648 REFORM OF GOVERNMENT ORGAN IZA TION
the Ts 'ang-shih Ts'ao (Office of Constant Attendance) in charge of matters con-
cerning the high ministers of state, and another to control the I -ch' ien-shih Ts 'ao
(Office of 2,000 Picul Rank Officials). In the Later Han dynasty, Emperor Kuang-
wu Cr. A.D. 25-58) established an Office of Personnel (Li-pu-ts'ao) to recom-
mend men for magisterial posts. Emperor Ling (r. 168-89) appointed a high
official to the post of master of documents in charge of selection of officials
(Hsiian-pu Shang-shu), and in the Wei dynasty in the third century, this office
was changed to the Ministry of Personnel (Li-pu) headed by a master of docu-
ments, a term that became the title for its minister.'
Yu was concerned primarily with advertising the merits of the Han person-
nel system to provide a model for emulation rather than providing a detailed
account of its history, and he therefore omitted discussion of any problems of
bureaucratic administration until the end of the Former Han, when Tso Hsiung
in the reign of Emperor Hsiin (r. 126- 1 45) of the Later Han reported that For-
mer Han district magistrates had been transferred too frequently and urged that
the best ones be kept in their posts virtually permanently. Yu singled this com-
plaint out for notice because he identified short terms of office as one of the pri-
mary problems of seventeenth-century Choson bureaucratic practice.
Major Post-Hall Prohlems in Personnel Administration
After the fall of thc Later Han dynasty, personnel administration declined from
the heights achieved in the Chou and Han dynasties, and Yu combed the Chi-
nese literature to illustrate the most egregious failures. The problems of short
terms of office was one of these, and in addition he dwelled on the influence of
pedigree and inherited status on the appointment of officials, the replacement
of face-to-face observation in the recruitment of officials by impersonal and
remote bureaucratic practices that accompanied the expansion of the empire and
the growth of the bureaucracy. His disdain for examinations and the examina-
tion system has previously been discussed in chapters 4 and 5, but in this sec-
tion he explored the routinization of procedure, particularly the emphasis on
time-in-grade rather than proper review and evaluation of performance.
He also included a discussion of some of the reform measures that had been
adopted in China, particularly the usc of recommendation - which he discussed
in his program for the establishment of state schools for education (see chap.
s) -and the appointment of subordinates by district magistrates and higher offi-
cials in the central bureaucracy. Even though he did not necessarily cite the mate-
rial he quoted in his proposals for personnel reforms in Korea, he undoubtedly
expected his readers to digest this material and apply it to the contemporary
Korean situation.
Frequent Transfers versus Long Terms of Office. Yu cited the opinion ofLi Chung
of the third-century Chin dynasty who deplored the more frequent transfers of
officials than in Han times. He hoped to restore the use of triennial reviews of
official performance described in the The Rites of Chou and prolong the terms