Chapter 891: Does the Ming Dynasty Really Have Good Officials? (Subscription Requested)

Zeng Ying came from a military-household background and had served his entire career in the Sichuan army. Although he had attended a cram school in Nanjing, he had never paid attention to the Ming dynasty's new official system, so when Ruan Dacheng said this, he had no idea whether it was correct and could only look to his old superior Ma Shiying for an answer.

Ma Shiying said, "Yanhou, what you don't know is that the court now practices a unified system for officials and functionaries. A civil official's career path normally begins as a petty clerk of the ninth rank, lower grade, in a prefecture or county. Entry into service is by recommendation or by examination, with examination as the main route. By examination, I mean the preliminary test at the prefectural level and the re-examination by the ministry or the province. Pass both tests and you receive an official license. If your re-examination is at a ministry, you are assigned to a court office as a minor official no bigger than a sesame seed. If your re-examination is at the provincial level, you serve in local office—a few in provincial or prefectural offices directly under the administration, but most are sent to county yamens or subordinate prefectural yamens, starting from the very lowest petty clerks. There is an annual assessment and a promotion or demotion every three years, and behind it all are the inspecting censors of each prefecture and directly administered prefecture, ready to find fault at any time. According to His Majesty's design, in the future the father-and-mother officials of a county or subordinate prefecture will all have risen through layer upon layer of assessments from petty clerks of that same county. Above the county or subordinate prefecture level, unless there is a special imperial decree, one must serve in a provincial post.

As for local administration, the county or subordinate prefecture is the foundation; the prefecture or directly administered prefecture supervises the county or subordinate prefecture; the province supervises the prefecture or directly administered prefecture. In this way, layer supervises layer, level assesses level, and quotas for promotion, demotion, and dismissal are established to allow movement up and down, so that capable officials can rise and incompetent ones can be demoted or dismissed. At the same time, the censor system supervises integrity and investigates corruption, while the Southern Office of the Embroidered Uniform Guard hunts down the disloyal.

In other words, in our Ming dynasty today, the path of officialdom is this: getting an office is easy, rising is hard, and keeping your office is hard too."

Ruan Dacheng added, "If one can pass the Imperial Academy examination and become a jinshi, it is somewhat easier. After three years of study, one can enter the Hanlin Academy directly and also serve as an education official.

In addition, graduates of the capital schools can serve as technical officials in matching fields. The Ministry of Works, the Ministry of Justice, the Censorate, the Court of Judicial Review, the Ministry of Revenue, and other such offices all have many technical officials. However, education officials and technical officials find it very difficult to transfer to other posts, unless there is a special decree from the Son of Heaven."

After nearly ten years of reform and adjustment, the Ming dynasty's official system and examination system had been changed beyond recognition by Emperor Zhu. The examination system could even be said to exist in name only! Because the Imperial Academy examination was extremely difficult, and after entering the Imperial Academy one still had to study there for three or four years before there was any possibility of receiving an official post. But the chance of being selected for the Hanlin was very slim; most would be sent out as education officials. Although their rank and salary were not small, it was very hard to transfer to other posts. It simply could not compare with the old jinshi background.

As for those with a "juren background"—that is, those who passed the two tests of the ministry and the province—although their prospects were broader, they all started from the very lowest level of officials and functionaries, which in practice meant the old clerks. Because the number of clerks was large, the gate to entering service was opened fairly wide, but promotion was very difficult. And there was also that deadly "dismissal quota" watching over them. If one failed the assessment for three consecutive years, one faced demotion or dismissal—whether demotion or dismissal depended on the size of one's office. If the office was too small to be demoted, then one was dismissed outright!

Of course, this system of promotion, demotion, and dismissal had both advantages and disadvantages for officials and functionaries. After all, if those above could not be demoted, then those below could not easily rise either!

And if officials and functionaries could not be dismissed, then wouldn't there be fewer opportunities each year for new people to enter service?

In addition, meritorious officials of the National Salvation could not be dismissed through assessment; they would be given a guaranteed minimum office according to the size of their merit. That is, if one truly could not pass the assessments, one would be arranged a sinecure and supported. If one's merit was great, the guaranteed office was great; if one's merit was small, the guaranteed office was small.

In short, Emperor Zhu's court wanted to kick out unqualified officials as much as possible and promote those who could get things done. Those who could rise from a great mass of petty clerks to county magistrate, and then stand out from a great mass of county magistrates or county-level officials to rank among the high officials of prefectures and provinces, most of them had some real skill, and their integrity was passable—at the very least, they could not let those confiscating censors get hold of anything against them!

Ruan Dacheng said, "This whole system of examining officials, promoting officials, and dismissing officials will not be implemented in newly recovered territory. At present, only the Four Rivers region, most of Huguang and Fujian and Guangdong, plus most of Guangxi and most of Shandong operate this way."

"What about the other places?" Zeng Ying asked. "For example, how is newly recovered Henan being handled?"

"Recommendation is the main method, of course," Ruan Dacheng said. "County magistrates are recommended by exiled Henan nobles, officials, and gentry. Below the county magistrate level, recruitment is from exiled Henan scholars—some by recommendation, some by examination.

And the Governor-General, Governor, Provincial Commander, and other provincial grandees have very great power over personnel. One recommendation, and if the other two have no objection, the county magistrate is appointed!

As for prefects and prefects of directly administered prefectures, those are appointed by the court. Governor-General Zeng, if you have the power and do not use it, it will expire!"

At the same time, Zhu Cilang was at Laoshan Palace summoning the soon-to-be-appointed Governor of Henan Li Yan, Governor of Hebei Lu Zhenfei, Governor of Shanxi Li Jiantai, Governor of Shaanxi Zhang Tongchang, and others.

Except for Zhang Juzheng's grandson Zhang Tongchang, who was from Hubei and was being sent to Shaanxi as Governor, the other three Governors were all local officials—such an arrangement was already not the norm above the prefectural level, let alone at the Governor level.

And the reason Zhu Cilang had Li Yan, Lu Zhenfei, and Li Jiantai serve as Governors of their home provinces was so that these three would take the lead in building up the bureaucratic ranks of Henan, Hebei, and Shanxi.

Those who could go to serve in these three fallen provinces were, of course, all "homecoming regiments"!

"Henan, Hebei, and Shanxi have been fallen for many years, and the eastern barbarians have carried out land enclosure and land equalization, so all the original local relationships have become impossible to sort out clearly—and We do not want to sort them out. Do you understand?"

What Zhu Cilang was discussing was still the land question!

Henan, Hebei, and Shanxi were, after all, not the Land of Abundance that was Sichuan. Emperor Zhu was prepared to bear long-term losses!

But the Ming dynasty's silver could not simply be "burned" for nothing. Henan, Hebei, and Shanxi had to be "burned into" territory that the Ming court could firmly control.

And to achieve this goal, the key was only one thing: handling the land contradiction well. Because of years of upheaval and the Qing dynasty's land enclosure and land equalization, the land contradiction in these three provinces had actually already been alleviated. Now that the Ming dynasty was taking over, this contradiction must not be allowed to flare up again in the short term.

Of course, land consolidation could not be suppressed in the long term—as long as market competition existed in agriculture, some people would inevitably succeed and some would fail. There was no business in which everyone could succeed; that was impossible! So to truly suppress consolidation, the only way was to follow the Shun's example and use harsh policies to suppress commercial activity.

That is, to not let people get rich!

But capitalism in the southeast of the Ming dynasty had already begun to gallop ahead, and Emperor Zhu had no way to turn back.

All he could do now was to prevent the Qing dynasty's land reform achievements from being lost immediately.

"This subject understands Your Majesty's painstaking efforts!" Li Yan understood Emperor Zhu's thinking best—otherwise he would not have gone from military strategist to Governor of Henan. "As long as this subject is in Henan for a single day, he will not let those small folk who received equalized land lose their fields again."

"But they also cannot be allowed to gain the land for nothing," Zhu Cilang said. "The land that has been equalized out cannot be registered as private land; it can only be public land, and its transfer must be prohibited. As for the land enclosed by the bannermen, it also cannot be returned to the original owners. It will first be held by the Land Settlement Office and used for rewarding merit. After the interior is completely pacified, it will all be granted out. We will not keep a single mu."

"Your Majesty," Li Jiantai asked with a frown, "what about the gentry who lost their land and have no merit? Some of them hold land deeds issued by the court—those cannot be denied!"

"We can follow the Hubei method," Zhu Cilang paused, then continued, "For those with land deeds, the court will compensate them somewhat. For those without, that is that. As for Hebei—that was formerly the Northern Metropolitan Region, with many estates belonging to nobles. Governor Lu, this land must be firmly controlled and await the court's unified distribution. For the nobles who followed the court south, We still owe them an accounting. We will take out twenty million mu to compensate them. Any more than that, We cannot give."

(End of Chapter)