Chapter 32 first quarter

If the political structure of China's long feudal era is a pyramid, this pyramid can be divided into four levels. The first level is the emperor who sits at the pinnacle of power, and the bottom is the officials who serve the emperor and maintain the operation of the empire. It is the most common and common people. In between, there is another level, which is the link between officials and civilians-officials. The scope of the concept of officials varies from period to period.Officials in the pre-Qin period were more collectively referred to as officials. Under the pre-Qin enfeoffment system, the so-called "officials" in later generations did not have much living space and soil, because under the enfeoffment system, the emperor of Zhou did not have a relatively concentrated royal power, and the princes, Doctors have their own fixed and hereditary territory, while those who manage the land and the people for the doctor are the retainers. The retainers have more personal attachment to the doctor, and the doctor usually has a strong ability to control the retainers. The relationship between officials and later generations very different.

Qin Shihuang established a centralized and huge feudal empire. The emperor held the power to appoint local managers at all levels. The official position system began to be institutionalized, systematized, and functionalized. Officials were no longer hereditary, and the power of local rulers began to be short-lived. While the power of the official level is weakening, in order to strengthen the ruling power over the local area, the emperor will inevitably need another team to assist the official level in managing the local area. At this time, the officials began to step up as an independent class and political group stage of history.

In the Western Han Dynasty, there was a clear division of officials. The ranks of Cheng and Lieutenant were senior officials with a rank of 400 to 200 shi.There is a large rate of ten miles and one pavilion, and the pavilion is long.There are ten pavilions and one township, and there are three elders in the township, there are Zhi, stingy husbands, and wanderers, all of which were made in the Qin Dynasty. In fact, the classification of officials is far more than that simple. Various functional institutions of the empire have a variety of official positions to handle the daily affairs of the institution.

The taxation, military service, social security management, and various national policies of the empire are ultimately implemented by grassroots officials. Some people say that for a feudal empire, officials discussed politics in the temple, and subordinate staff ruled in the rivers and lakes. The operation of the imperial administrative organization could not be maintained without the huge staff group. However, such a large and important political group had a very low social status in the long feudal era, and in some cases was even inferior to the common people they managed.For the elite at the top of the power, they are villains who cheat and cheat;

Not only is the impression poor, but the living environment of the officials is not much better.There is no future and no "money" for being a petty official. In the Qin and Han dynasties, officials were selected through the official way. That is to say, if you do a good job as a small official, tomorrow you may be a high-ranking official and gradually approach the center of power.But since the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the ranks have been gradually divided, until the establishment of the nine-rank Zhongzheng system in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. To be an official, you mainly look at your family background. .After entering the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the imperial examination system replaced the nine-rank Zhongzheng system. To become an official, one had to take a cultural examination and be selected among scholars, but officials were not qualified to take the imperial examination, and it was still difficult for them to squeeze into the highest power center.

As a class of officials, not only is there no hope of jumping into the official class, but the economic income is also very low. For a long time, only a small number of officials can receive meager salaries. It is a kind of errand to exercise, which is very compulsory.For example, in the early days of the Northern Song Empire, the entire empire did not have officials in the rural grassroots organizations, but sent rural households to undertake different duties, "urging taxes and chasing thieves" was the law of servants.Rural grassroots "civil servants" who don't get paid not only don't get paid, but also have to bear a lot of responsibilities. They often neglect farming work because of this, and if they don't do it, their families go bankrupt and their wives and children are separated (Yang Zhi, who lost his birthday card, is a typical example of this. the unlucky ones).

Later, Wang Anshi carried out reforms and implemented the recruitment law (also known as the exemption law) in response to the fact that a large number of servants in the empire hurt farmers and disturbed the people.The Service Recruitment Law abolished household errands, and the households shared the money by households, and the government paid for hiring people to serve as officials. In Wang Anshi's view, the service recruitment law is a more perfect and successful one among the various reforms. It not only increases the state's fiscal revenue, but also prevents farmers from accidentally injuring farming while serving in the service. At the same time, it increases the economic income of officials and maintains the rank stability and professionalism.So when Sima Niu (Guang) was restored and the new law was completely overthrown, Wang Jiefu was still calm when he heard that other laws and regulations were abolished, but he was shocked when he mentioned that the recruitment law was also abolished, and said that even this was abolished. After a long time, it is guaranteed that nothing will be lost, so why even this should be abolished.

Afterwards, the imperial policy was repeated, and it oscillated between the service law and the recruitment law. Basically, the recruitment went hand in hand. The entire empire had about four to five million people. There are only a thousand people, less than one percent, who are promoted to officials by relying on their posts. On the one hand, they have mastered a large amount of public administrative resources and power, on the other hand, they have poor political and economic treatment, and they have to bear great risks at the same time. This will inevitably lead to another result, that is, officials can use government-given The power fish meat villagers, amassing money wantonly.For a long time, officials have been mobile (flowing officials), while subordinate staff are fixed. Officials who take office do not have much time and energy to understand the social resources and networks of their offices, and in order to maintain local order, they often have to If you don't open your eyes and close your eyes, let the officials under you run amok.

No matter how big an official you are, you will inevitably be restricted by officials. For example, Liu Bei, the county magistrate of Pingyuan, was sent by a small supervisor Inspection and verification) openly asked for bribes, and finally lost the title of county magistrate.Uncle Liu Huang was not the only one who lost his errands by the postal supervisor. Later, Tao Yuanming lamented that "bowling for five buckets of rice" was a shameful thing because he faced the blatant extortion of bribes by the postal supervisor. Resignation has added another great idyllic poet to us. If it is reasonable to say that Liu and Tao were deceived because of their low official positions, then some civil servants and military generals with great power are often angry with the officials. How can this be explained?In the Qing Dynasty, he was granted the title of beizi during his lifetime, and the title of county king after his death. The mighty minister of the Qianlong Dynasty, and the illegitimate son of Emperor Qianlong, Fu Ankang, was rumored to have come back from the war outside to pay the bills to the Ministry of Households. , The clerks openly told General Fu that if you do business for the general, you may not be able to fill out the bills for several years, why don't we fill them out for you, and just pay some benefits.

For officials and ordinary people in the feudal era, they are like the team of Tang monks who are taking the scriptures from the West. There is no way to learn from the scriptures of "little officials" like Gaya and Gaye, because the ability of subordinate officials to amass money is infinite. After understanding the social status and time background of the Chinese petty officials, it is not difficult for you to understand why Hei Songjiang is just an ordinary clerk in Yuncheng County, but he can spend a lot of money and win the name of "timely rain" in the world.Song Jiang's family is just a rich farmer, and he definitely doesn't have so much spare money and rice for him to squander. His money has only one source - gray income.

A small undersecretary seems to have a low salary and a low salary, but meeting a capable person like Song Jiang is also a super fat job.In Yuncheng County, Wenbin may not be useful when looking for a sour literati county magistrate to do things. In Yuncheng, the person who can really handle big things is Hu Baoyi, Xiaoyi, Heishanlang, and Song Jiang. Of course, the official class like Song Jiang has no sense of security. Once he enters the industry, he often leaves the house first.It is normal to sever ties with the family so as not to implicate relatives, but once the society is in turmoil, because such people are well versed in the people's sentiments and control the bottom resources, it is easy to engage in such businesses as rebellion. Zhai Rang in the Sui Dynasty, Song Jiang in the Northern Song Dynasty, and Yuan Dynasty's Chen Youliang and Li Zicheng in the late Ming Dynasty were all rebel elites of the official group. Since all walking is an "infernal way", it seems logical to be forced to "Liangshan".