Bureaucratic Government in China

Roleplaying In Asian Settings 1

by Taina Nieminen

There is nothing wrong with using a Western European model for the setting of a role playing campaign. In fact, the advantage is that the model is the most familiar one for role players in Australia (and the rest of the English speaking world). People can easily bring to mind images of kings, knights and castles, and of course, the oppressed serfs, when thinking about feudal society. They are probably also aware that cities were filthy, that education was extremely restricted and most people were illiterate, and that the general level of technology was very low.

But a feudal setting is not the only possible model for a role playing game (or fantasy novel). It is not even historically representative. To put Europe into perspective against the rest of the world needs a slight change in viewpoint from the usual one. Until the industrial revolution took place, Europe was a geographically small and economically and technologically backward aberration attached to the far north west of the Asian continent. This view of European history and institutions may be offensive to those people who have always believed in the superiority of all things Western. But the historical record shows that Europe was actually relatively backward throughout most of its history. Also, only a small proportion of the world's population has lived in Europe, and so its society can hardly be said to be the normal one for people as a whole. As I said before, there is nothing wrong with using a feudal setting for role playing games, but it is not the most representative model that can be taken from human history.

Using Asian settings for role playing games provides not only a change from the usual, but the great variety of Asian countries themselves gives the opportunity to include a great deal of different settings in the world. Thus, the campaign world starts to resemble the real world in its variety, and becomes more realistic as a result. It is the richness of the Asian experience that really makes game supplements such as Oriental Adventures for AD&D really woefully inadequate. Using these varied settings not only gives more choice for the GM, but can also give a sense of wonder for the player as their character travels the world, and finds these strange and exotic cultures.

To conclude, there is nothing wrong with using a medieval Western European background for a fantasy role playing campaign, but an Asian setting can give greater variety, and a technological base that is actually more representative of "normal" development than was medieval Europe.

And to encourage GMs to incorporate Asian settings into certain areas in their games, I am planning to write a series of short articles dealing with major topics of importance in establishing a FRP game. Some of the articles will include lists of books for further reading, and should cover topics like government, taxation, economy, technology, agriculture, military organisation, religion, epic literature and traditions, and ethics and conventions of warfare. The first topic to be covered is the bureaucratic style of government, which is best exemplified by the Chinese government of the last two thousand years.

Bureaucratic Government in China

The Chinese government provides an example of two different styles of bureaucratic government. First, the government of post-Han China through to the T'ang dynasty was an aristocratic government, in that the aristocrats monopolised the official posts. The government of the Sung dynasty, and later dynasties in China, was one in which the bureaucracy was staffed by professional bureaucrats, dependent upon the emperor for their position. Thus, the modern bureaucratic state (with the ideal that appointment to office was based on merit and not on birth or personal connections) existed by the eleventh century. This article will briefly discuss these two styles of bureaucratic government, and how the earlier one developed into the later one.

China from the fall of the Han dynasty to the T'ang dynasty could be characterised as an aristocratic society, although it was not a feudal society. It was an aristocratic society because aristocratic groups dominated socially and politically. They monopolised the high government offices, and enforced a system of selection for those posts which stressed social standing and lineage. And the aristocratic clans generally treated the emperor and his family as primus inter pares, and sometimes even looked on them as social upstarts.

It was not a feudal society because noble titles and lineage in themselves did not confer power. The estates of the aristocratic families were not large enough to provide a power base, and in fact these families were often less wealthy than common urban merchants. The reason that these families were able to dominate politically was that they held all the important bureaucratic posts.

The selection system for the bureaucracy reinforced this monopoly. To gain an official post, it was necessary to be recommended by someone who already held an office, and that person was then held responsible for the behaviour of the person they sponsored. The result of this was that relatives were recommended because then at least there was some hope that family influence could be used to keep their behaviour in line. It also meant that the power of that particular family was increased as more and more of their members occupied important positions in the government.

This structure of government began to change during the T'ang dynasty as the central government tried to centralize power, to keep executive power in the hands of the emperor, and to control the appointment of individuals to office. The aristocracy fought these changes because of the threat posed to their own power. The loss of the aristocracy's power was a gradual process which took centuries, and it was only in the eleventh century, during the Sung dynasty, that a professional bureaucracy not recruited from the ranks of the aristocracy came to dominate.

The mechanism that was responsible in the long term for this major change was the examination system, which itself developed over several centuries, and which began to break the aristocracy's hold on the government in the late ninth century.

The first great boosts to the examination system came during the T'ang dynasty. The second T'ang emperor, Li Shih-min, increased the number of government jobs for which exams were compulsory (thus ensuring that at least incompetent aristocrats would not be appointed to those positions). He also brought in efficiency reviews for bureaucrats who were already appointed. But it was during the reign of the infamous Empress Wu that the prestige of the examination system, and its importance as a ticket to a good job, became firmly established in China. Wu faced continual opposition from the traditional bureaucracy (who did not want to see a woman on the throne). To counter this, she used the examination system to bring in officials who did not have the traditional background and influences, and who were dependent upon her personally for their position.

The examination system gained strength after the reign of Empress Wu, and by the Sung dynasty, the bureaucracy was staffed by professional bureaucrats who were recruited through the examination system. These people became agents of the ruling dynasty rather than representatives of their own social groups. This change was also helped by the fact the Sung emperors were no longer dependent on powerful families who had put them on the throne, but were supported by personally loyal troops. The aristocracy was out of power, and the professional bureaucracy was dependent on the royal family for office and for power. The emperor began the gradual accretion of despotic power that was to reach its peak under the Ming rulers.

In general, the Sung dynasty saw a widening of the basis of the ruling group with the development of the career bureaucrats. Printed books were cheap and widely available by this time, and even the children of peasants could study and acquire a profession. (Sometimes an extended family would club together and educate the brightest son if that was all that they could afford to do.) And very rarely, these children might pass the civil service examination, and be appointed to a government post. When this happened, those officials were actually proud of their humble beginnings.

But it should also be noted that the examination system was never democratic. A person who had at any time engaged in a dishonourable occupation could not sit for the examination. These occupations included actors, serious criminals, police constables, and merchants. This meant that wealthy merchants could not share in political power. It should also be noted that these examinations were extremely difficult to pass. There were either two or three levels (local, provincial and national or central) depending on the specific period. There was always debate about whether the subject of the examinations should be philosophy and the Chinese classics, or more practical subjects. The issue was never resolved, but the former generally prevailed. At any rate, the Sung ideal was to choose all-rounders rather than specialists.

The Sung government also tried to ensure that aristocratic cliques were not reformed. No two members of a family who were more closely related than cousins could serve in the same area, and there was a policy of constant rotation of bureaucrats. The exception to this was the Board of Works (flood control, irrigation projects etc.) which needed engineering specialists, and which generally tended to be more professionalized than the other departments.

It should also noted that the administration and finances of the imperial palace were separated from the civil and military administration of the empire. The emperor nominally controlled both the palace administration and the bureaucracy, but this was not always the case in fact. An emperor's power over the bureaucracy lay in information, and to get that information, it has been estimated that a Chinese emperor needed to work a twelve hour day. (Stress related illnesses seem to have been a common complaint among the emperors.)

This brief article has outlined two forms of the Chinese bureaucracy: that dominated by the aristocracy, and that dominated by career bureaucrats who had wider social origins, and who were agents of the ruling power. The changes from the first to the second has also been discussed. In summary, after the Han dynasty and in the early T'ang dynasty, power was held by the aristocrats because of their positions in the government bureaucracy. This system changed during the late T'ang, and emperors in the Sung dynasty began to accrue more power to themselves because the career bureaucrats were dependent on the emperor for their position and power.

Table of Major Chinese Dynasties

Economically and technologically backward aberration ... Examples of ways in which Asia led the world technologically are gunpowder (used in weapons in China as early as the 10th and 11th centuries), printing (block printing in China by the sixth century, moveable type in Korea a hundred years before moveable type in Europe), seed drill and wheelbarrow, ships (Chinese junks in the 15th century were able to carry over a thousand soldiers). intellectually, the concept of zero in mathematics was passed on to Europe by the Arabs, who had themselves received it from the Indian sub-continent. Economic developments such as paper money took place much earlier in China than in Europe. For example, completely negotiable certificates of deposit were used in China by the beginning of the 10th century. And that great British institution, the civil service, is at least partly based on the Chinese ideals of appointment to the bureaucracy by merit.

Empress Wu ... Infamous because she was a woman, and she ruled holding the title of Emperor. This ensured that Chinese historians denigrated and slandered her reign.

The gradual accretion of despotic power ... This process was probably strengthened by the example of Mongol autocracy put forward before the Chinese during the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty.

Administration and finances of the imperial palace ... The domestic palace administration was a huge task due to very large scale of polygamy that was practiced. Some T'ang emperors for example had over a thousand concubines. Each concubine had to have her own residence and staff - separate kitchens were needed to stop the concubines poisoning each other. This meant that the staff of the palace might be as large as 10,000 eunuchs and 25,000 female servants.