The name is absent

at all levels, receiving reports from officials and complaints from various
other groups. Censors had direct access to the throne, and the power to
impeach other officials.²⁶

Provincial administration fell under the jurisdiction of governors-
general (usually in charge of two provinces) and governors (in charge of a
single province). Their responsibilities overlapped considerably and they
were expected to cooperate harmoniously. Below them, in each province,
were various “commissioners” in charge of financial, judicial, educational,
and other civil affairs, as well as a military commander-in-chief in charge of
provincial garrisons of the Chinese constabulary known as the Army of the
Green Standard.²’

The lower levels of administration were divided into circuits (∣ao),
prefectures (fu), and districts (hsien). At the bottom of the bureaucratic
ladder stood the district magistrate (hsien-chih), who had direct respon-
sibility for 100,000 to more than 250,000 people. Horribly overburdened,
the magistrate functioned as a kind of mini-emperor, playing the role of
“father and mother” (fu-tnu) to his constituents, undertaking ceremonial
responsibilities, dispensing justice, maintaining order, sponsoring public
works, patronizing local scholarship, and all the while collecting taxes for
the state. Assisting the magistrate in these multifarious tasks were personal
secretaries and a small army of yamen (office) clerks, runners, and other
socially disesteemed but administratively essential functionaries. These low-
level personnel relied on informal fees for their livelihood, a fact which
often encouraged corruption.²*

Officials from the district magistrate all the way up to Grand
Secretaries and Grand Councillors were drawn from the elite pool of
successful examination system candidates, and all were imperially ap-
pointed. Although lower degrees and even substantive offices might be
purchased on occasion, especially in periods of administrative decline, on
the whole the examination system provided the major means of
bureaucratic mobility in Ch’ing limes.²’

The system imposed rigid requirements on candidates for degrees.
Success in the examinations demanded diligent application from the age of
five on. Beginning with primers such as the Ch’ien-tzu wen (Essay of a
Thousand Characters), male students went on to memorize the Four Books
and Five Classics—a total of some 430,000 characters—by the age of eleven
or twelve. Training in poetry composition and the difficult “eight-legged
essay” style followed.’⁰ In addition, aspirants for degrees had to familiarize
themselves with a huge body of classical commentaries, histories, and other
essential literary works. One could not normally expect to acquire the
lowest degree (sheng-yiian) before the age of twenty-four, the middle degree
(chii-jen) before the age of thirty, and the highest degree (chin-shih) before
the age of thirty-five.”

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