CHINESE HISTORY AND CH’ING INSTITUTIONS
15
Nor was this all. Only a small fraction of the empire’s total number of
degree holders (over a million, at times) could expect to gain one of the
20,000 or so civil government positions. Chinshih status almost
automatically placed an individual in the middle stratum of the nine-rank
bureaucracy, which ranged from metropolitan posts such as Deputy
Commissioner in the Transmission Office (rank 4A) or Reader in the Grand
Secretariat (rank 4B), to local offices such as Circuit Intendant (rank 4A),
Prefect (rank 4B), and District Magistrate (rank 7A). But chu-jen degree
holders could be assured of only the most minor posts, and sheng-yiian had
virtually no opportunities for regular bureaucratic employment. The vast
majority of sheng-yiian languished as “lower gentry,” enjoying certain
gentry privileges to be sure, but forced to “plow with the writing brush” by
teaching in local schools or serving as family tutors. Many of these in-
dividuals became small tradesmen or entered other “demeaning” oc-
cupations in order to sustain themselves.”
Yet for all the frustrations of examination life, with its fierce com-
petition and tightly controlled degree quotas, the lure of gentry status and
the ultimate possibility of bureaucratic service, with its rich social and
financial rewards, kept the vast majority of Ch’ing scholars loyal to the
system and the state.”
Bureaucrats, for their part, had every reason to support the status quo.
But the alien Manchus—outnumbered by the Chinese perhaps 100 to
1—made every effort to ensure administrative control through an elaborate
system of checks and balances inherited from the Ming and refined for their
own purposes. One important check on the bureaucracy was the despotic
power of the emperor, which reached new heights in the Ch’ing period.”
Another was the appointment of equal numbers of Manchus and Chinese to
head the top-level organs of government, and the practice of appointing a
careful mixture of Manchus and Chinese to oversee provincial ad-
ministration. Typically, a Chinese served as a governor, while a Manchu
occupied the position of governor-general.” A third check was the use of
“ideologically uncommitted” Manchu Banner forces to maintain military
control at the capital and in the provinces.’* Other checks included the
effort to balance regular and “irregular” bureaucratic appointments,” the
frequent transfer of officials (usually every three years or less), and rules
prohibiting bureaucratic service in one’s own home province. Even the
mandatory retirement of officials for up to three years of mourning (ting-
yu) for deceased parents may be viewed in part as a control device.
Social controls included close state supervision of Chinese religious life
and merchant activity” as well as registration systems for taxation (li-chia)
and rural surveillance (pao-chia)." But successful administration, especially
in the countryside, depended on an alliance between officialdom and the
gentry class; a district magistrate’s bureaucratic reach could not possibly