Chapter 12 10 Seniority is also a good thing

There are three levels in the selection and appointment of officials: the superficial level is the theoretically high-sounding selection of talents, the middle level is seniority ranking and lottery, and the bottom level is the private entrustment of the powerful group, or the back door. 【Bamboo sticks are in power】 Sun Piyang became Minister of the Ministry of Officials in the 22nd year of Wanli (1595) at the age of 62.His duty is to assist the emperor in selecting officials with both ability and political integrity, and arrange them in appropriate positions.Sun Piyang's position is similar to the current organization minister, and his status in the Ming Dynasty ranked first among the six central ministers.The Ming Dynasty had no prime minister in name, and the head of the six ministers was simply the biggest official in the world in name.

Sun Piyang is a clean and honest person. Volume 224 of "History of the Ming Dynasty" said: "Pi Yang is very strong and unyielding, and no one in a hundred bureaucrats dares to do it privately."Back in the day, this stubborn old man from Shaanxi sat in his office with a straight face all day long, and there were thousands of official fans who were good at making money, but no one dared to think of him. It really made us late students five hundred years later awe-inspiring .What is meaningful is that after Mr. Sun became Minister of the Ministry of Officials, he created the method of drawing lots. The way of arranging cadres in the Ming Dynasty has changed since then.A smart and upright minister actually handed over the important responsibility entrusted to him by the emperor to select talents and make appointments, to a pile of bamboo sticks.

According to the principles of modern management, different positions have different requirements for the quality of personnel, and talents should be selected according to the requirements of different positions, making use of their strengths and avoiding their weaknesses.This principle is of course good, and people at that time fully understood it.Yu Shenxing was ten years younger than Sun Piyang. He had been a minister of the Ministry of Rites. He criticized Sun Piyang in Volume 5 of "Gushan Penchen" and said: "People's talents are long and short, and each has its own suitability; qualifications vary. There are conveniences; local affairs are complex and simple, each has its own combination; the journey to take office may be far or short, each has its own standards.And all these differences are paid on bamboo sticks. Can the mirror be covered to reflect the face, and the scale beam can be broken to measure the weight?These criticisms by Yu Shenxing are very precise, as if they were expressed in comparison with the principles of management, and he also considered the very characteristic of the era of the long and short journey to take office.By the way, transportation was inconvenient at that time, and traveling thousands of miles usually required a large amount of debt.Under the conditions of low wages, the pressure to repay debts can easily be transformed into a motivation for corruption.Therefore, this distance factor is related to virtue in both ability and political integrity.The officials who took office were thousands of miles away, unfamiliar with the situation, unable to speak the language, so they had to rely on the notorious officials to handle affairs, and the role of leadership and supervision was impossible to talk about.This is related to the ability of having both ability and political integrity.It can be seen that this humble distance factor should not be underestimated.

Gu Yanwu, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, made more sharp accusations against the bamboo sticks in power.Starting from the height of the teachings of Confucius, he directly related to the rise and fall of the world. He is really upright and righteous. Gu Yanwu said: Confucius said to Zhong Gong: All you know.Nowadays, when selecting scholars through the imperial examination, the Ministry of Rites has to paste their names on it before taking it. This is what they don’t know;Ministers who use this method are very clumsy in knowing people and doing good things, but they are very clever in avoiding right and wrong.After the officials selected in this way take office, the people and the land are not suitable, so the government will deteriorate, and the people will rebel if the government deteriorates, and the people will rebel, and they will resort to swordsmanship.

In short, the lottery method created by Sun Piyang is very dangerous. How can the heavy responsibility of identifying and employing talents be transferred to the unthinking bamboo sticks?This gentleman not only violated the teachings of the sages, but also violated the stipulations of his duties. In modern terms, he did something else unconstitutionally. What happened to him? 【Pressure from the gray establishment】 According to the "History of the Ming Dynasty", Sun Piyang was not afraid of anyone, but the eunuch.Thousands of civil servants dare not ask Sun Piyang to go through the back door, but eunuchs dare.The eunuch asked him endlessly to arrange fat vacancies for his cronies, but Sun Piyang didn't make the arrangement, and he didn't dare to refuse, so he invented the method of drawing lots to let those eunuchs stop coming through the back door.Sun Piyang was well-intentioned.

Of course, eunuchs are not as big as Sun Piyang in name.Sun Piyang is a high-ranking official of the second rank, while the head of the eunuch, the eunuch who is the eunuch, is only a fourth rank official, four ranks behind Sun Piyang.And eunuchs are not allowed to interfere in political affairs.The founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated that eunuchs who interfered in political affairs should be executed.Similarly, there were no prime ministers in the Ming Dynasty. The three first-rank prime ministers in the early days of the founding of the country seemed unreliable. Zhu Yuanzhang killed them, then abolished the prime minister system, and wrote a stern sentence in "Emperor Ming Zu Xun" Extreme words: If future generations dare to propose a prime minister, the nine clans will be wiped out.In this way, Sun Piyang only needs to be directly responsible to the emperor, and there is no need to be afraid of anyone except the emperor himself.But the reality is otherwise.

Zhu Yuanzhang's abolition of the prime minister is tantamount to forcing his descendants to personally manage the country.The system in which the owner must personally manage a large enterprise cannot be applauded for the system, let alone the management of a large country.This is the way of self-employment.This line of thinking does not tolerate the emergence of professional division of labor, and does not recognize that among the subjects there are experts who are better at managing and are willing to manage. This system prohibits outsiders from intervening in agency, what about the emperor it itself provides?Obviously, the crown prince who grew up in the inner courtyard of the deep palace must have a superficial understanding of the actual situation of the people. Chinese Confucianism education is also the education of concealing evil and promoting good in the Spring and Autumn period. It tells students what the ideal model looks like. Why this is ideal, etc.The set taught is far from the actual situation.In other words, a scholar full of dogma and ideals is the best leader this system can provide.This is just a top manager with virtue and incompetence, but it is more likely to meet a manager with no virtue and incompetence, a prodigal son who lacks ideals and no brains.These two kinds of emperors lack the ability to manage the country, and they need some assistants to help him deal with the complicated issues raised by the heads of the six departments.

In the actual situation, the chapters reviewed by the emperor, such as Sun Piyang’s memorials, must first be read by the secretary of the cabinet scholar, the emperor, and draft an opinion for the emperor, and paste them in front of the memorials with a small note. This is called draft draft. .The current official terminology, such as intending to agree, probably came from here.The chapter drafted by the ticket was presented to the emperor, and the emperor dictated the will with reference to the opinions of the bachelor, and the eunuch took the record with a red pen, which is called red batching.No matter how it is stipulated in name, the person who submits the chapters is not as powerful as the person who reads the chapters and makes suggestions for handling; the drafter who makes suggestions is not as powerful as the person who writes the instructions with a red pen. Lazy and easy to fool the conditions.For example, when Emperor Zhengde was playful, the eunuch Liu Jin took Zhang Zou home to discuss and approve it with his relatives and buddies, and Li Dongyang, the chief assistant, also had difficulty distinguishing the authenticity from the fake.Therefore, in this process that does not violate common sense and reason, the center of gravity of administrative power has quietly shifted.

"History of Ming Dynasty."Zhiguanzhi" summarizes the ownership of administrative power in the Ming Dynasty, saying: After the abolition of the prime minister system in the 13th year of Hongwu, the affairs of the world were handled by various ministers.University scholars acted as advisors, and the emperor made his own decisions.At this time, bachelors are rarely able to participate in decision-making.In the reign of Xuande, the fifth generation, because of the qualifications of the prince's teacher, the university scholar had a prosperous prestige, and his status and role were already higher than that of the six ministers, and the power of the cabinet has since surpassed the six ministers.In the mid-Jiajing period of the twelfth generation, Xia Yan and Yan Song used their affairs, and their status has become the real prime minister.However, the cabinet's right to draw votes had to depend on the inner eunuch's right to approve awards, so the power of prime minister actually fell into the hands of eunuchs.

Unknowingly, the decision-making of the court and the advancement and retreat of officials are all in the hands of eunuchs.Not allowed to interfere in politics and so on, has long been a dead letter. Ming He Liangjun talked about an eunuch's personal experience of this power change in Volume 8 of "Siyou Zhai Cong Shuo".An eunuch in the Jiajing period said: We have been in Shunmen for a long time, and we have seen current events for a long time.In the past, when Mr. Zhang (Zhang Cong, the first assistant among the cabinet scholars) entered the court, we had to bow more often.Later, when it came to Mr. Xia (Xia Yan, the first assistant), we just looked at him with flat eyes.Mr. Yan (first assistant Yan Song) bowed hands with us before entering.

This set of etiquette changes reflected in bowing and clapping hands actually marked the change of administrative power in the Ming Dynasty.Nominally, the power was in the hands of the emperor, but the emperor could not do it or refused to do it. At this time, in the absence of a legal agency system such as the prime minister system, administrative power quietly fell into the hands of the emperor's personal advisers and followers.This is a hidden rule, but it is a rule that really works. People who don't understand this rule will have their heads broken in the officialdom.Is the prime minister system of open agency better, or the Ming Dynasty's quiet agency?At any rate, there is a process of publicly selecting a prime minister for open agency, while for secret agency, it is all based on personal private means, such as Liu Jin's method of guiding the emperor to play eagles and dogs to please the emperor. That's a long way off.To put it simply, there must be a gray power group in the Ming Dynasty, a power group that cannot be found in the laws and regulations.This group has the ability to make way for defenders of formal institutions.Sun Piyang was unwilling to give way, and did not dare to offend the eunuch, so he had to give way.The result of the contest between the two sides is that Sun Piyang took the lead in giving up his power to arrange cadres and the right to distribute fat and vacancies. At the same time, he also canceled the right to claim fat and vacancies of gray power groups. Bamboo sticks and the luck of the parties involved.After the establishment of this lottery system, the back door of the Ministry of Officials was blocked a lot, and people at that time praised Sun Piyang for his impartiality and selflessness.In this kind of praise, we can also feel the seriousness of favoritism and fraud in personnel arrangements or the distribution of fat and vacancies. [On the reason of seniority] Gu Yanwu investigated the origin of seniority ranking in "Rizhilu".The seniority ranking system is the same as the lottery system. It is an official selection system that has abandoned the function of selecting talents and appointing talents.These two systems can also be used in conjunction: first you must be qualified and old enough, and then it is your turn to draw lots.What is interesting is that when discussing the source of the seniority system, Gu Yanwu saw what we saw at the source of the lottery system. Gu Yanwu said that when it comes to the seniority system, it is said that it originated from Cui Liang in the Northern Wei Dynasty.After reading Cui Liang's biography, I realized that he also had his last resort②. According to the biography of Cui Liang, Volume 66 of "Book of Wei", when Cui Liang was the Minister of the Ministry of Officials, he was catching up with military officers gaining power, and the Empress Dowager ordered the selection of military officers to serve as officials in the central and local governments.However, there were few official positions and too many candidates. Li Shao, the former Minister of the Ministry of Officials, promoted people according to the old method, and everyone harbored resentment.So Cui Liang went up and suggested a new way to appoint officials based on the year regardless of whether they are wise or foolish.If the age is wrong, even if the position needs this person, he cannot be appointed; if the mediocrity is inferior, if the age is long enough, he will be promoted and appointed first.So people who have been in officialdom for a long time praised Cui Liang for his ability. Cui Liang’s nephew, Sikong Consultant Liu Jing’an, was very dissatisfied with his uncle’s behavior, so he wrote a letter to persuade Cui Liang, to the effect that: Throughout the ages, the selection of officials has always been recommended by governments at all levels. Six or seven points.However, there are many problems in the way the imperial court selects officials. The selection criteria are one-sided, the methods are narrow, and the selection is not good. Now that my uncle is in charge of this matter, it should be changed.In this way, who among the people in the world will go to practice the famous deeds! Cui Liang wrote and replied: "Your reasoning is very profound. I was lucky enough to be the Minister of the Ministry of Officials. I often consider selecting talents and appointing talents to repay the kindness of the Ming Lord. This is my original intention."As for seniority, there are actually reasons.I have already been blamed by you today, after a thousand years, who will know my painstaking efforts? Cui Liang said that in the past, many sages in the world jointly selected talents, and you still said that ten out of ten received six out of seven.Today all the selection tasks are dedicated to the Minister of the Ministry of Officials. Looking at the world with one person's mirror and understanding the people in the world, what is the difference between this and looking at the sky with a tube?Nowadays, there are many people who have made great achievements in the war, and the Habayashi Army has been selected, and the warriors have gained power, but they can't read, let alone count.How can such a person govern the world well?Besides, there are too many warriors and too few officials. Even if ten people share one official, there will not be enough official posts. What's more, everyone wants an official post. How can this not cause resentment!I argued face-to-face with the superiors, saying that it is not appropriate to select warriors, and requested that they be given titles and more salaries.But the above does not accept it.So I used this expedient policy to limit it by year.This is my original intention, and I hope that future gentlemen can understand my heart. Gu Yanwu commented that the loss of talents in the Northern Wei Dynasty began with Cui Liang.However, judging from the meaning of his reply and examining the situation at that time, he did not appease the change of Habayashi, and he did not indiscriminately give the military man an official position. Cui Liang had no choice but to use this rule.The strange thing is that now there are no those who have made great achievements above, and there is no pressure from the rebels below. What are they afraid of, and they still use this method of ranking seniority? Gu Yanwu made it very clear that Cui Liang's method was to appease the upper and lower pressure groups, and it was a forced concession.We can also see from Sun Piyang's story that what Gu Yanwu said is now in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, he is also facing the pressure of the powerful group.Drawing lots and so on is also a last resort.Sun Piyang and Cui Liang, the two Ministers of the Ministry of Officials, were separated by more than a thousand years, but the rules for the selection of officials were formed according to the same rules, the formation situation was similar, and the formation results were naturally similar.A very clear problem can't be solved in a thousand years. It's really the so-called looking at the present from the future, and looking at the past from the present, sad husband. 【A request is also a system】 We have already seen three levels of methods for selecting officials: the superficial level is theoretically high-sounding selection and appointment, the middle level is based on seniority ranking and lottery, and the bottom level is privately entrusted by powerful groups, or called through the back door. Volume 36 of the Ming Dynasty novel "Xingshi Hengyan" introduces a rule of being an official in the official department through the back door, which is called Fei Guohai.The Ming Dynasty followed the system of the Yuan Dynasty. Officials took an examination every three years. If they passed the three examinations, they were deemed to have passed the examination.Officials are low-level state workers, not officials.To use an analogy in contemporary language, they do not have the status of cadres, but can only be regarded as official employees of the state.If you want to move from job to job, you have to work hard for nine years and pass three inspections before you have the qualification to go to work, and you can mix three in command and four in command.But having the qualifications does not necessarily mean you can become a cadre. There are too many people and few positions, so it is hard to say when you will be able to take up the post.So someone invented a way to take the lead, which is to fly across the sea. "Awakening the World Constant Words" says: It turns out that Shaoxing is used to doing a business. Anyone who is rich and capable will go to Beijing to buy a three-examiner official with a reputation, find a good place, and come out as a second official.What do you call flying over the sea?Most of the officials who have passed the exam are selected one by one. I don't know how many years to wait.If you spend money and dig ahead of others, you will have to be an official in the near future. This is called flying over the sea.There are also those who are alone and weak, with four or five cooperating as partners, one is famous as an official, and the rest sit on the ground and share the spoils.When you take office, you should first prepare generous gifts, make friends with the court officials, and take care of things.For some trivial matters, through his yamen, it is rare to cheat one, two or five dollars.Therefore, most of the government officials in the world are from Shaoxing. Of course, this cannot be blamed on Shaoxing people.Shaoxing has a small land and a large population, and it is impossible to survive, so it is always necessary to find a way out.Ming Wang Shixing said in "Guangzhi Yi": Shanyin, Kuaiji, and Yuyao have a large population, and the local housing and cultivated land cannot even support half of the population. As far as Xiancaoxiju, there are people from this area everywhere, and all the yamen in China are full of Shaoxing people. It turns out that the living environment forces them.From the perspective of Shaoxing people, flying across the sea is just a means of fierce competition for survival.This is how the survival pressure of the people is transformed into the driving force for the operation of the entrustment system within the officialdom. The money spent by Shaoxing people on entrusting people through the back door in Beijing is only a small part of the cost of promoting the operation of the entrusting method, because it only involves the way of transferring officials and employees, which is only one of the several ways of selecting officials in the Ming Dynasty, and it is still A very small and very insignificant way.As for the total cost of promoting the operation of the entrustment system, there was no official statistics at that time, and it is difficult for me to estimate now.But we know that during the Jiajing period before Sun Piyang took office, that is, the popular era of flying over the sea written in "Xing Shi Heng Yan", the fat vacancies of an official in the official department were worth thousands of taels of silver, which was equivalent to that of a county at that time. The grandfather's nominal salary for twenty years.The dignitaries received generous gifts from others, and often ordered a certain person to a certain location.In addition, during the Wanli period when Sun Piyang lived, if someone stepped down from the position of an official and you wanted him to recommend you to take over, even if your academic qualifications were sufficient, the recommendation fee would cost five or six hundred taels of silver ③, It is roughly equivalent to the income of a self-cultivating farmer for 20 years.The above two examples are just two spots on the body of leopards. In the Ming Dynasty, there were more than 20,000 civilian posts, more than 55,000 official officials, and more than 100,000 military posts. The size of these two spots can help us get a glimpse. And speculate on the overall scale of the entrustment fee. This huge investment in the officialdom will naturally end up taking a penny or two from the common people to make profits. "Xing Shi Heng Yan" has already introduced it very clearly. The popularity of entrustment means that whoever has the means will become an official.This is roughly equivalent to whoever has money will be an official, and whoever will fawn on him will be an official.The principle that whoever has silver should be an official can be further pushed forward, because the salary of officials in the Ming Dynasty was very low, so they should not have a lot of silver. I am afraid that more silver means more gray income, and the suspicion of corruption and perverting the law is great.This means that sycophants and corrupt suspects are the most likely to become officials.Of course, it can also be like "Xing Shi Heng Yan", everyone pools money to buy an official position first, and divides the spoils according to the proportion of the shares. This means that the person who is the most prepared for corruption and the most pressured by corruption is the most likely to become an official.This is obviously a very bad prospect: the yamen is full of corrupt officials and robbers who gang up to rob, and they often extort one or two taels of silver. It won't take long, and the world will only see corrupt officials and people in poor mountains and rivers. Under the above circumstances, if we put ourselves in Sun Piyang's shoes and think about it, we will find that he is courageous. As soon as the lottery law came out, there was nowhere for Please Tuo to stay. Those dignitaries, including Sun Piyang's subordinates who spent a lot of money to sneak in, cut off a way of making money.Without extraordinary courage, or with many braids on his head being held in his hands, who would dare to do such an offending thing?If I cut off my own source of income first, who is willing to do such a thankless thing? In addition, the seniority ranking and lottery itself can be regarded as an extremely clever streamlined design.If one wants to invent a method of allocating vacancies that has the least resistance, the least pressure, and is acceptable to all parties in the officialdom, it is probably seniority plus lottery.Qualifications and seniority are hard indicators, and it is not easy to cause disputes, which can last.Everyone will grow old, and no one will feel that this method is particularly unfair to them, so it is easy to accept.Old people have many connections and rich experience, and they are often the mentors of young people. It is difficult for young people to openly oppose them, which makes it difficult for opponents to become powerful.As for drawing lots under the condition of the same qualifications and seniority, this is to entrust the future to God's will and fate, and God's will and fate are also respected by everyone, and there is no way to object. Finally, there is another advantage. Once the seniority ranking has started, it is not easy to abolish it. The cost will be high, because people who have waited patiently for many years to weave a solid network of relationships will mobilize, speak ill of him, and create rumors about him. , to protect the interests that are about to be acquired. In fact, the dignitaries are not guilty of provoking public anger, because Sun Piyang has not completely blocked the way to ask for entrustment. He just blocked this way in the official department under his leadership, and the selection of the official department is only one of the ways for officials to be promoted. .There is another way called referral.In order to make up for the lack of examination and selection of the Ministry of Officials, both Beijing officials with a fifth rank and above and prefectural and county officials with above have the right to recommend officials.The promotion call of the recommended person is regardless of the age and qualifications, and there is no need to draw lots.Li Qing recorded in "Sanyuan Notes" in the criminal department during the Chongzhen period that a person once asked him for recommendation, and he offered to give him three thousand taels of silver. From this, we can imagine the market for recommendation.On the road of recommendation, there is an endless stream of relatives and old bureaucrats of the rich and powerful, and it has never stopped.The spillway, though not so clean, also served to stabilize the levee, allowing the powerful to bypass the lottery system without overturning it. In the last few years of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Chongzhen felt that the officials selected by lottery were really unusable, so he advocated recommendation.The first batch of recommended people was really good, but after that it was a mess.Proposed by the emperor, the opening for recommendation became wider and wider, and the method of entrustment gradually replaced the method of lottery, and the spillway became the main channel.As the main channel, the bureaucracy also joined forces and squeezed into the ranks of earning money, so the situation deteriorated.People who were concerned about the country and the people called for the restoration of the lottery system, but found that this thing has also become an unattainable dream.Li Zicheng broke Shaanxi, the capital was shaken, and the Ming Dynasty reached the last moment of life and death. At this time, the Ministry of Officials was still accepting bribes wantonly in the process of selecting officials.When Chongzhen heard the report, he placed the ancestral tablet on the court, and asked the officials to draw lots in a sacred atmosphere.At that time, many places were already in ruins, and some places were full of dangers, and dangerous land and vacancies were all packed in one box.Chongzhen stipulated that no matter where it is, once the lottery is drawn, it must be on the road immediately and arrive at the office within a time limit.Some officials couldn't avoid it, so they asked the people in front of him to draw lots for him, so that he couldn't slip away.That is to say, at the last moment before the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the lottery system was revived again, and it was Emperor Chongzhen who worked hard to govern and shared the fate with the court who presided over the restoration of this system.The emperor himself also made concessions like Sun Piyang.The emperor has the power, but he can't find out who to attack or promote, and can't distinguish between friend and foe. Corrupt officials defeated him with information warfare. Of course the lottery is not good, but considering these many complicated situations, the author of "History of Ming Dynasty" finally said a lot of words to be considerate of Sun Piyang.This senior historian said it very well, so I can only honestly repeat it as follows: Sun Piyang created the lottery method, although he could not distinguish between talents and appoint officials, the key is to stop the ills of laissez-faire.If it wasn't for him, it might have been even worse.This is also adapted to local conditions, and the words of ancient sages should not be cited to blame him⑤. 【Who the common people catch up with】 After talking for a long time, all kinds of relations in the officialdom have been settled, and everyone has no complaints, so what about the common people?The common people paid the imperial food and state taxes, and supported thousands of civil and military officials. Naturally, they expected a capable leader from above, otherwise they should complain.But whining is also gray haired, and their voices are not loud enough for those in power to hear them.This metaphor was said by Hai Rui, a well-known upright official during the Jiajing and Wanli years. The original words are: the population of the people is small, and they cannot be self-satisfied if they have public opinions. ⑥Hai Rui's words are extremely concise and precise, and it is difficult for future generations to surpass them.But there is a suspicious premise hidden behind these words: Will the higher-ups know the dissatisfaction of the common people and make decisions for them?In fact, a large number of government-run enterprises are not doing well and are facing bankruptcy, which clearly shows that the people they serve are not satisfied with their jobs.This information channel is not blocked, but the officials of the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Households are rarely lost because of this, unless they are blind in the officialdom.Hai Rui's assumption obviously cannot be confirmed by historical experience.There is indeed a problem with the voice of ordinary people, but the actual ability to harm or benefit people is even more problematic. That is to say, when making official plans and trying to balance various interests, the pressure from the common people need not be taken into consideration. They cannot form a pressure group at all, not even a public opinion group, but a state of disunity.At that time, there was no means of audition, so could a certain grain of sand go to the official department to fight for your job or to fight for your job?If not, wouldn't it be superfluous to consider them? As the foundation of the entire regime, the common people are very important in terms of theory and principle. The so-called water can carry a boat, and it can also overturn it. Therefore, there are major principles and formal rules such as selecting talents and appointing talents, being parents of the people, and loving the people like children. In order to avoid flooding, everyone suffers.If this can be achieved, the common people will also feel very happy. Although it is inevitable to be a cow and a horse, the Sangongs and Six Courts of the royal family and the nobles and the thousands of eunuchs who serve them must also be well fed and served, but after all, there is a good shepherd.As long as he left early and came back late, conscientiously grazed for the emperor, and controlled the season and quantity of slaughter more appropriately, the common people would temporarily become slaves as Lu Xun said. But in the actual system operation, ordinary people are nothing, no matter whether it is pressure or complaints, nothing can be passed on.As a result, extortion has been cultivated, official entrustments have been seduced, wolves and hungry tigers have sneaked into the shepherd's team one by one, and the cattle and sheep have lost their children and grandchildren after eating them. This is the darkest unspoken rule.According to Lu Xun's analogy, this has entered the era when wanting to be a slave is impossible. Seniority ranking and lottery can be regarded as gray rules, located between the white formal rules and the black hidden rules.The herders coming up this gray road are a hodgepodge of hard-working dogs, lazy dogs, good guys, bad guys, jackals, tigers, and leopards, and whoever the common people catch up with.It is not easy for this gray rule to be generally accepted.Under the circumstances that ordinary people are nothing, Sun Piyang and other good cadres with consciousness and courage strategized, established various alliances, skillfully mobilized various forces in the officialdom, and worked hard to win this political achievement for the cattle and sheep.The achievement of this achievement can be called success or failure. This is probably one of the reasons why dynasties can always last for more than 200 years, but in the end they inevitably perish. Notes: ① Gu Yanwu: "Rizhilu" Volume 8, supplementary. ②Gu Yanwu's "Rizhilu" Volume 8, stop year grid. ③ Volume 12 of "Wanli Ye Huo Bian". ④ "Sanyuan Notes" appendix, Chongzhen. ⑤ Volume 224 of "History of the Ming Dynasty", which was praised by Sun Piyang. ⑥ "Hai Rui Ji" edited, "Chun'an County Political Affairs.Xingge Regulations.