PERSONNEL POLICY 651
tice men had been recruited for office based on their connections with noble
families and aristocrats (munbol) and their ability to pass the civil service exam-
inations that merely tested their skill in writing and comprehension. '2
Yu recorded the desire of some Tang dynasty officials for partial restoration
of Chou feudal practices after the An Lu-shan rebellion (755-63). Prefect Liu
Chih, for example, extolled the Chou custom that men inherited their occupa-
tions because it permitted the transmission of important skills from father to
son. Even though the inheritance of office had been discontinued at the end of
Chou times, retention of inherited occupations was needed in Tang times because
it would guarantee the transmission of technical skills and contribute to rank-
ing men by the quality of their work. It did not mean retaining only the best and
casting others out of their jobs, but appointing men of lesser skill and quality to
minor occupations. '3
On the other hand, Shen Chi-ch'i of the late eighth century complained that
inherited status had played too important a role in appointing officials. Shen
argued that in classical times and even in the Former Han dynasty, no one was
deemed noble by birth and all men, including even the son of the Son of Heaven
(Chou ruler) was required to engage in study. Not even the sons of a prime min-
ister were allowed an exemption from their household taxes. But by Tang times
none of the sons of men of the nine ranks of officials (chiu-p 'in) were required
to pay taxes and the relatives of the powerful and exalted officials were also
granted the protection privilege (vin) to encourage the appointment of their
descendants to office without further qualifications.
The ancients restricted the number of scholars to guarantee a sufficient sup-
ply of workers in productive industries. Although scholars were more exalted,
they were not that much better off than the farmers, artisans, merchants, and
others. In later times, however, the scholars and officials (shih) became a pow-
erful class of superiors who used the whip on peasants and artisans and took
over their production for their own livelihood. "Obtaining an official post was
like ascending [to the position] of a god, while those who did not have office
were like those submerged in a stream. The difference between the pleasure of
the former and the difficulties of the latter were as distant from one another as
heaven and earth." In other words, the egalitarian spirit of classical times was
undermined by class and status differences.
Shen contrasted the perfection of Han bureaucratic law with the mid-Tang
period and condemned the adoption of rank as the basis for promotion in the
Sui dynasty because it transformed officials into grasping and avaricious seek-
ers of profit who sought a free ride to a lifetime of wealth and ease. The ulti-
mate message was to reduce the number of officials, the size of their salaries,
and their prestige, and increase their responsibilities and accountability to lighten
the load on the general population. 14
Routinization of the Centralized Bureaucracy. Another problem in personnel
administration was the growth of impersonal and routine procedure in the eval-
uation of officials. One manifestation of this problem occurred in north China