Gaozong's internal policy
Author | [English] Cui Ruide
Editor | General Introduction to Classics
Text | 4195 words
Reading time | About 10-15 minutes
★★★★★
Gaozong reigned longer than his father Even longer than his grandfather combined, he is often dismissed as a ruler who has made few achievements in important political institutions. However, during Emperor Gaozong's reign, there was little need for administrative innovation: the basic government institutions had been established during Emperor Gaozong's reign, and Taizong improved and rationalized them. Emperor Gaozong inherited a stable country with a system that functioned smoothly, an administrative system bound by a centralized legal system, in which the responsibilities of each government office were carefully restricted and specified by law . The military and financial systems formulated by reduce the direct interference of central government to a minimum. The government's proactive policies were strictly limited to maintaining order, handling military tasks, and managing the land and tax systems.. Facts have proved that this administrative system has extraordinary durability and is obviously elastic in the absence of strong direct leadership from the top. It withstood the test of the tense period of Gaozong's reign, the period of Empress Wu's usurpation of power, and the restoration of the Tang royal family after her fall. It is set up so that it can continue to function with minimal central active guidance.
The basis of this institutionalized administrative machine was the formulation of a set of laws and administrative regulations to enable the government to operate smoothly, and this was a constant concern throughout the reign of Emperor Gaozong.
One of Taizong's instructions to his successors was to revise Tang laws and administrative regulations to adapt to the situation. This was accomplished: in 651, an organization of high-ranking officials headed by Changsun Wuji reported to the emperor the new version of the laws, orders, patterns, and styles revised by the imperial edict. In the ninth lunar month of 651, an edict promulgated new laws to the whole country. The new law has been comprehensively revised and has become one of the most important and influential laws in the series of laws of the Tang Dynasty. It is called the "Yonghui Law Order". The next year, Emperor Gaozong organized another group, including several legal experts, to compile a detailed official commentary on criminal law that could be used in legal education. The form of this book was slightly changed and became the "Tang Lv Shu Yi" that has been handed down to this day. It was completed in the ninth month of the lunar calendar in 653 and presented to the emperor. It remained, with minor modifications, the authoritative commentary on criminal law for centuries.
After the completion of these immortal works, during the Emperor Gaozong, systematic efforts were made to adapt the code to the situation at that time. This work included codifying the formulas originally promulgated in edicts and making minor changes to the formulas, the detailed regulations established to enforce the law. In 665, when the names of all official offices were changed, Emperor Gaozong ordered the main officials of the Ministry of Punishment to modify the format and style. [73] In 676, the government ordered more far-reaching changes to the law. This time it not only changed the format and style, but also changed the main part of the administrative law (order). This work was completed in early 677. Shortly after Gaozong's death, another revision was made. Therefore, the law was certainly not ignored during Gojong's reign. On the contrary, the code was carefully revised and adapted to the times at roughly twelve-year intervals, making it more formal than ever during the Tang Dynasty.
Individual jurists and commentators were also quite active during this period. Two outstanding officials in the imperial court, Zhao Renben (prime minister from 6667 to 670) and Cui Zhidi, completed a private collection of cases, the Laws, which was later commonly used in law schools in the seventh century. Cui Zhiti's private work became a ready-made legal summary that was so easy to use that it was banned from use at the imperial court in 667.
Another political achievement of Gaozong that was far greater than his predecessors was to re-establish the imperial examination system , and during his reign, more officials were appointed through the imperial examination system. The number of people passing and taking the examination began to increase rapidly, and the impact of the imperial examination system began to be felt at the highest levels of bureaucracy. Several of Gaozong's prime ministers had titles, and a considerable number of officials began to pursue official careers in this way. But this trend cannot be exaggerated. There are still only a small number of officials who are promoted, and most officials still rely on hereditary privileges to enter the official position, or even rely on the more common method of promotion from junior staff to . For example, in 656, no less than 1,400 subordinate officials were eligible to enter the official career, while in the same year only 22 passed the Jinshi examination.
It is often heard that recruiting talents through the imperial examination system was a conscious attempt to increase support for Empress Wu's new regime because it brought new social components to the ruling class, but there is little material to support this argument. Those who can take the imperial examination come from two ways: either from the Guozi school in the capital, but those who can enter these guozixue are almost all the children of nobles and high-ranking ministers; or they are regarded as "tributes" by the state where they are located. Sent. The latter path was the only way that poor scholars could hope to take the imperial examination, and not many people succeeded. For example, in 670, only one of the 11 Jinshi candidates came from a local area; in 681, there was only one person among the 51 people; in 682, there was only one person among the 55 people.
Another interesting phenomenon about the alleged deliberate use of examinations by Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu to change the social composition of the bureaucracy is the suspension of implementation in 652, 653, 663, 669, 671, 672 and 676-679 Imperial examination system. On the contrary, for the rest of the Tang Dynasty, with a few exceptions, imperial examinations were held every year. In other words, after Empress Wu took complete control of the court in 660, she should have been busy recruiting new ruling elites through the imperial examination system, but she did not hold any imperial examinations at all for ten years; and in 665, all candidates-- At least those who took the Jinshi exam - none of them were selected. Only in 670, 673-675 and 682-683 did more candidates succeed. The annual average number of people who passed the Jinshi examination from 660 to 683 was only 18.
The real achievement of Gaozong's reign was not an elusive attempt to change the balance of social forces within the ruling class, but a series of major changes to the imperial examination system itself.
651, The most senior scholar examinations in the Sui Dynasty and the early Tang Dynasty were suspended. There were very few people who had achieved the title of scholar before. In addition to the two subjects of law and calligraphy (actually linguistics and paleography) established during the Taizong period, a new junior college mathematics examination and a specialized school to train candidates for this subject were established in 656. The mathematics examination, like the original two examinations, was held exclusively for the sons of low-level officials and common people. But in 658, all junior colleges and junior college examinations were suspended. In 662 they were restored under the control of government departments that employed their successors: the Dali Temple was in charge of the law school, the Taishi Bureau was in charge of the mathematics school, and the Secretary Province was in charge of the calligraphy school. In 671, these schools may have become part of the Imperial Academy.
The imperial examination only allowed the successful candidates to obtain the qualifications (originality) to be officials, but many more people also obtained this right through other channels. In 657, for example, it was estimated that there were three times as many people qualified for office as there were offices available to them. An electoral system was adopted in order to select people from among those who had obtained official qualifications to serve in actual positions. Like the Taizong period and the early Gaozong period, this system was extremely arbitrary. In 669, Pei Xingjian formulated detailed regulations for the implementation of the electoral system. This regulation determined the selection and promotion of officials in the subsequent years of the Tang Dynasty. It is said that Empress Wu used "name anonymity" to ensure the objectivity of the electoral system, so that the identity and social background of the candidates could not affect the results of the selection.
The imperial examination system itself also underwent a major reform in 681, which once again determined the imperial examination form for the rest of the Tang Dynasty. Up to this time, the two subject examinations, "Ming Jing" and "Jin Shi", had become very similar.Both require candidates to complete special articles, but the topics are different (Ming Jing's scientific examination of classics and their commentaries, Jinshi's scientific examination of political affairs). The reforms of 681 brought radical changes to both examinations. Ming Jing Ke at this time required complete mastery of the scriptures (since 678 it included the Taoist "Tao Te Ching", as well as the traditional Confucian classics) and their traditional meanings. It essentially became a test that emphasized rote memorization. The new Jinshi subject also requires a certain knowledge of classics, but it is less detailed; in addition, candidates are required to write poems and other literary works according to the formula, as well as political and philosophical papers. From then on, it was much more difficult to obtain the title of Jinshi than the Ming Jing, so its prestige was much higher than the latter. In the past, people paid more attention to the qualifications of the Ming Jing.
Another innovation that was rare during the Emperor Gaozong's reign but had a great impact on later generations was the first imperial examination held in 658 for specific candidates under the orders of the emperor himself. In subsequent dynasties, the Imperial Examination was taken almost as seriously as the Jinshi Examination.
Therefore, the country's primary official election system was completely transformed during the Emperor Gaozong. The electoral system implemented during the prosperous Tang Dynasty in the 8th century was basically handed down from the Emperor Gaozong. Emperor Gaozong's policies of building new capitals, constantly expanding the ranks of the bureaucracy, and especially conducting frequent large-scale conquests, placed lasting and growing pressure on the empire's finances.
Gaozong's main financial problems were left over from the Taizong period. Head tax If this basic tax system is to be implemented effectively, all household registrations need to be registered in detail to determine who should pay taxes. In the Sui Dynasty, more than 9 million households were registered in 609. During the Taizong period, there were less than 3 million households.
This astonishing sharp decline was not due to the massive death of the population during the civil war in the late Sui and early Tang Dynasties, but purely due to the failure of local governments to conduct comprehensive population registration. Even in the early days of Emperor Gaozong's reign, the number of registered households was only 3.8 million—of course, this was far less than half of the actual population. It can be seen that nearly half of the population has not been registered and therefore does not pay taxes. Emperor Gaozong, like his father, was aware of this problem, but despite several minor improvements to the registration system in 654 and 677, the basic problem remained unresolved.
No reforms were made to the tax system, although some areas of the empire were allowed to pay taxes on goods other than grain to reduce the cost of water transport to the capital. Later, in 656, the government tried to eliminate the transportation jam caused by the Sanmenxia Gorge of the Yellow River and open up a more convenient route to transport grain from the northeastern plains to Chang'an, China, but it failed to work. [87] In 672, the canals along the Weihe basin leading to Chang'an were improved, but grain transportation to Chang'an was still costly and labor-intensive.
As administrative costs and official consumption increase, the country's economic situation has deteriorated overall. The Taizong period was generally a period of prosperity and low prices, and this situation continued into the early 760s. However, before this, the supply of officially minted currency obviously exceeded the demand. Large-scale private coinage has become a major problem, especially in the Yangtze River Basin, which has the strongest monetary economic foundation. In 660, the government tried to buy private coins at a discount, but neither this measure nor the unprecedented severe punishment of private coins succeeded in solving this problem.
html In 6666, the situation worsened to crisis proportions, when the government, in a desperate attempt to meet overwhelming financial needs, consciously lowered the quality of newly minted copper coins so that they had the same metal content as ordinary copper coins, but their face value was 10 times greater. But the ensuing disruption to trade was so severe that the new currency was withdrawn early in its second year, an ill-conceived measure that severely disrupted the economy.
The late period of Emperor Gaozong's reign was marked by years of poor harvests. In 670, a severe shortage of grain led the government to ban brewing. In the late 1970s and 1980s, bad harvests, floods, droughts, insect plagues, and famines followed one after another, reaching crisis levels.In 680, food prices were unprecedentedly high. The government believed that high prices were the result of too much currency in circulation, so it drastically reduced the minting of new coins and punished private coinage more severely than before. At the same time, a disturbing proportion of refugees have fled from their original registered areas to other areas and become squatters who do not register or pay taxes. Emperor Gaozong died with the economic and fiscal crisis still unresolved.
Despite this general failure, Gaozong's government introduced measures to control prices, with partial success, and they continued to be used throughout the Tang Dynasty. The government periodically took grain out of its own central granary and sold it at low prices, and in 679 it even exchanged grain for privately coined money . A more important measure was the further development of Changpingcang in some important cities in 639. In 655, the Changping Department was established in the capital to buy back goods at a price higher than the prevailing market price when supplies were sufficient, and to buy back goods at a lower price when supplies were in short supply. Sell at the market price to keep price fluctuations within a certain limit. Later, such granaries were set up in every state. [95] The free warehouse established during the Taizong period has also been retained as a safety measure to deal with local famine. After 651, the basis for collecting grain reserves in the free warehouse was the estimated amount of each household's property, rather than the area of cultivated land. This may be due to incomplete land materials in the tax rolls.
The Rise of Empress Wu
Source of this article: Cambridge History of Sui and Tang Dynasties.589-906/[English] Edited by Cui Ruide; Institute of History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences , Translated by the Western Sinology Research Group. - Beijing: China Social Sciences Press , 1990. 12 (Reprinted in 2007.12) Original title of the book: The Cambridge History of China Vol. 3: Sui and T'ang China, 589-906, Part 1 ISBN 7-5004-0561-8 Part of the content has been compiled by the editor, and the annotations have been omitted. . This article is for personal study only, please do not use it for commercial purposes. If you are interested in this book, please purchase the genuine book. If there is any infringement, please notify this official account and it will be deleted.
