Chapter 16 Chapter Thirteen Talent Selection and Assessment Ming

Before discussing the administration of the Ming Dynasty, let us review the development of the Chinese civil service system.Generally speaking, even in a company organization or a non-profit organization, there will be an assessment system for its employees. The purpose is to understand the performance of employees, so that competent people can get the most appropriate jobs and perform well. If you are promoted, you will be demoted if you are not good.This kind of system originated very early in China. As early as the Warring States period, Legalists had already discussed how to make a person clear about his position and the responsibilities of this position. After doing it for a while, see Whether he meets the needs of this position, if he does well, he will stay, and if he does not, he will be replaced.During the Han Dynasty, the implementation method was quite simple. The chief officer could recommend a person to the government for what to do and what position to hold.If the government thinks that this person is really good, he will be assigned a position after a period of examination to see his opinions on some practical issues.This position is usually an agent in the first year, and if you do well, you can be officially appointed in the second year.If he does not do well, not only the person will be dismissed, but also the person who recommended him, that is, his sponsor, will also be punished.If you do well, the recommended person will also be rewarded.Therefore, the probation system in the Han Dynasty was both a selection and assessment system.Officials in the Han Dynasty were basically responsible to their superiors.To give an example, county magistrates can choose the officials they want to use.The next chief who takes over can accept the officials left by the previous one, or not, and choose the assistants he wants to use.In other words, his entire team is in his charge.He can also find people who are worthy of promotion among the subordinates and recommend them to the top.The county government can recommend to the county prefect, and the county prefect can also recommend people he thinks useful to the central government.

Such a level-by-level recommendation system enabled the government of the Han Dynasty to quickly find useful people, and when found, they were sent to the emperor's side, called servants.The servants performed various chores beside the emperor. The emperor and senior officials could observe the abilities and talents of these servants. If they performed well, they would be sent out to take up official positions in the government at an appropriate time.In this way, the process from recommendation to probation to assignment has gone through a fairly straightforward process, and the sequence is not very complicated.

During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, due to the emergence of family status, high-ranking families monopolized high-level positions, and lower-level officials could not be promoted, and officials of ordinary civilian background could not be promoted either.Therefore, during the Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, the government had almost no real assessment system.During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the civil service system shrank. It can be said that it was a gentry politics, and if it was more serious, it was even a politics dominated by the aristocratic clan.It is Zuoshi who really do things, but they have not been properly promoted; higher-level officials will not be demoted because of poor performance, but can be promoted smoothly.

In the Tang Dynasty, the assessment was quite strict again.One of the units managed by the Ministry of Officials is called the Kaogong Division. The Kaogong Division is responsible for assessing the performance of officials every year to see if they are suitable.Of course, the Department of Examinations conducts inspections independently, but the superiors of each unit will also report the evaluations of their subordinates.We don’t know how to report it. It’s probably a free opinion. If you think it’s good, you can recommend it, and if you think it’s bad, you can blame it.The performance appraisal system in the Tang Dynasty was based on three criteria: virtue, talent and achievement.The reason why I said free evidence above is that virtue and talent are quite subjective evaluations, and only achievements can be seen.Therefore, this method of the Tang Dynasty is not really objective.

Lu Zan of the Dezong Dynasty and Pei Ji of the Xianzong Dynasty both suggested to the emperor that he should first find a good prime minister, and then ask the prime minister to find a good leader. Assistants, at each level, the head of the responsible unit finds his own working team.This kind of system is the clearest in assessment and the most convenient for command, because the commanders are fully responsible for the performance of the entire unit, and they can neither shirk nor evade.The advantage of this system is that responsibilities are clearly defined, but there are also disadvantages. If a chief is transferred, will all the main officials and assistants of the unit have to leave?If the entire team is changed, will the entire unit have to learn all the work from scratch when the newcomer takes over?Officials in the Tang Dynasty, that is, people who generally wrote files and handled daily administrative work, were actually permanent officials because they would not follow the chief.They are in charge of archives. They have been in charge of archives for a long time and are quite familiar with business and precedents.However, officials are not from Confucian generalist education, so they may not have the opportunity to be promoted throughout their lives. The assessment system has little effect on the performance of officials.

In the Song Dynasty, the civil service system was quite strict.During Song Taizong's time, a system was established: the chief of each unit had a record of his subordinates, and they had to record in detail what they did every day and every month.In other words, each chief has a detailed and complete personnel file of his subordinates.Part of this file is the "printed paper calendar" issued by the Ministry of Officials, allowing prefects and counties to assess their subordinates.It was even issued by the emperor that the emperor asked the chief to assess the personnel file record book of his subordinates to assess everyone's performance.

In 1994, a group of relics from the Han Dynasty were unearthed in Yinwan, Yinhai County, Jiangsu Province, proving that the Han Dynasty also had such a record book.Regardless of which official, the work is all found in the county records.This may be the earliest file about performance appraisal circulated in China.The "printing paper" of the Song Dynasty was also a complete but trivial personnel file, and the government formulated nine grades (later simplified to three grades) based on these files.The assessment items will also increase or decrease. For example, the grades of state and county magistrates. If there has been no famine for many years in the jurisdiction, the performance assessment will increase; the population will increase, and the score will also increase; the population will decrease, and the score will decrease.If after a certain number of years, an official has made no mistakes, he can apply for a promotion.This kind of work is called "grinding".From the literal point of view, we know that this is a very strict and complicated process, which is equivalent to turning talents in a mill.The grinding work is divided into two units, one is the trial court and the other is the examination court.The trial court examines Beijing officials, and the examination court examines foreign officials.The government assesses the achievements of officials and dispatches them.This process is really very strict. You can only be promoted when you have the qualifications. Everyone is promoted according to the qualifications, but not many people are really worn out.

Fan Zhongyan, a famous official in the Song Dynasty, believed that this system was a routine procedure based on qualifications and years, and that there was no reason for everyone to be promoted one by one according to their qualifications and years.So he set up a relatively strict assessment system, regularly sending officials to various places for inspection, reporting back with good grades, and reporting back to those with poor grades, and the government rewards and punishes according to their grades.When Fan Zhongyan implemented this system, there was a short story: Once an official had poor grades, Fan Zhongyan canceled his name.That person's position is Lu Commander, which is about the position of the local governor today.The person next to him said, you just write it off like this, but you know that there will be a family crying.Fan Zhongyan replied: If a family cry is compared to crying all the way, I would rather let the whole family cry than cry all the way.From this we can see that Fan Zhongyan's wrist is very sharp.

Wang Anshi is also very strict with the assessment.Wang Anshi hoped that the status of officials could gradually be raised to that of officials, and their salaries would also be paid by the state.He also believes that if the country wants to acquire professionals, it is not enough to rely on examinations alone. Generalists can be obtained through examinations. The country should set up civil service schools to train professionals in schools. Wang Anshi's concept is very advanced.To this day, our country has examinations and civil service assessments, but there is still no special civil service school to train professionals. Permanent civil servants must learn by themselves on the job.Wang Anshi's proposal was rather ahead of his time.

Fan Zhongyan wanted to avoid the disadvantages of civil servants being promoted based on capital, and to establish an objective assessment standard, which is an idea that is beyond the times.Fan Zhongyan's method is an objective assessment.However, this method also has shortcomings. The records of the person’s superior may not be fair, and the assessors he sends at that time cannot ask the person’s grades in person, so this system may not be able to be truly objective. It is more appropriate to train specialists to serve as permanent officials at the middle and lower levels, and at the same time use generalists as administrative officials for decision-making.How often the assessment takes place is also a part of controversy among many people.In the grinding system, I feel that when I have reached the seniority, I can apply for a promotion.But in this way, many mediocre officials, who have no faults and may not be capable, will be promoted gradually.The method of the Song Dynasty was to establish a basic work schedule, and it took six years for civil officials and seven years for military officials before they could apply for promotion.But this method is still just a mechanical suspension of the year, and it cannot achieve the effect of weeding out bad officials and promoting good ones.

China has been facing such problems since ancient times, but there has never been a good solution.It was not until the Ming Dynasty that there were considerable changes.Zhang Juzheng, a famous minister of the Ming Dynasty, was in power for a long time during the Wanli period.The general situation of the Ming Dynasty was quite similar to that of the Song Dynasty.The territory of the Ming Dynasty was not small, and a lot of resources were spent on national defense.There was Mongolia in the north, and Manchuria in the northeast, and the ethnic minorities in the southwest often had various problems, and the coast was often invaded by Japanese pirates.The Weisuo system in the Ming Dynasty was very similar to the Fubing in the Tang Dynasty. Later, the soldiers in the Weisuo did not have strong combat effectiveness, and needed to develop other sources of troops, such as the generals' own soldiers, or soldiers composed of ethnic minorities.Basically, the defense expenditure of the Ming Dynasty was very large. The selection of officials in the Ming Dynasty was still based on imperial examinations.In the beginning, the officials of the Ming Dynasty were all students of Guozijian. According to the rules set by Ming Taizu, the students of Guozijian were given priority in the appointment, that is, candidates for government officials were all trained by Guozijian.Later, after the imperial examination became popular, most officials became officials through the imperial examination.Those born in the imperial examination are generalists, not specialists.The situation in the Ming Dynasty was the same as that in the Song Dynasty. The executive officers were officials, and the administrative officials were scholars with imperial examination backgrounds.Most scholars are quite pedantic and not necessarily able to understand world affairs.How to assess these officials has become a very serious problem. Basically, the systems of the Tang and Song dynasties also existed in the Ming Dynasty.In the Ming Dynasty, there was a merit examination department, and officials were often assessed, and the order of promotion was also stipulated according to the rank.However, the administration of officials in the Ming Dynasty was not always good. There were more and more officials, but there were few truly useful talents. The number of officials in the Ming Dynasty was quite large, and the number of troops was also quite large, but the government's tax revenue did not increase.The main source of taxation in the Ming Dynasty was still land, and no sources of income other than agriculture were developed.The population of the Ming Dynasty increased, and expenditures also increased. The government was often impoverished, and government affairs were often neglected. Zhang Juzheng was a rare and capable prime minister in the Ming Dynasty, and he was also an authoritarian prime minister.Like the Song Dynasty, the prime minister system in the Ming Dynasty was collective.In the early days, there were left and right prime ministers, but later the post of prime minister was abolished. The emperor of the Ming Dynasty only had a group of university scholars around him.The official rank of the university soil was originally middle, but later became high.The grand scholar is the emperor's secretary, and his job is to draft the orders issued by the emperor.The Grand Scholars used to be just members of the secretariat, who listened to the emperor's will and wrote the imperial edict, but later, if the emperor had no objections, the Grand Scholars were the decision-makers.There are not one or two of these great scholars, but there are often several at the same time. Among them, the most qualified, or the foreman specially designated by the emperor, becomes the prime minister.The prime minister has great power, and other people are just his helpers.Zhang Juzheng was the most powerful prime minister of the Ming Dynasty. Zhang Juzheng is indeed quite talented.He also used some means to get this position. He eliminated political opponents one by one, and at the same time made eunuchs as internal aid.These methods and the style of seizing power for a long time are wrong in the eyes of Confucianism.When his mother passed away, he was supposed to go back to observe filial piety, but he was afraid that he would not be able to return if he left the position of prime minister. He actually violated the traditional Confucian ethics and morals.This incident caused a lot of controversy at the time-but these were all his personal affairs.In terms of official assessment, he proposed a test method that had never been proposed before.He asked officials to make several copies of the report when they were performing tasks, one for the person involved in the task, one for his superior, and one for the six departments in charge of supervision at that time. The Overwatch Council in the Republic of China era.After the work is completed, reports should also be sent to these units.In this way, how long has a unit of work been done?How did it work out?All can be audited step by step, and the supervisors can judge based on this, what kind of planning work has been done?Did you finish it within the allotted time?Is it consistent with the original suggested way?What about the efficacy?Supervisory personnel regularly report to the government, whether a certain staff member in a certain position in a certain unit has completed his tasks on schedule, completed ahead of schedule, or completed late?Is he 100 percent done, or just how much percent?In this way, the supervisory unit and the execution unit maintain regular contact and conduct regular assessments.This examination method is basically the same as the one-time assessment in the past year, and the supervisory unit continues to track the assessment. The examination method of the Ming Dynasty was quite strict. Each yamen had three account books, one of which recorded the issuance, receipt, regulations, and plans. This was the bottom book; One copy will be sent to the supervisory unit, and it will be canceled when it is completed, and one copy will be sent to the cabinet. The cabinet will then check whether the supervision unit inspects on time according to the situation, and make corrections or rewards for individual cases.The superior yamen has the power to reward and punish, and the supervisory yamen must also supervise the rewards and punishments of the superior yamen of each unit.The cabinet bachelor (the highest administrative officer) supervises whether the monitoring units and various yamen have calculated the results on time, and whether they have been checked step by step.There is also a lot of paperwork in the process of passing the law examination, but because it is done all the time, you don't have to wait until the end of the year to settle accounts. You can see whether an official's grades are good or bad, and whether the work is done on time.If there are deviations in the work, the government can immediately make appropriate corrections to see whether to continue, to change the working method, or to change the people who work. In 1573 A.D., which was the first year of Wanli, Zhang Juzheng proposed to formulate a test method.Many people criticized Zhang Juzheng for being too meticulous in his work, but when Zhang Juzheng took office, he was indeed quite effective in implementing administrative affairs and produced many talents.The most visible performance is the budget.During the Ming Dynasty, the state was in a difficult situation because the income and expenditure were not proportional.And Zhang Juzheng believes that we must live within our means and not overspend.If there is no law, the government cannot find excessive expenditures.Zhang Juzheng used the test method to assess the achievements of officials on the one hand and properly control the budget on the other hand.The emperors of the Longqing and Wanli dynasties of the Ming Dynasty were quite receptive to Zhang Juzheng's opinions, so the politics of the Ming Dynasty were more efficient at that time, and the common people suffered less.Zhang Juzheng is strict and meticulous in his work, but he has done things that his predecessors could not do.Zhang Juzheng's luck is to gain the trust of the monarch.The Ming Dynasty was a true chieftain government, with the emperor as the supreme chief and Zhang Juzheng as the prime minister as the supreme executive.The relationship between decision makers and executors, at least in Zhang Juzheng's time, was quite harmonious. Similar to Zhang Juzheng's examination method, it was the administrative tripartite system that China briefly implemented in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War.However, this administrative reform cannot be implemented effectively and for a long time.