Chapter 26 6. Gravediggers of the Empire

The bureaucratic group actually has its own difficulties. We know that the bureaucracy is an unproductive social stratum.They do not provide wealth to the empire, they only consume it.This may also be one of the reasons why the empire wants to implement a low salary system (other reasons have been mentioned above).On the other hand, as consumers of wealth, they are not the owners of the wealth, which is one of the reasons why the common people "only oppose corrupt officials, not the emperor".In the eyes of ordinary people, the emperor "is the son of heaven and rich in the world", no matter how extravagant and extravagant he is, it is a matter of course.What the officials plundered was the fat and anointing of the people, and they took it directly from themselves, so they were particularly hateful.Therefore, once the world is in chaos and the people are in dire straits, the people will concentrate their hatred on the officials.

The emperor had a complicated psychology towards officials.On the one hand, he cannot do without officials.On the other hand, he almost instinctively believed that the affairs of the empire would be ruined by these guys.Almost no emperor would really trust his officials, and almost no emperor really believed that officials would not use their power for personal gain when acting as an agent of imperial power.Therefore, it is necessary to use various means to supervise the officials, it is necessary to find out one or two corrupt officials and kill them as an example, and it is even more necessary to use capricious methods to make officials feel unpredictable.Moreover, since the emperor was pre-set to be the agent of the Dao of Heaven and the number one sage in the world, all successes were due to the emperor's sageness, and all mistakes were due to the incompetence of officials.Officials who worked hard for the emperor could easily become scapegoats for the empire.

Being in such an embarrassing position, coupled with the fact that there are many risks and crises in the officialdom, if you are not careful, you will be condemned by the sky. The bureaucracy has to form an offensive and defensive alliance to protect its own interests, such as mutual protection between officials and officials, such as bullying For example, the collective tacitly delays the boycott, passively slows down work, and creates another set of unwritten rules (such as officialdom rules) to protect their own rights and interests when their own interests conflict with traditional morals and current regulations.

Empires tend to lose ground when dealing with them.It requires both centralization and authorization, authorization and control, which is a contradiction in itself.For this reason, the empire had to add a large number of official positions and institutions.For example, there were as many as three levels of yamen above the state capital in the Ming Dynasty.The lowest level is various roads, such as Duliang Road, Tixue Road, Qing Army Road, Post Pass Road, Fen Shou Dao, Fen Xun Dao, and Bing Bei Dao.Above all other ways are the three divisions, namely, the chief minister, the inspector, and the commander (the division of the commander was subtracted in the Qing Dynasty).Above the three divisions, there are governors, governors, and inspectors (minus the inspectors in the Qing Dynasty).Governors, governors, and inspectors were originally dispatched officials temporarily assigned for some special purposes, similar to special commissioners or task forces.However, it gradually became a rule, became a permanent one, and became a feudal official in charge of one side.The chief envoys and inspectors who were originally provincial local officials are not like the governors anymore.

There are countless situations like this, and the bureaucracy has expanded rapidly in all generations.For example, there were more than 24,000 civil and military officials during the Hongwu period in the early Ming Dynasty, and more than 80,000 by the time of Xianzong a hundred years later.Another example is the number of officials during the Yuanhe period of the Tang Dynasty, which reached the point where taxpayers had to support two officials for every seven households, which can be described as "ten sheep and nine shepherds". At the same time, in order to ensure that their powers are not restricted and their interests are not damaged, officials have to use a lot of "private" (personal personnel) in administration and law enforcement.If the bureaucrats are unreliable, they entrust their orders to the subordinate staff; if the subordinate staff are unreliable, they entrust their orders to the master.The "unplanned expenses" of these "non-establishment personnel" are the same as the funds required by the imperial court for the establishment of official institutions. On the surface, the imperial court or officials will take care of themselves, but in fact they will all be borne by the people in the end.Of course, there are many reasons for the hiring of masters in the prefectures and counties and the appointment of officials by the court.In other words, they cannot be compared and confused.But the result is the same, that is, the rapid expansion of the bureaucracy and the overwhelm of the general public.

On the one hand, officials and institutions have multiplied, and on the other hand, state affairs are neglected.According to "Records of Shenzong", in the last years of Wanli, from the central government to the local government, there were "ten shortages of six to seven" officials.Huguang, Henan, and Fujian are all short of governors. There is only one person in the cabinet with a fixed number of five to six people, and the lack of salary for central officials lasts for as long as five months. In fact, even if all officials arrive at their posts, the administrative efficiency will not be very high.Everyone knows that the bigger the bureaucracy, the less effective it is.The longer officials serve, the more tired and lazy they become, even the emperor.Therefore, if the new emperor is a "promising king", or wants to be a "promising king", he will almost have to rectify the administration of officials and eliminate redundant staff at the beginning of his enthronement.But this is almost always met with collective resistance from the bureaucracy.No one with vested interests is willing to voluntarily withdraw from the stage of history, and it is often difficult for other officials to actively cooperate with the imperial court's reform of better troops and simpler administration due to the psychology of death of rabbits and foxes, cold lips and teeth, and inextricable interpersonal relationships.In the end, the emperor had to idle the old institutions and set up other institutions to implement his decrees, and these new institutions will create a large number of new bureaucrats in the near future.As for the officials in the old institutions, they continued to "fed all day long and had no intentions", eating state financial food (imperial food) without any shame.

What's more, there are still a large number of alternate officials who need to be arranged, which are those new scholars and candidates.We know that the imperial examination was originally an effective measure to select officials, and its advantages have been mentioned above.But at the same time, there is also a problem, that is, a considerable number of alternate officials will be produced, and they will be produced on a regular and fixed basis.It is not acceptable to have an irregular period, nor is it possible to have an unlimited quota. It is even more impossible not to arrange positions as soon as possible after the creation, because that will make the imperial examination system lose its function and significance, and lose its attractiveness and cohesion.If, as in the last years of Wanli, thousands of newly recorded tribute students were stranded in the capital and begged for appointment by the imperial court, it would have extremely serious consequences.

In fact, this is another drawback of the imperial examination system, that is, being an official in the middle examination is regarded as the only way out for scholars, at least the only legitimate, profitable and promising way out.Originally, a country and a nation must not be without the creation of knowledge and the inheritance of culture, and there are many things that the intellectual class should and can do, such as scientific research and artistic creation.It's a pity that the empire is not interested in these.Philosophy is regarded as idle talk that harms the country and the people, science is regarded as an unconventional last technology, and art is either regarded as a tool to promote ethics, or as the bane of playing with things and losing one's morale.Scholars have almost no other careers except to be officials, and the empire has no other way to control them except to lure officials and grant titles.On the contrary, in order to elevate the authority of officials (in fact, it is its own authority), the empire has repeatedly belittled other industries, and regards studying as an official as the highest goal in life.The so-called "everything is inferior, only reading is high" is actually "everything is inferior, only being an official is high".So, if you don't want to find more officials to do it for them, what can you do?

Besides, it's not just scholars who want to be officials!It can be said that as long as possible, almost everyone wants to be an official.Because in order to maintain its autocratic rule, the empire gave its officials many benefits and privileges (such as no tax payment and exemption from punishment), as well as extremely respected status.They have towering crowns and belts, fragrant chariots and four horses, high halls and mansions, rich clothes and jade food; a call from the hall, a hundred promises from the hall, signing tickets and betting, knocking on the noise.These benefits, privileges, prestige and ostentation are all enviable.What's even more enviable is that being an official can also enshrine his wife and son, glorify his ancestors, and even achieve Taoism alone, and go to heaven with chickens and dogs.At least, if someone in the family is an official, he will be less bullied.Therefore, although the officialdom is already overcrowded, there are still a large number of long-cherished people who want to squeeze in.

No one can guard this gate.Because everyone has brothers and nephews, relatives and friends, and old students, and they all want to cultivate cronies, establish networks, and develop personal relationships in the officialdom, even the emperor is no exception.The result was an unstoppable swell of the bureaucracy.In fact, the real way to get rid of the bottom line is to abolish the privileges of officials, so that officials are on a completely equal footing with scholars, farmers, businessmen, and businessmen. It even makes people feel that being an official is not as good as doing business, studying, and engaging in production.But this is obviously neither the empire's willingness nor its ability.Undoubtedly, in such a situation, layoffs, fixed staffing, withdrawal and merger of institutions and other practices can only stop the soup from boiling, or even add fuel to the fire.This is one of the reasons why the dynasties of all dynasties have never succeeded in streamlining their troops and simplifying their administration.

The expansion of the bureaucracy has increased the burden on the people and the cost of governance.This is not only because of the need to increase office expenses and official salaries, but also because it will lead to unclear powers and responsibilities of institutions and officials, mutual evasion, mutual attacks, and back and forth.All of these are common things in officialdom.The reason for this is that in addition to the shortcomings of the system itself, internal strife and party struggle are also one of the important reasons.Due to differences in political views, opinions, viewpoints, opinions, and even differences in origin, seniority, department, and place of origin, and of course, more importantly, due to different interests, officials often form different factions, and they fight against each other in the court.This will not only cause the failure of the state machinery and the great waste of human resources, but also poison the environment and poison the soul. This is another vicious circle process, that is, the more bloated the bureaucracy and the larger the bureaucratic group, the more serious buck-passing, wrangling, internal strife and party struggle will be.This is not surprising either.If there are too many monks, there will be less porridge, so what should we do if we don’t fight or fight?The problem is that the emperor, as the supreme ruler, often let it go, and even secretly encouraged it, thinking that it was an effective means to monopolize power, control officials, and maintain balance, but he didn't know that it was actually drinking poison to quench thirst. The expansion of bureaucracy has also increased the difficulty of supervision, and when corruption becomes a common practice, more supervision will only lead to more corruption.Because not only the cost of anti-corruption has increased, but the cost of evading the law and evading punishment has also increased.This can only force the corrupt officials to intensify their corruption and plunder by all means, in order to grab more benefits to seek protection, and even buy the empire's supervisory power.This is another kind of "extra tax and fee", and the people will be even more unbearable to be exploited.Everyone knows that, generally speaking, a wolf's stomach is always limited.But if it has to eat for other wolves, and there is no certain number of "other wolves", then it is not difficult to imagine what the fate of the sheep will be! In fact, imperial control over officials does not curb their desire to pursue the self-interest of their agents, nor does it curb corruption, but only makes it worse.Because the only baton that the empire can wield is official positions and official positions.In order to remain invincible in the officialdom struggle for power and profit, officials have to spend money to dredge relationships, bribe powerful people, communicate information, weave relationships, protection networks and information networks.These relationships, protection networks and information networks can help them hunt for higher positions and grab more benefits.These positions and interests help them weave a larger network of relationships, protection and information.This is a never-ending process like a snowball.Moreover, even if one profit-making interest group collapses, new interest groups will immediately fill the void, hunting and grabbing everything their predecessors have achieved with redoubled madness, until the building of the empire falls somewhere. It collapsed under a light blow from an external force.The bureaucracy on which the empire had to rely became its gravedigger. Success and failure of bureaucrats, perhaps this is the fate of the empire?