Friends may think that Hua Xianling's experience is a special case and that it is only a matter of his personal character. The film and television image of Hua county magistrate truly reflects the real situation of most county magistrates in the late Ming and Qing feudal society.
Hua county magistrate? Children, at the same time, reflect the Chinese empire, which is actually manipulated by a behind-the-scenes group. There is an invisible empire within the explicit imperial appearance.
When comparing the Meiji Restoration in Japan, officials in the late Qing Dynasty summarized the system of the Chinese Empire. National unity? Up and down, like an armband, and Japan is full of governors, and often does not listen to the orders of the central government. But obviously, this is a very romantic statement with the style of literati.
We all know that China is a centralized county-level country, and the central government to the local government is a highly unified whole on the surface. However, paradoxically, in the underlying power logic, local governments often go their own way and actually achieve a state of autonomy. For thousands of years, the relationship between the central and local governments has shown a kind of? A delicate balance? . This is what many scholars say? What is the reality of feudal system under the county system? In other words, behind the dominant empire, there is an invisible empire.
Gu Zeng pointed out sharply:? The rule of the world began with Xu Li and ended with the son of heaven? ,? Today, the power and everything of officials belong to small officials, which is the so-called reputation of officials, but officials who deal with the country are small officials! ?
It is the small officials and aides who deal with local technical and administrative affairs, such as Xian Cheng, scribe and so on, who actually manipulate local affairs and form a huge invisible empire. But this is actually an institutional arrangement after the evolution of feudal dynasties for thousands of years.
From the communication between officials in the Qin and Han dynasties, to the different paths of Confucian officials in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and to the official relationship since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, we can see that the social status of petty officials has been declining and the class has been solidified. At the beginning of the Ming dynasty, the election was slightly greater than four. Can some grassroots officials still pass the imperial examination, recommendation, school and civil service elections? When the service is full, make it up again? In other respects, the rank of senior officials. However? It won't be long? Zhu Yuanzhang officially cut off petty officials after ordering them not to take part in scientific research? Move to the official position? This road.
Coupled with some official discriminatory policies, the social status of local officials has been declining. For example, in the Ming Dynasty, the supplementary ways for petty officials were mainly filling, punishing and filling. In addition to the first article that there are certain standards for the selection of petty officials (farmers, under 30 years old, capable of writing), the latter two articles obviously add uncertainty and corruption to the ranks of petty officials.
At the same time, the actual salary of petty officials is pitiful. You know, the salaries of officials in the Ming Dynasty were quite low. In the twenty-fifth year of Hongwu, the magistrate of a county paid ninety stones, about forty taels of silver. Harry is an honest official and has no gray income. If he wants food and clothing, he has to mobilize his wife to grow vegetables behind the county government. Buying two Jin of meat for his mother's birthday can stir the whole county.
As a subordinate, the treatment of small officials can be imagined. Thirteen years of Hongwu's rule:? One product, two products, the control of the yamen, the monthly salary of all officials, two stones, five fights and six products, and one stone for miscellaneous officials? . As a small official who belongs to the county government at the next lower level, the monthly salary of tooling is only a few buckets, which is not enough for the whole family to eat for a few days! Coupled with the folding of banknotes and articles in the late Ming Dynasty, the actual wages were far below the book level. More notably,? Non-supernumerary The number of petty officials is even greater, and their wages are not raised by local finance.
Therefore, petty officials still focus on pursuing gray income, as the Book of the New Tang Dynasty has long said: if a scholar has a noble salary, fame is more important than profit; If an official has no honor, then interest is more important than reputation? . Is it recorded in Harry's Collection? There are 1,200 taels of silver on the official roof, one tael of silver for the official examination, five taels of silver for the peasants, five taels of silver for the banquet, five taels for all the officials and peasants, five taels for the officials and peasants to allocate soldiers, punishments and ICBC, three taels for households and two fives for the ceremony room. . If one or two ounces of silver according to the high estimate is about equal to RMB 1000 yuan today, we can roughly see the annual income of small officials at the county level. Millions? It is also conceivable.
As a result, over time, official policy discrimination led to the solidification of petty officials at the local grassroots level, intertwined with local interest groups, and the morality of petty officials also degenerated collectively. The Qing dynasty inherited the system of the Ming dynasty and this seemingly deformed petty official system. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, the number of petty officials in each county was generally above 100, forming a special power group.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the average tenure of floating officials was less than three years, while petty officials were rooted in the local area for many years, so Professor Zhang Yan said. To some extent, small officials actually hold the real power of local administration. ? Small officials are both representatives of local interest groups and officials? Public figures? Become real? Central middleman? .
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Because you have mastered it? Document processing? That is, the local information processing work, so it is easy for small officials to deceive their superiors and delude their subordinates and muddle through. Qian Mu once said:? During the reign of Guangxu in the late Qing Dynasty, it was said that when everything is in the hands of small officials, the selection of civil servants can be delayed, the punishment can be light, the punishment can be heavy, the money can be invaded, the ceremony can be abolished, the life can be decided, the lawsuit can be big, the lawsuit can be small, and the items can be increased or decreased. Among small officials? A well-known trademark? , is Shaoxing touts. The aides of these government offices are greasy and corrupt.
In fact, the official orders of the central government are always in a local way. Flexible? The way it was implemented led to a decree? Shelve or distort execution? , that is? Imperial power is not lower than that of counties? . However, local governments often need to raise funds to maintain a team of small officials, which leads to delays in administrative affairs. For example, a arresting officer once said personally: catching a servant is not like appreciating fear, and it is not necessary to guard against thieves, but it is not easy to solve a case, and it is even more difficult to handle a case. You need to hire more helpers to solve a case, and you will be trampled. Where does the cost come from? After handling the case, the evidence is conclusive, and if it is serious, it will die, and if it is light, it will be sent. It will cost a lot of money to wait for a long time. Where will the cost come from? Every time a case is closed, the fee ranges from 100 to 200 gold, and there is no place to pay for the poor service fee. It is better to be scolded than to take a thief. ?
As a county magistrate, he was born in scientific research, and the examination method of eight-part essay didn't let him master complicated local administrative affairs, so he was often like a county magistrate? Nothing? I amuse myself by writing poems and paintings, and it is difficult to interfere with local specific affairs. If you really want to enforce the law, you must negotiate with small officials and local interest representatives (gentry), thus? Flexible? On the way? Adapt to local conditions? The realization of.
As for promotion? They just need to be a representative of moral values and pay attention to the social interaction between literati and officialdom.
Therefore, even if county officials want to master real local real power, they not only need strong practical ability, but also have to fight their way out in the political entanglements with local interest groups.
But more county officials chose to sink. Scholar Wu Si pointed out in the book Hidden Rules:? The first time (feudal officials) was sage education, and the second time was junior officials and human university education. The first education taught officials who were full of benevolence and morality, and the second education taught thieves and prostitutes. ?
In fact, until the Republic of China, this dual system of central and local governments continued, and due to the progress of urbanization, a large number of elites entered cities, and the rights of local society flowed to local tyrants and evil gentry, which caused great damage to rural productivity on the one hand and extensive humanitarian disasters on the other.
Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, criticism of petty officials has naturally been heard, but why is it the central government? Turn a blind eye? Don't reform the politics of petty officials?
Zhou Xueguang thinks in his works:? The official diversion system is an attempt to solve the principal-agent problem in the process of imperial power governance. Its core lies in centralizing the power of commanding counties and counties in the central government, and at the same time sinking the power of actual governance to the grassroots level to check and balance county officials, squires and petty officials, thus reducing the cost of personnel officials in imperial bureaucracy. ?
This passage is to the point. In the case of imperfect financial system and poor selection of financial talents in Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Chinese Empire must pay the overall system cost of local administration by giving grass-roots full autonomy, and at the same time, conduct governance according to local conditions.
It is precisely because of this right structure that the local order has always been in a delicate balance, maintaining a fragile and deteriorating steady state of grassroots society. This has also led many people to look at the history of China through the veil, making it difficult to see the truth clearly. What are the orders to local governments under the so-called centralized system? Like an armband? , is also a very romantic statement, does not conform to the real history.
In the late feudal society, moral politics flooded. Even Mr. Hai Rui, the master of Qingtian, is actually only a handful of achievements, reflecting the ancient people? Just look at political morality and not political achievements? what's up Clean? This caused a collective flaw in the character of the literati, who often embarrassed themselves with morality when facing practical problems? Talk to each other at ordinary times and report to the king in case of danger? That's it.
On the one hand, people discriminate against petty officials who actually master administrative skills, on the other hand, they are not given a full sense of value realization and a full upward path, which leads to the collective moral degradation of petty officials.
Obviously, administrative management is an extremely precise technical work, but in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there was a bipolar contradiction in the grass-roots system, which is particularly worth pondering.
In addition to historical materials, mainly consult books and articles:
"China people? Integrity complex? : Only look at political morality and don't look at political achievements "Liu Jinxiang
"From where? Official points? Arrive? Graded diversion? China bureaucratic personnel system "Zhou Xueguang" under the emperor's logic
Mengfu: Historical Investigation of Petty Officials in Ming and Qing Dynasties
Wang Quanwei: A Study of Family Members and Screen Friends in Counties and Counties in Ming Dynasty