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Bureaucratic Constraints on Nepotism in the Ch'ing Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Robert M. Marsh
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In China during the Ch'ing period, as before, many Confucian values were so family-centered as to tolerate degrees of nepotism not acceptable in some other societies. Ideally, of course, Confucian values admitted of no conflict between loyalty to the Emperor and loyalty to close relatives and friends. Nevertheless, conflicts between public and private interests were recognized at least as early as the Meng-tzu and were typified in such expressions as “robbing the public to help the private” (chiakung chi-ssu) and “putting the family first and the nation last” (hsien chia-tsu erh hou kuo-chia). But whatever may have been the nepotistic intent of officials, there was during the Ch'ing period, at least before the Taiping rebellion, a great centralization of imperial authority.

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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , February 1960 , pp. 117 - 133
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Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1960

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References

1 Meng-tzu replied to Hui, King of Liang, , “If your majesty say ‘What is to be done to profit my Kingdom?’ the great officers will say, ‘What is to be done to profit our families?’ and the inferior officers and common people will say, ‘What is to be done to profit our persons?’ Superiors and inferiors will try to snatch this profit the one from the other, and the Kingdom will be endangered.” The Chinese Classics, trans. Legge, James (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895), II, 125.Google Scholar

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26 Hsieh, p. 125.

27 Hsieh, pp. 117, 125.

28 Taub (Tb) is a statistical measure of the degree of relationship between two variables, useful when comparing two or more tables with varying numbers of rows and columns. See Goodman, and Kruskal, , “Measures of Association for Cross Classifications,” Journal of the American Statistical Association (December 1954), 732–764Google Scholar. Like other measures, Tb varies between —1.0 when there is perfect negative correlation, and †1.0 when there is perfect positive correlation, but since Tb shows a lower degree of association than other measures, e.g., Pearson's C, I have taken the liberty of using the square root of Tb as my measure of relationship.

29 To cite a parallel finding from modern American society: the children of professional and semiprofessional men are much more likely to enter college than the children of laborers, but they are not significantly more likely than laborers' children to graduate from college. In both the American and the Chinese case, recruitment in the first place seems to be more influenced by family background than is success after original recruitment. See Wolfle, Dael, America's Resources of Specialized Talent (New York, 1954), PP. 160, 163.Google Scholar

80 A more representative sample of Manchus would probably have less advancement. In the Censorate, for example, there were 115 Manchus and only 5 Chinese holding the relatively low post of clerk (pi-t'ieh-shih▪), in ranks seven to nine. This type of Manchu official is obviously not represented in the Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period. See I-shan, Hsiao, Ch'ing-tai t'ung-shih [General History of the Ch'ing Period] (Shanghai, 1928), I, 465.Google Scholar

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32 For similar assertions concerning the opportunities for military officials to rise to prominence, see Powell, Ralph L., The Rise of Chinese Military Power, 1895–1918 (Princeton, 1955), p. 7Google Scholar, and Wittfogel, K. A., Oriental Despotism, A Comparative Study of Total Power (New Haven, 1957), pp. 339–340.Google Scholar

33 Hsieh, p. 104.

34 See in Hummel, , ECCP, biographies of Sun Ch'eng-tse, II, 669Google Scholar; Li Kuang-ti, I, 474; Kuo Hsiu, I, 436; Li Fu, I, 456.

35 For illustrative cases, see the biographies of Ta-shou, Ch'en, ECCP, I, 99Google Scholar; Kung, Lü, ECCP, I, 550Google Scholar; Ch'i-sheng, Yao, ECCP, II, 899Google Scholar; and Hsiu, Kuo, ECCP, I, 436.Google Scholar

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41 Powell, p. 7.

42 The following notes illustrate some of the rules of avoidance: I. Metropolitan officials should not serve in the same office as grandfather, grandson, father, son, uncle, nephew, brothers; mother's father and brothers, wife's father and brothers, daughters' husbands, and sisters' sons; cousins; other officials whose children have married one's own children. Metropolitan officials should avoid such posts as secretary (chang-ching aa) in the Grand Council if they were officials of the third rank or higher; offspring of high metropolitan and provincial officials should not take the post of Censor; salt merchants and those whose patrilineal relatives were salt merchants should not serve in the Board of Revenue. II. Provincial officials should avoid the following relatives in their posts: relatives within the five degrees of mourning (wu-fuab); father's sisters' husbands and sons; mother's father, sisters' sons, granddaughters' husbands; tutors, examiners and fellow-students from the same year in the metropolitan and provincial examinations. Provincial officials should avoid all posts in their own province, the province of their temporary residence (chichiac) and the neighboring provinces within 500 li; certain educational officials could serve in their own province, but not in their native prefecture (fu); officials in Chihli serving as Intendants, Prefects, Sub-Prefects or higher should not administer an area in which they owned land or estates (t'ien-chuangad); if high-ranking provincial officials have any patrilineal relatives in the province where they are serving, they should memorialize the throne for instructions as to whether they should leave the post. Tao-ling, Hsü, Chung-kuo fa-chih shih lun-lüeh [Outline Essay on the History of Chinese Law] (Taipei, 1953), pp. 129–131.Google Scholar

43 Hsieh, pp. 128–129.

44 See in ECCP the biographies of Ch'ien Ch'ien-i, I, 149; Ebilun, I, 219; Tantai, II, 899. For the case of the T'ung clan of Fu-shun, Liaotung, which, during the K'ang Hsi period (1662–1723) “filled up half the court,” see the biographies in ECCP of T'ung Kuo-kang, T'ung Kuo-wei, T'ung Kuo-yao, Olon-dai, Fahai, Lungkodo, Sunggayan, and Ch'i-fu. For another famous case of nepotism and its control, see the biography of Chang T'ing-yü. The President of the Censorate, Liu T'ung-hsun in 1741 charged that Chang T'ing-yü, his relatives from T'ung-ch'eng, Anhwei, and members of the Yao family, also from T'ung-ch'eng, collectively “occupied almost half the posts of the bureaucracy.” Tung-hua Hsü Lu [Supplementary Imperial Record], 1911 ed., Ch. 14/13a–14aGoogle Scholar. Chang T'ing-yü's rank of earl was declared no longer inheritable, as a result of Liu's memorial. ECCP, I, 55. See also in the ECCP biographies of Ch'en Hungmou, I, 86; Li Tsung-wan, I, 490; Fang Pao, I, 236; Ho Kuo-tsung, I, 286; Chi Yün, I, 120; Ch'ung-shih, I, 211.

45 See in the ECCP biographies of T'ung Pu-nien, II, 793; Wang Yung-chi, II, 846; Fang Pao, I, 235; Ch'i Shao-nan, I, 129. Cf. Hsieh, pp. 129–132.

46 Ta-Ch'ing lü-li hui-chi pei-lan [Classified Reference to the Laws and Statutes of the Penal Code of the Ch'ing Dynasty], 1903 ed., Ch. 5Google Scholar, “ch'in-shu hsiang wei jung-yin” section.