Autumn of the 17th year of Chongzhen

Chapter 1302 Administrative Officers and Affairs Officers

As far as the imperial examination system itself is concerned, it is the greatest official selection system invented in China, and it is a ladder for the mobility of social classes.

It has important significance and far-reaching influence in the history of China, but at the same time it also has many problems.

As far as the system is concerned, he is already very good, and he cannot find a better system than him in his contemporaries, and he cannot find a system that can replace him, but he is not perfect, because any system and regulations are smart people and rule Those who restrict ordinary people and protect their interests.

The same is true of the imperial examination. There is nothing wrong with the way of selecting officials through the examination, but the content of the examination and what to test are in the hands of the ruler.

If the emperor is open-minded and governs with scholars, then the content of the test will be relatively flexible, but if he meets a dictator who only cares about the world, then the content of the test will naturally be limited, and the content of the test will overemphasize the importance of the king Loyalty, restricting the content of the exam, and rigidifying people's thinking.

Wang Yan's position is a bit awkward now, he can't go up, he can't go down, he must no longer be able to select officials for the emperor, to emphasize his loyalty to the emperor, so the original stereotypes were abolished, the original examination content was limited to some Confucian classics, and the emphasis was on Kong Qingmeng, now attaches great importance to Mencius, and joins miscellaneous studies.

These are all to dilute the idea of ​​loyalty to the emperor, let people also read Mencius's "The people are the most important, the society is second, and the emperor is the least", and to promote the study of the mind.

This is all to find the legitimacy of Wang Yan's current behavior and position. Wang Yan does not want to be infamous.

Of course, it may be futile for him to do so, but how can people see that in the future, no matter what future generations say, he still has to do what he should do.

However, the Ming Dynasty did not distinguish between home and country, blindly suppressing the loyal emperor, and at the same time inevitably hurt the cohesion of the entire Ming Dynasty.

It turns out that everyone has an object of allegiance, but now it is suddenly gone and suppressed, so who should they allegiance to?

The reality is very cruel, people are born unequal, out of a hundred people, there will always be some smart and some stupid, and most of them are stupid.This is just inequality in qualifications, as well as inequality in family and status.

For the vast majority of people, there is still a need for an emperor, which makes them feel stable in their hearts, and it is also where the cohesion of the world lies. If it is destroyed rashly, it will only form ideological confusion and make most people lose their sense of belonging .

So how to solve this problem, and how has it been solved in history?
In the end, most dynasties completed this transformation with allegiance to the nation and the country, replacing the king or the church with an imagined community.

At this time, the Ming Dynasty was also at the moment of this kind of ideological change. Wang Yan highly respected Gu Yanwu's thought that "every man is responsible for the rise and fall of the world", and he was replacing loyalty to the emperor's family with loyalty to the Ming Dynasty and the world.

This change in thinking, especially the prosperity of the theory of mind and Mencius, made some people question the imperial power, but at the same time it also brought about another effect. They also questioned Wang Yan and King Chu as the supervisor of the country.

The people are the most important, followed by the country, and the king is the lightest. Since the king is light, Wang Yan, the supervisor of the country, is not too important. Some people even study Mozi.

This makes the ruler feel scared!
This is not only to question the emperor, but also to question Wang Yan, the cabinet, and all those in power. This is the real liberation of the mind.

In this way, according to Mingui's thinking, if Wang Yan wants to maintain his legitimacy, he has to do more good things for the people, so that he can be recognized, otherwise he will occupy the throne of the supervisory state but do nothing about personnel, then he will be the same as What he is advocating goes against the grain.

No matter whether Wang Yan shoots himself in the foot or not, he still needs to do things for the people and get the world's approval.

When the emperor treated the imperial examinations, when selecting officials, most of them did not say whether they had the ability or not. They first selected those who were loyal to the emperor. At present, there was no thought of being loyal to powerful officials, so Wang Yan could only choose those who were able to do things.

He will select talents who are capable and capable of doing things, the world will be stable, the people will be rich, and the people will overthrow the king if they have brains.In this way, Wang Yan, the treasure of supervising the country, can also sit at ease.

The further reform of the imperial examinations is actually a foundation for the reform of the entire Ming Dynasty official system and the first step in future reforms.

In the room, voices from both sides could be heard from time to time. Wang Yan, Gu Yanwu, and Qian Qianyi were sitting at a table with a few dishes of side dishes and a jug of good wine.

Several people listened for a while, and Qian Qianyi flattered Wang Yan, "Jianguo, this time the imperial examination is divided into political science and civil affairs, which is really a great pioneering work in the past thousand years."

At the beginning of the imperial examination, it was divided into many categories, and it was gradually unified later. Wang Yanzhuo was not a pioneering work at all, but he still readily accepted the flattery of the leaders of Shilin.

Wang Yan put down his chopsticks, "Partisanship has been a problem for a long time. It consumes the country's energy, talents, and political affairs. How many ministers are ruined by party disputes."

Wang Yan paused, and laughed at himself, "When I was an official, I hated it very much. I even advised Emperor Gaozong to abolish and prohibit party disputes. However, in fact, Gu has been fighting all the way until today. Today In retrospect, it was too ideal at the beginning, and this party struggle cannot be banned."

When it comes to party struggles, Qian Qianyi is more emotional than Wang Yan, but Gu Yanwu on the side laughed and said, "Jianguo is just considering that party struggles cannot be banned, so he wants to change the official positions of the court, and divide them into political officials and specific people. Is it the clerk?"

Wang Yan also smiled, "That's right, since factionalism cannot be banned, there is no need for the court to cover it up. From now on, political officials can reveal which party they belong to, but affairs officers and military officers are prohibited from forming factions. Great, but the specific affairs of the court will not be messed up!"

Qian Qianyi said: "In the past, party disputes were often involved. Many generals or local officials were implicated, and capable people were dismissed from office, resulting in a shortage of capable people in the court. We can only let some people who can say they can't do it take over. , the result was a catastrophe, which caused losses to the court and the people. The supervisor divided the officials into administrative officials and administrative officials, which I thought was a good policy, but how to divide the administrative officials and administrative officials needs to be more precise."

Both Wang Yan and Gu Yanwu nodded slightly, and the latter said to Wang Yan and Qian Qianyi: "Jianguo, Mr. Qian, this division should really be clarified. For example, how to divide the Ministry of Punishment, Dali Temple and Jiantai is up to you. It matters."

The reform of the bureaucracy is a major event, and there are too many things involved. Wang Yan is also crossing the river by feeling the stones. It's just that he has such an idea, and the cabinet hasn't even passed it.

"This specific division will be discussed by the cabinet and the court." Wang Yan expressed his thoughts, "However, my general idea is that the government officials debate the various proposals of the court and decide what the court will do. Things and the direction of development, make plans and goals, and the affairs officer will implement them in detail!"

What Wang Yan probably meant was that since party struggles are unavoidable, ideas should be kept within a certain range.

The previous council system had actually limited the scale of party struggles to a certain extent and changed the model of party struggles, but Wang Yan felt that it was not thorough enough, and the main reason was that he did not want to see one party control many departments in the court and become corrupt. , I hope to have a restriction on each faction, so I came up with an officer who forbids party formation and implements specific affairs.

His idea is that the various factions mainly fight in the cabinet and the meeting hall to decide the major affairs of the court, and then hand them over to the affairs officers of various ministries for execution.This will deprive the various factions and participate in specific affairs, which can reduce the occurrence of corruption and mutual protection between officials and officials.

Especially the Ministry of Punishment, Jiantai, and Dali Temple, these important departments must not be controlled by a certain faction.The affairs officer has no party background, and it is not easy to be sheltered if he becomes corrupt, but if he is a member of the party, he may be hidden.

Of course, this requires the establishment of rules to divide the official positions of the various ministries of the Ming Dynasty. Once assigned to the affairs officer, one must be strictly prohibited from joining a certain party.

Wang Yan had this idea mainly because Jin Yiwei and the Ministry of War fought internally, which involved a corruption case in the Ministry of War involving several officials of the Ministry of War, but the Ministry of Punishment wanted to suppress it.This incident woke Wang Yan up. For a unified empire, the biggest enemy will always be its own people.

However, it is not an easy task to reform, and it also involves the issue of the openness of parties such as the Chu Party and the Zhejiang Party. It can be said that it is very complicated to manipulate. It's not going well, and I can't figure it out.

As the three of them were talking, the voices of the scholars on both sides came again.The scholar surnamed Zhang continued: "Brother Li is right. The subjects are more miscellaneous. The requirements for classics and biography are lower, and more people are admitted. It is relatively easy to take the exam and is easy to pass the exam. But this matter In the future, Ke will be an official, but there will be some bottlenecks, I heard from my colleagues in the Imperial Academy that, at the end of the day, the Ke is just a servant, but those who come from the political science have the opportunity to pay homage to the prime minister."

"Brother Zhang's talent must be in the political science exam!"

"Indeed, my father wants me to take the political science exam, what about you, Brother Li?"

"I was planning to take the political science exam, but after hearing what Brother Zhang said, I felt that I was more confident in this subject. My Confucianism studies are only so-so, not as good as Brother Zhang, so I might as well take the political science exam. From now on, I will concentrate on doing small things for the world. "

Listening to the conversation, Gu Yanwu said: "Jianguo, it seems that the scholars don't have too many complaints about this reform!"

Qian Qianyi said with a smile: "Since ancient times, scholars in the world will learn whatever the imperial court takes the exam. Even if they have complaints, they will wait until the exam is over!"

Wang Yan nodded, "Yes, there must be complaints. After all, the civil affairs department is relatively easy, but more than half of the places are allocated. Those who are very talented are not passed in the political examination, and they are not as talented as theirs. After the ranking is released, I will definitely scold Gu."

Gu Yanwu said: "Nowadays in Nanyang and several northern provinces, there are vacancies for officials. I think the imperial court can increase more quotas and reduce the resentment of those who failed."

Qian Qianyi shook his head and said: "Gu Shilang doesn't understand, it has nothing to do with increasing the quota, as long as the recording is not finished, someone will scold..."

The three of them were talking, when the door was pushed open, and Lu Shikui came in to salute, "Jian Guo, we have found out the information on Jin Guo."

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(End of this chapter)