China

The civil service

One of the main contributions of the Han dynasty to the future of imperial China lay in the development of the civil service and the structure of central and provincial government. The evolutionary changes that subsequently transformed Han polity beyond recognition were not directed at altering the underlying principles of government but at applying them expediently to the changing dynastic, political, social, and economic conditions of later centuries. One of the problems faced by Han governments was recruiting able and honest men to staff the civil service of an empire; those individuals eventually became known in the West as mandarins. Although the Chinese writing system had recently been reformed, which facilitated drafting documents, officials still needed considerable training before they attained sufficient competence. Much of the training occurred in local-level bureaus, where aspirants for imperial appointments served the equivalent of apprenticeships. Meritorious young men advanced from clerical positions to head various local bureaus. Having proved themselves in these positions, they were then eligible for recommendation or sponsorship, the standard means by which civil servants were recruited. Officials were invited to present candidates who possessed suitable qualities of intelligence and integrity, usually established in their service in local bureaus, and at certain regular intervals provincial units were ordered to send a quota of men to the capital. At times candidates were required to submit answers on questions of policy or administration. They might then be kept at the palace to act as advisers in attendance, or they might be given appointments in the central government or in the provinces, depending on their success. However, at that time there was no regular system of examination and appointment akin to what evolved during the Sui and Tang dynasties.

The recruitment system was important for two reasons directly related to the nature and development of Han society. First, the apprenticeship system assured that entry into the imperial bureaucracy was based on administrative merit. Thus, men of little wealth could enter clerical positions and support themselves while preparing for higher-level careers. (This recruitment system differed strikingly from the later examination system that often required years of study in order to master the Confucian Classics and to develop writing skills.) Second, powerful families, increasingly in the Dong Han period, were able to dominate the clerical and other positions in the local bureaus, thereby limiting to those powerful families the candidates for imperial bureaucratic service. Control of local positions in turn strengthened the powerful families by allowing them to manipulate tax and census registers. Such families created the social milieu from which the aristocratic families of the post-Han period were to emerge.

There was a total of 12 grades in the Han civil service, ranging from that of clerk to the most senior minister of state. No division in principle existed between men serving in the central offices or the provincial units. Promotion could be achieved from one grade of the service to the next, and in theory a man could rise from the humblest to the highest post. In theory and partly in practice, the structure of Han government was marked by an adherence to regular hierarchies of authority, by the division of specialist responsibilities, and by a duplication of certain functions. It was hoped that these measures would keep individual officials from accumulating excessive amounts of power. The uppermost stratum of officials or statesmen comprised the chancellor, the imperial counselor, and, sometimes, the commander in chief. These men acted as the emperor’s highest advisers and retained final control over the activities of government. Responsibility was shared with nine ministers of state, who cared for matters such as religious cults, security of the palace, adjudication in criminal cases, diplomatic dealings with foreign leaders, and the collection and distribution of revenue. Each minister of state was supported by a department staffed by directors and subordinates. There were a few other major agencies, which ranked slightly below the nine ministries and were responsible for specialist tasks. Functions were duplicated so as to check the growth of power. Occasionally, for example, two chancellors were appointed concurrently. Similarly, financial matters were controlled by two permanent ministries: the Department of Agriculture and Revenue and the Privy Treasury.

The foregoing structure of regular organs of government was known as the Outer Court. With the passage of time, it became balanced by the growth of a secondary seat of power known as the Inner Court. This grew up from members of the secretariat and had started as a subordinate agency in the Privy Treasury. The secretariat officials had acquired direct access to the emperor and could thus circumvent the more formal approaches that protocol required of other officials. The secretariat rose to prominence during the latter part of the 1st century bce and was at times staffed by eunuchs. Its members were sometimes distinguished by receiving privileged titles that conveyed a mark of imperial favour without specific administrative responsibility. The highest of these titles was that of supreme commander, and, when this title was accompanied by the right or the imperial instruction to assume leadership of the secretariat, the powers of the incumbent outweighed those of the highest ministers of the Outer Court. An official thus named could effectively control decisions of state, to the discomfiture of senior officials such as the chancellor. It was in this capacity that Wang Mang and his four predecessors had been able to assert their power without fear of check.