Some people in later generations regarded the system of Tingtui as a kind of selection system of Danzi to a certain extent. However, this has been mentioned in the previous article of this book. It can be summed up in one sentence: at least the Tingtui and Danzi systems of the Ming Dynasty were basically the same. It doesn't matter.
However, the Ming Dynasty still liked to use the method of recommendation to demonstrate the integrity of officials in their positions, so court recommendation, together with analogy, departmental recommendation, and imperial recommendation, constituted the most important part of bureaucratic selection in the Ming Dynasty.
Theoretically speaking, the candidates for court recommendation are usually Dajiuqing and the governor, while the participants are cabinet ministers and Dajiuqing. The results of the votes cast by the elected officials serve as the main basis for the emperor's reference.
This is similar to analogy (participants are the Ministry of Personnel, recommending officials below the sixth rank in the interior and officials below the fifth rank outside), departmental recommendation (participants are the Ministry of Personnel, recommending Xiaojiuqing, aspects [such as Bingbeidao], prefects, etc.), The combination of edicts and recommendations (the participants are Jiuqing and Kedao, recommending cabinet ministers, officials and soldiers, and governors) formed a step-by-step process of expressing the general will.
Considering that the election of government officials also relied on the public will, the Ming Dynasty's election actually constituted a cycle of expressions of the public will, and used this as a way to resist the emperor's special request - the emperor's rejection of the results of the court recommendation, in fact It is the result of indirect negation of partial inference and analogy, and may affect the rationality of the imperial edict.
With this explanation, you readers may have discovered a problem: shouldn't recommending cabinet ministers be called imperial recommendations?
Yes, officially it was indeed called Chitui, but later on the two tended to be merged into one, and gradually they were all lumped together with Tingtui.
There are actually two fundamental reasons why this recommendation system was formed and continued, and both of these fundamental reasons originated from the emperor.
First, the recommendation system is convenient and trouble-free. This is actually very simple. There are so many ministers in the dynasty. As an emperor, he may not even be able to "know them all", let alone know them all. Therefore, some positions do not necessarily need to be carefully considered. Let the ministers draft a few candidates, who are roughly the same.
This is a bit like how people used computers in later generations. When they are too lazy to use their brains or face irrelevant problems, the computer will recommend several options for people, and people only need to make a simple choice, which is quite considerate. For the emperor, the selected candidates may all be similar in his impression. Who should he use?
From this point of view, we can also think about another question, that is, why most of the cabinet ministers in the middle and late Ming Dynasty had the experience of "emperor teacher" (here refers to being a Japanese lecturer).
The answer is simple: you have been a Japanese official, and the emperor has a deep impression on you, at least roughly knowing what kind of person you are. Compared with other officials who only have a name as a symbol in the emperor's mind, you The advantages are of course countless times greater.
The second fundamental reason why the recommendation system could be formed and continues to this day is that for the emperor, this system did not weaken the emperor's power to appoint and remove personnel.
This is the most important and most easily misunderstood aspect of the system. In fact, the court recommendation in the Ming Dynasty was actually just a recommendation process, and the ministers who participated in the discussion and recommendation did not have the final say. The key decision-making power still lies in the hands of the emperor.
The reason why it is easy to cause misunderstanding is that in later modern societies, countries that implement constitutional monarchy will also do this. For example, the Queen of the United Kingdom, not to mention the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, even the Prime Minister of Australia in previous years has been selected, but it must be approved by Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom before it can be considered officially effective.
Of course, this approach in the UK is basically just a legal formality, and I have never heard of Her Majesty the Queen, who “does what is right”, disapproving it.
However, it was completely different in the Ming Dynasty. The biggest differences were two points:
There will not be just one candidate recommended by a court recommendation, but usually two or three people, and the emperor makes the final decision. In other words, even if you are shortlisted and become a recommended candidate, it does not mean that the position is already yours. You still have competitors.
Comparing it to the United Kingdom, you must have never heard of the fact that in modern society, two or three candidates for British Prime Minister can be proposed, and then the Queen can choose? Assuming that this is the case, would you still think that the Queen of England is just a decoration?
The two recommended candidates can be rejected or even skipped directly. This article has been mentioned in the previous article in this book, but here is just a simple example: Zhang Cong during the Jiajing period was admitted to the cabinet by the imperial edict, and Yin Shidan was also admitted to the cabinet by the imperial edict during the Longqing period. These are all examples of skipping the imperial recommendation. .
As for rejection, there are some. Zhu Yijun did this in the original history: At that time, Gu Xiancheng was appointed as the doctor of the Literary Selection Department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and was in charge of the promotion, transfer and other affairs of the official class. In the 22nd year of Wanli, the imperial court recommended bachelors to the cabinet. The people nominated by Gu Xiancheng were all disliked by Zhu Yijun, so he offended the emperor and was stripped of his official status and dismissed from his post and returned home. At that time, the candidates recommended by the court were also rejected by the emperor, and the Ministry of Personnel was asked to make a new draft.
Therefore, to sum up, as a system, Tingtui has greater symbolic significance, and the real final decision-making power is always in the hands of the emperor.
Of course, this does not mean that Tingtui is unimportant. On the contrary, Tingtui is still very important, and can even be said to be of great significance.
The source of this meaning lies in the Ming Dynasty gentry's insistence on the general will - "The emperor cannot take away the officials, and the officials cannot take away the foolish husbands and women."
This kind of thinking makes the emperor's dictatorship always in a state that is morally unacceptable. Therefore, even if the emperor is the supreme emperor in the world, it is very dangerous to rashly defy the public will.
The political expectation of traditional China lies in the hope that the emperor will be diligent in asking for help and comfortable in entrusting others, rather than being authoritative and autocratic and not delegating power. In the Ming Dynasty, when the bureaucracy was highly systematic, the emperor himself was the most important cog in the bureaucracy. Therefore, he usually had to have a positive attitude toward the general will reached by the bureaucracy, because if he denied the will of other cogs, it might lead to The bureaucracy is dysfunctional.
In order to maintain imperial power, going against the bureaucracy and changing from a coordinator to a confrontation is, not to mention, an act of digging one's own grave in the long run - because it exposes the nature of a dictator. Even the short-term cost is very high, and it is easy to be resisted or even abandoned by the bureaucracy - don't forget the trend of officials in the late Wanli period to remove their seals, and the trend of being alone in the late Chongzhen period.
What Wanli encountered was resistance, a kind of "non-violent non-cooperation" between monarchs and ministers due to the dispute over the country; and Chongzhen was even more serious. He was really abandoned by the bureaucracy, and not only He was a civil servant, but he was abandoned by the military generals group as well. No other emperor under a system like the Ming Dynasty could achieve that level, and his death was truly unjust.
Of course, Wanli has not yet encountered any obvious resistance, so this time Tingtui quickly took action in an orderly manner under his edict.
Even when the court recommends cabinet ministers, the officials first select the candidates. In an era when certain powerful officials were in power, this selection of candidates was not susceptible to other interference.
But now, it's different. From the time of Yan Song to the present, it has basically been a period of strong cabinet power, and the staff can only act closely according to the instructions of the cabinet.
But at the moment, there is one difference, that is, the Ministry of Personnel as a whole is in a state where the Practical School is in power. There are of course historical reasons for this. The main reason is that Gao Gong was also in charge of the Ministry of Personnel with the title of Chief Assistant. Since he was in charge of the Ministry of Personnel for eight years, the Ministry of Personnel was labeled as Gao Dang.
Although today's Tianguan is Yang Wei, who seems to be neutral but is actually a member of the Jin Party, after Zhang Siwei and Ding You, Gao Dang and Jin Dang can no longer separate their families - Gao pragmatism has the final say, so the officials The candidates recommended by the Ministry will certainly uphold a high pragmatic will.
However, the so-called pragmatic will this time was not his will. It was just a compromise. The only thing that worked well was that the compromise this time was that Shen Shixing made more concessions, and Gao pragmatism still had a slight advantage.
However, this official selection is quite interesting. Gao Pragmatic made it clear that he would not give face, or in other words, he really implemented what he expressed in the conversation with Shen Shixing: I will take all the face this time!
Therefore, the three candidates recommended by the Ministry of Personnel are almost all related to Gao Pragmatism.
The three candidates are Wang Jiaping, Chen Jingbang and Yu Shenxing.
Wang Jiaping is a native of Shanxi. No matter what he thinks of himself, in the eyes of the outside world, a Shanxi native is a natural member of the Jin Party;
Although Chen Jingbang is from Fujian, he was ranked seventh in the second and seventh place on the Yichou Ke gold list in Jiajing forty-four years, and the examiner that year was Gao Gong, which means that Gao Gong was Chen Jingbang's teacher. It was precisely for this reason that Chen Jingbang became the first batch of officials during the period of Prince Zhu Yijun. In other words, he is both a highly pragmatic teacher and a highly pragmatic senior brother... to a certain extent, he feels like he is teaching skills on behalf of his teacher.
As for Yu Shenxing, he is the master of the high-pragmatic rural examination, and it was he who ordered the high-pragmatic Jieyuan. In addition, they have another origin: Yu Shenxing is actually Zhang Juzheng's student.
After the fall of Zhang Juzheng, most of his disciples were not suppressed by Gao Gong because their status was not high. Moreover, Liang Menglong, who climbed the fastest among them, has now become an ally of Gao Pragmatic and directly joined the Practical School. Therefore, Yu Shenxing's The background is no problem.
As a result, among the three candidates, except for Wang Jiaping, who is really planning to push forward, the next two are Gao Pragmatic and Zhu Yijun's past teachers - of course, Wang Jiaping also served as a lecturer later, but he was not among the first batch. .
When this recommendation was sent to the emperor, it did not mean that the emperor would make a decision now. This was just the first review. If the emperor agreed, it would be recommended by the cabinet and the "Dajiu Qing".
Zhu Yijun is basically satisfied with these three candidates, because all three of them have been his lecturers, and he knows them fairly well.
It's just that Zhu Yijun is a little strange, because according to the general situation, even if Chen Jingbang and Yu Shenxing want to be promoted now, they seem to have stopped at the level of minister, and they seem to be a little short of qualifications when they are promoted directly to the cabinet minister.
He thought about it and felt that the actual intention of the official department was to promote Wang Jiaping, otherwise he would not be ranked first.
Zhu Yijun actually didn't know that Wang Jiaping was not a member of the Jin Party in the true sense. He just thought that since Wang Jiaping was from Shanxi, it would be a good idea to add him to the cabinet. To a certain extent, it was equivalent to replacing what Zhang Siwei left. lack.
So the emperor quickly notified the cabinet and held a meeting with the three ministers listed in the official newspaper as candidates for court recommendation to see what everyone's opinions were.
In the Ming Dynasty, there were "Da Jiuqing" and "Xiao Jiuqing". Among them, the "Dajiuqing" refers to the Six Ministers plus the Zuodu Yushi, plus the Minister of Dali Temple and the General Secretary; the "Xiaojiuqing" refers to the Minister of Taichang Temple, the Minister of Taipu Temple, the Minister of Guanglu Temple, and the Minister of Zhan Shi, Hanlin Bachelor, Honglu Temple Minister, Imperial College Jijiu, Yuanma Temple Minister and Shangbao Secretary Minister.
Those who are qualified to recommend cabinet ministers are cabinet bachelors and Dajiuqing, so Gao Pragmatic is not qualified to participate. He can only wait for the results of the recommendation - although this is basically impossible to have an accident.
Those who participated in this meeting were the four cabinet ministers Shen Shixing, Xu Guo, Zhang Xueyan, and Wu Dui, plus the Minister of Personnel Yang Wei, the Minister of Hubu Shen Li, the Minister of Rites Xu Xuemo, and the Minister of War Liang Menglong. There are thirteen people in total including Shu Hua, Minister of the Ministry of Justice, Yang Zhao, Minister of the Ministry of Industry, Zhao Jin, the imperial censor of Zuodu, Li Shida, minister of Dali Temple, and Zhang Mengnan, general affairs envoy.
The rest of them have been mentioned in the previous article, but Li Shida, the minister of Dali Temple, has not been mentioned. Here is a supplement: This man is from Jingyang, Shaanxi, and was the same hometown as Wei Xue... Complete the supplement.
Although the nomination was held in the Datong Room of the Cabinet Office, which is relatively far away from the Sixth Ministry (the Cabinet is in the palace, and the Sixth Ministry is outside the palace), Gao pragmatically got the news very quickly, and the results of the Cabinet selection came out less than half an hour later. , Gao pragmatism knows the result.
Not surprisingly, Wang Jiaping received unanimous praise from the leaders present at the meeting and was "publicly recommended" as the best candidate for the new cabinet minister.
In fact, this is really not a surprise. If you look at the factions in the audience, you will know that they are almost either the practical school or the heart school. Since the actual leaders of the two factions have reached a gentleman's agreement, what other variables can there be in this meeting?
Shen Shixing and Xu Guo jointly sent the results of the court test to Wenhua Palace to Zhu Yijun, who was waiting there in advance. Zhu Yijun was not surprised by the result at all. He just asked Shen Shixing and Xu Guo: "I think the result of the court test is Yes, but Wang Jiaping is still a bachelor of the Hanlin Academy. If he wants to join the cabinet, he must first be transferred to the six departments. How do you two gentlemen think he should be transferred?"
Although Zhu Yijun said that "the six departments must first be transferred to the cabinet", in fact, this is just a general term. In fact, before Hanlin historians join the cabinet, there are generally only two places to transfer first, either the Ministry of Personnel or the Ministry of Rites. This is different from Zhang Xueyan and Wu The route into the cabinet is different.
Shen Shixing had already been prepared. Hearing the words, he immediately replied: "You can first serve as the left minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs."
In fact, there is currently no vacancy for the position of Zuo Shilang in the Ministry of Civil Affairs, but this official position before joining the cabinet has special characteristics and occasionally does not require actual service.
Zhu Yijun nodded in agreement and said directly: "Then I will ask Mr. Shen to draft the decree on my behalf. Wang Jiaping will be promoted to the left minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, a bachelor of Jiadong Pavilion, and will join the cabinet to participate in machine maintenance."
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