The Jiupin Zhongzheng system is a talent selection system established by Emperor Wen of Wei Cao Pi during the Cao Wei period. It is somewhere between the imperial examination system, which is generally resented by historians today because it focuses on the great families and is unfair to the common people. It cut off the circulation of the upper and lower strata of society, and created a solidified society in which the upper grades have no poor families and the lower grades have no scholars.
It is very detrimental to the development of the country, and because the children of the scholar clan rely on this system, they can get official positions without hard work. As a result, a group of uneducated officials have also been cultivated, which has further aggravated the weakening of the country. Therefore, this system has been widely criticized by people, so is this system also criticized in this article today?Of course not, because there is nothing new and there is no point in doing so.
Although the topic of this article today is also the Jiupin Zhongzheng system, the analysis is whether it has merits, not a summary of its disadvantages. Is there any merit in the positive system of the nine products?Most modern historians believe that the Jiupin Zhongzheng system is a set of systems that Emperor Wei Wen was forced to promulgate by the coercion of the family. Since it is beneficial to the family, it is naturally not good for the country.
What would be the merit of such a system?Maybe the big families will think that it has merit, but from the perspective of the state and the common people, it also has merit?Actually, there is, why do you say that?Because modern civilians and ancient civilians do not speak the same language, education was not widespread in ancient times, and seventy or eighty percent of civilians did not know how to read, so it was difficult to become officials.
From the current point of view, what is deprived of the positive system of the nine products is the space for all civilians to rise. But in fact, it only deprives the two or three percent of the civilians who are literate and can become officials to rise. If you start from this point of view, in fact, the harm of the positive system in the nine products is not very great. In the future, the imperial examination system was said to have opened up the upper and lower circulation, that is, to help the two or three literate civilians.
The remaining seventy or eighty percent of illiterate civilians, even under the imperial examination system, could not climb to the upper echelons of society. So what did you get in exchange for sacrificing these two or three percent of civilians?I think it's meritocracy, admittedly, because it doesn't take effort to get an official position. Will cultivate some lazy and unmotivated **. But in meritocracy, elites play games with each other.
It tends to cultivate some extremely outstanding talents, because all the ruling class are elites, excluding those who are lazy and do not seek to improve. It is quite difficult for the remaining elites to suppress the other elites and gain leadership. So if there is really an elite who has achieved leadership, then he must be the elite of the elite, or even a rare talent.
Therefore, the Northern and Southern Dynasties, which implemented the nine-product Zhongzheng system, did produce many talents. Under the imperial examination system, those two or three percent of civilians also joined the competition. However, compared with the big families, these two or three percent of the commoners obviously have congenital deficiencies. The big families have the money and resources to train their children, while the commoners have no money and no resources, most of them are self-taught, and few people have the ability to hire famous teachers.
Then the pressure of competition among the family will be reduced, and it is not easy for cutting-edge talents to appear. Therefore, the conclusion of this article is that the only benefit brought by the Jiupin Zhongzheng system is that it can cultivate cutting-edge talents. But the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. What do netizens think about this?Everyone is welcome to leave a message in the comment area and communicate with me.