670 REFORM OF GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION
When the admirable Han dynasty fell in the early third century, the develop-
ment of an aristocracy and respect for status further impeded the impartial search
for talent. Checking genealogies to verify status and family membership usurped
the role played by an objective review of performance and obviated any attempt
to create a system of equal opportunity for all individuals. An aggressive and
intolerant competition for office introduced new structural divisions and a mood
of rancor and bitterness within the bureaucracy as officials castigated their oppo-
nents and formed cliques to protect themselves against the internecine combat
of office-seeking.
When the civil service examination system was introduced in 589 in the Sui
dynasty, it was favored because it promised to replace pedigree, status, and con-
nections w.ith an impartial and impersonal testing of individual knowledge as
the means for recruitment. Critics soon noted, however, that the stress on rote
memorization of texts and literary skills in the composition of poems and essays
had not succeeded in producing the elite of moral talent that supposedly ruled
over society in ancient times.
Furthermore, the negative consequences of the growth in the size of society
and the bureaucracy required to govern it became apparent throughout the T'ang
period. As the capital and major cities became the cynosure of interest and atten-
tion, flocks of examination candidates assembled at the capital to prepare for
cxaminations, and central government posts superseded the provinces in the grow-
ing hierarchy of status and ambition. The older ideal of maintaining good offi-
cials in local posts for long periods of time was abandoned by the introduction
of short tenure and rapid transfer. Officials in capital bureaus were unable to
gain expertise by long experience in a particular post, and magistrates in local
districts lost familiarity with the people because they were transferred so fre-
quently. As a result they shifted their attention from the fulfillment oftheir duties
as magistrates to rapid ascent to capital office.
The number of officials and, more important, the number of examination
passers and degree-holders and the volume of people in the category of eligi-
ble candidates for office and promotion, demanded some kind of rationaliza-
tion of method to allow the personnel administration to deal with such vast
numbers. The solution was to reduce human beings to statistics even before the
invention of the computer, by converting them to assigned numbers of rank and
introducing the stepladder system of routine promotion based on time-in-grade.
This system of appointment by seniority eliminated the need for the enormous
expenditure of time and effort needed to carry out a thorough review of all offi-
cials and candidates, but it also weakened the central government's knowledge
of its pool of officials and its control over the integrity of its functions.
The rang dynasty may have suffered from these defects, but its officials were
not obtuse to the methods of rectification. Some proposed measures to force the
best capital officials to take posts as district magistrates, extend terms of office
for all functionaries to gain experience in their posts, and require all officials
who aspired to ministerial rank to pass a tour of duty as district magistrate. They