restart the old business of secretaries. However, Li Jian's time as secretary this time does not seem to be too long, because once the official document he drafted was deleted and revised by the prime minister, and he was not happy in his heart, so he used the excuse that he was "late in thinking about the draft and did not want to be Si Wenhan" and sent a report requesting that he be relieved of his secretary post as soon as possible. The so-called "grass edict thinking late" is actually just an excuse, and the root cause is that he himself is "unwilling to Si Wenhan". That is to say, he felt that the prime minister changed his article is a very faceless thing, and continuing to stay in the position of secretary will be laughed at, so he is not willing to do this business anymore, which is the essence of the problem. Therefore, the organization made him to be JingZhao Shaoyin (also said to be Jingzhao Yin, equivalent to the chief executive or deputy chief of the capital).
From the reasons for Li Jian's resignation, it can be seen that he is quite confident, and he can also appreciate the conceited component. Because it is very normal for the prime minister to change the official text drafted by the secretary, Li Jian proposed to resign for this reason, which must contain an element of arrogance. Because of this, the organization approved his resignation request. Although Li Jian has a fairly high talent, there is no doubt that he is a relatively conceited person.
It is reasonable to say that Li Jian insisted on resigning because the prime minister changed his article, which is not worth encouraging and admiring. Interestingly, however, later secretaries often invoked the matter to resign whenever their superiors changed the documents they had drafted. Such as Cui Xian during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Yang Yi and Wen Tianxiang in the Song Dynasty, all of them were like this.
Cui Xian was a Hanlin scholar during the reign of Emperor Mingzong of the Later Tang Dynasty. In the early years of the Later Jin Dynasty, Cui Xian took the hubu shilang as a bachelor and became the chief of the Hanlin Academy. Once, when he drafted an official document that was changed by the chancellor Sang Weihan, Cui Xian quoted the "old tang dynasty example" (in fact, it was Li Jian's example) and said that "those who have changed the bachelor's grass system should be dismissed", so he asked to be removed from his position as a Hanlin scholar. Fortunately, Sang Weihan was a secretary, and he was very knowledgeable, very familiar with the allusions of the imperial court, and knew that the Tang Dynasty law did not have such provisions at all, and the so-called "old tang dynasty rules" were nothing more than Li Jian's personal behavior, so he said that he did not agree to his resignation. Cui Han again quoted the scriptures for a long time, and although Sang Weihan could not persuade him verbally for a while, he finally did not agree to his request to resign, and only agreed to let him temporarily leave the secretary post and take charge of the imperial examination in the second year of Tianfu (937).
Although Cui Felt That He had lost face when Sang Weihan changed the official documents he had drafted, because Sang Weihan was both a big red man of the Later Jin Dynasty Emperor Shi Jingyao and a powerful prime minister, Cui Weihan still had considerable respect for Sang Weihan himself. At that time, there was a reader named Kong Ying, who was infamous and had a bad social impact, but he also wanted to use improper means to make a name, so he specially went to Sang Weihan's door. Before the exam began, Cui Xian was ordered to see Sang Weihan, and during the conversation, Sang casually said the four words "Kong Yinglai". Sang Weihan has always spoken more briefly, often confusingly, and Cui Believe believes that Sang Weihan is implying that he has admitted Kong Ying, so he takes care of him when he is admitted. In fact, Sang Weihan did not have that meaning at all. After the admission list was announced, everyone talked about Kong Ying High School, and the response was extremely great, and Sang Weihan wanted to keep the tax, so he had to dismiss him from his bachelor's position and arrange for him to do Shang Shu Zuo Cheng. If Cui Xian had not first proposed his resignation, Sang Weihan would naturally not have let him become the imperial examination examiner of that year, and there would have been no mistake in shooting Sang Weihan's ass. Therefore, Cui Yan eventually left the secretary position, or because Sang Weihan changed the official documents he wrote, he himself took the initiative to resign.
Yang Yi was the most famous secretary during the Reign of Emperor Zhenzong of Song. Volume 35 of the History of Song describes him as "Song Yihai Nei, from the day of Wenzhi, Yang Yishou was good at the world with his words, and was the emperor of the times." He is intelligent by nature, reading all kinds of books, writing articles with quick thinking, not deleting or modifying; and entertaining guests and laughing. The precision of his articles and the regularity of his genre are indeed large-scale. However, it is difficult for those who write articles to ensure that there will be no mistakes, especially when the secretary drafts official documents, and it is even more difficult to ensure that every word and sentence is in line with the leader's wishes. Once, Yang Yi was ordered to draft a letter replying to the Liao state, which included the words "neighborly lands to rejoice", and when Song Zhenzong examined them, he personally noted the words "decaying soil", "rat soil", and "dung soil" next to it, and was obviously not very satisfied with Yang Yi's use of this word. Therefore, Yang Yi immediately changed the term "neighbor" to "neighbor". When Yang Yishi was frustrated, the next day, he quoted the "old tang dynasty practice", saying that the change in the scholar's drafting system was a manifestation of incompetence, and demanded that he be immediately dismissed from his official position. Song Zhenzong persuaded him, but he still insisted on resigning. One day, Song Zhenzong said to Minister Zaifu: "Yang Yizhen has a temper and character, and does not like to consult with people. It is not difficult to see the emperor's dissatisfaction. Soon, Song Zhenzong agreed to Yang Yi's resignation request.
When Wen Tianxiang was acting secretary, it was at the time of the Southern Song Dynasty's traitor Jia Xiangdao who was in power. Once, Wen Tianxiang was responsible for drafting and making a book, and there was a sarcastic meaning to Jia Rudao between his words, and after writing it, he did not send it to Jia Rudao according to the regulations. When Jia learned of this, he was very dissatisfied and signaled the other scholars to redraft it, and Wen Tianxiang quoted Yang Yi's approach (in fact, it was also Li Jian's approach) and urgently demanded that the emperor remove him from his position as a direct scholar, so the imperial court changed him to secretary and supervisor.
The above ancient secretaries, who are not willing to change (or deny) their own articles, are certainly a manifestation of their self-confidence and even conceit, but there are also other factors that contribute, or have other hidden feelings, that is, although they have opinions and opinions about their superiors, they dare not speak out publicly (such as Wen Tianxiang), or the secretary himself is in a frustrated time, but it is inconvenient to open his mouth to exchange opinions and ideas with the emperor (such as Yang Yi), so he just uses this as an excuse to resign. Doing so not only reflects one's highly responsible attitude towards one's work, but also shows that one is a very self-aware person, for reasons that can be described as grandiose.
Here, the reason why the author wants to write down the ins and outs of the "old tang dynasty rules" is to let the reader know that the so-called "old cases of the Tang Dynasty" are actually only the personal behaviors of a very small number of secretaries, not that the imperial court has made such institutional regulations, but only because the status of Hanlin scholars is extremely special and important, and any of their behaviors will become an example for others to emulate, so Li Jian's practice will arouse the attention and imitation of future generations. Here I would like to remind the majority of secretarial workers that secretaries are not willing to lead the change of their own articles, from a work point of view, it is very wrong. No matter how grandiose the reasons for their resignation may be, and no matter what their starting point is, it is inappropriate. Leaders have the responsibility to review and control official documents, how can the secretary refuse their revision? Of course, if the leader corrects the mistake, the secretary can explain his own views, further exchange his opinions and opinions with the leader, and make the official documents better, but the secretary must not be unhappy because the leader has changed his own article, or even pick a choice, these are irrational and undesirable practices.
(Source: Secretarial Work)