| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 法學院碩士在職專班 === 101 === The study tries to explore the qualification evaluation and ranking system of Qing Dynasty and to reveal how the appraisal system was conducted based upon the Regulations of Ministry of Appointment. In addition, author also tries to investigate the construction of civil official system by utilizing historical records such as Regulations of Ministry of Appointment, Draft History of the Qing dynasty, and various notes taken by writers in Qing Dynasty.
Regulations of Ministry of Appointment consists of seven parts, i.e., ranking system of Manchu officers, ranking system of Mongolia officers, ranking system of Han officers, ranking system of Han-military officers, qualification evaluation rules of Manchu officers, qualification evaluation rules of Han officers, and Regulations of administrative disciplinary action. In fact, the Ranking system shows us what prerequisite required before an office can be promoted to a new position and what the position that an officer can possibly get in the future. Understanding the ranking system set for Manchu, Mongolia, Han, and Han-military officers, the researchers will be able to know the structure of the whole structure of civil official system in Qing Dynasty. As for the qualification evaluation rules of Manchu or Han officers, they are used to justify whether a candidate for a vacancy is legitimate for that opened position. The detail of qualification evaluation rules reveals that Manchu officers have better chance to get an opened position than the Han officers. The last part of Regulations of Ministry of Appointment refers to the Regulations of administrative disciplinary action and it is used to regulate the measurement of penalty for officers for committing a breach of the regulations. The disciplinary penalty could be one of the followings: forfeiting of ones’ salary, degradation of one’s rank, or discharging of ones’ duties. The harsh of disciplinary penalty depends on whether the officer needs to be directly responsible for breach of the regulations.
This study also explores the origin of Ministry of Appointments and the tenure of minister of Ministry of Appointments in Qing Dynasty. By investigating the identity and background of those ministers, we can see Qing Dynasty has intentionally balanced the provinces issue by appointing roughly the same number of ministers from south or north provinces as Ming Dynasty. Furthermore, through the average tenure of those ministers, we can fairly understand whether the Qing Dynasty, politically, is in steady condition. Overall speaking, when the construction of civil official system is relatively stabilized, the tenure of the ministers also relatively longer; hence, we can see the tenure of ministers in the later stage of Qing Dynasty has longer tenure than those in the early or middle stage.
The Regulations of Ministry of Appointments had been constantly revised; nevertheless, limited by the editions that can be controlled in Taiwan, this study can only take the edition issued in Qianlong 48-year while Qing Dynasty was in its most prosperous days as the foundation for further discussion. Meanwhile, this study also explored editions issued in Yongzheng 12-year, Daoguang 23-year, and Guangxu 12-year to reveal their similarities and differences. By studying the qualification evaluation rules set for Manchu and Han officers, it is clear that Manchu officers were favorably treated with more chances to get a opened position as thus to maintain Manchu’s legitimate controlling power. The designed civil official system in Qing Dynasty actually allowed Manchu’s ethnic group have extra chances to be promoted to the higher positions. “Bǐ tiē shì”, the advantageous position specially created for Manchu group, served as a typical sample to demonstrate how Qing Dynasty favored Manchu’s ethnic group.
The performance appraisal in Qing Dynasty was categorized into two types, i.e., “Jīng chá” for officers stationed inside Beijing city and “Dà jì” for officers located outside of Beijing city. The rules used for appraisal were “Sì gé” (i.e., four evaluation standards) and “Bā fǎ” (i.e., eight reviewing rules). Those who performed beyond expectations will be ranked as prominent officers and such record will have positive influence on their future promotion. As for those ranked at the bottom will suffered for forfeiting of ones’ salary, degradation of one’s rank, or discharging of ones’ duties. The rule set that only 1 out of 7 of the officers in Beijing city and 1 out of 8 of the Bǐ tiē shì can be ranked as prominent. As for officers located outside of Beijing city can only 1 out of 15 chances to be listed in prominent group, not to mention those most lower-ranked officers can only have 1 out of 130 chance. The performance review result was shown in the wordings given by the superior officers and if these superior officers failed to recognize the contribution of their subordinates, the lower ranked officers may never have the chance to get positive results or even have to suffered to disadvantageous treatments.
Within Bā fǎ, “lack of talent and capability” and “impatient and impetuous” can be tracked down back to middle stage of Ming Dynasty. In addition, based upon the weed out numbers in two different years during the tenure of Kangxi, around 1.41% government officers were asked to leave after performance review. Along with the 14.28% best performer, we can conclude that around 15% of government officers were ranked as excellent or very poor and the rest 85% were given average scores. Jīng chá was not conducted on regular basis by Emperor Kangxi; however, it is Yongzheng who finally successfully made Jīng chá systematically running every 3 years.
This study proposed 10 findings and 6 research suggestions at end and sincerely hope the future research can adapt macro-historical views and incorporate even more formal records and research materials taken in Qing Dynasty to comprehend the real meanings of Regulations of Ministry of Appointments and what impact it has to our modern systems.
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