Shusi Ding official system in the Shang Dynasty, Hougang in Anyang, circular pit, Shusi Ding, transfer of officialsShusi Ding unearthed in the circular pit of Hougang in Anyang, Henan Province, is an important ware of the late Shang Dynasty. Its owner is Shusi, whose name came from the combination of his official position title “Shu” and his clan name “Si.” In the inscriptions of Shusi Ding, the character regarded by most scholars as “zong,” is actually “zai.” It was a new position granted to Shusi by the king of the Shang Dynasty, and Shusi’s official position was changed from “shu” to “zai.” This phenomenon triggers our discussion on the transfer of officials in the Shang Dynasty. The officials of the Shang Dynasty were highly mobile in terms of taking office, promotion, demotion, dismissal, and position change. The flexible transfer of officials in the Shang Dynasty reminds us of the need to re-evaluate the development of the official system in the Shang Dynasty.
“Incompetence” originally meant that one thing cannot withstand other things. During the Warring States period, the word gradually became a common term for describing officials who were unable to do their job properly. There are many records of “incompetent” officials in the bamboo and wooden slips and handed down documents of the Han Dynasty in the Juyan area, and the meanings of the word had been further expanded in the Han Dynasty to include not only insufficient personal ability, but also negligence, poor health, weak personality, and poor performance assessment results. In the Han Dynasty, the most common treatment of incompetent officials was dismissal. Depending on specific circumstances, their punishments included dismissal from one official position and reassignment to another or, in the most common case, dismissal from all official positions. In addition, their superiors or recommenders were also held accountable. As compared to other types of incompetent officials, the weak and those frontier incompetent ones were more severely punished. The refinement and differentiation in identifying and punishing “incompetent” officials in the Han Dynasty were the result of the development of the ancient bureaucratic system itself and also a reflection of the Han Dynasty’s expanding territory and increasing achievements.
The title of jinshi (presented scholar) was normally conferred upon graduates of the metropolitan and palace examinations. Exceptions did exist, since some would be granted by the special grace of an emperor. This phenomenon began to appear in the late Tang Dynasty, but it was only an occasional measure, used by an emperor to exert the “imperial control over the power of election of civil officials” other than the keju (imperial examinations). Through the development during the period of the Five Dynasties and the early Song Dynasty, the attainment of the jinshi title by special grace gradually became institutionalized. At the same time, the ci jinshi (granting of jinshi by imperial grace) became normalized in the early Song Dynasty, namely, all those passing the jinshi examinations were granted as jinshi, and those passing other examinations of various subjects were also granted corresponding academic titles. This marks that all those who attained an academic title were produced under the “imperial control over the power of election of civil officials.” In the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, the rulers took many measures to solve the problems of the imperial examination. However,it was not until the early Song Dynasty that such problems were solved to some extent when the imperial authority was enacted in the imperial examination system. At that time, with the presence of the normalized ci jinshi and the palace examination (the final imperial examination presided over by the emperor), the imperial authority and its control over the power of election of civil officials was represented by the jinshi scholars granted by special grace.
The imperial examinations of the Liao, Jin, and Yuan, as ethnic minority regimes, were not perfect, compared with those in the Tang and Song dynasties. Scholars in these political systems did not enjoy high status. However, we cannot completely deny or ignore the historical position and influence of imperial examinations during the Liao, Jin, and Yuan periods. The rulers of the Liao, Jin, and Yuan dynasties not only extended the imperial examination system to the vast nomadic areas in the north, but also constantly innovated the system, combining it with the characteristics of ethnic minority regimes and the rulers’ demand. Thereby, the imperial examination system represented unique characteristics of ethnic minority groups, and also laid a foundation for the improvement of imperial examinations in the Ming and Qing dynasties. The imperial examination system is an important power that pushed the Liao, Jin, and Yuan dynasties to transform from soldier politics or military politics and aristocratic politics to civilian politics. Besides, it is an effective means to guide and urge scholars, including ethnic minority scholars, to learn Confucian classics, history, and literature. It played a key role in promoting the
The recommendation approach to official selection was so popular in the early Ming Dynasty that it became an ancestral rule, which was given the legitimacy to be practiced throughout the Ming Dynasty. Since then, the drawbacks of recommendation had gradually emerged, but as one of the means of selecting talents, it was still parallel with the system of official selection and appointment administered by the Ministry of Personnel. In the middle Ming Dynasty, the power of recommendation was gradually transferred from the capital officials serving in central government agencies to the Ministry of Personnel, and it became gradually institutionalized to recommend and appoint the virtuous and capable from across the country. In the late Ming Dynasty, there were more and more cases of recommendation initiated by the local governments, which resulted from the top-down integration of local political and cultural resources by the imperial government through administrative means since the early Ming Dynasty. The change from the dominance of the imperial court to the initiative of local governments in the recommendation practice shows that the central government had gone through a process from administrative integration to political integration in integrating local resources. During this process, the imperial power, as the fundamental driving force to maintain the existence of the state and the operation of the government, as well as the cohesion of local governments, had always been the main force in achieving political integration.