The Imperial Examination System and Plato's Republic: An Analysis of the Historical Success and Potential Prospects of the Confucianization of Chinese Politics (Part 2)

Li Yousheng
(continued)

IV. The Contingency of Chinese Imperial Emperors Not Being Confucianized and the Possible Prospects for the Confucianization of Imperial Emperors

Like all modern utopian experiments, the failure of Wang Mang’s New Deal was inevitable. The fact that Confucianism, with its official status for two thousand years, ultimately failed to Confucianize the imperial court was somewhat accidental. There were two major, comprehensive social changes that the Confucian bureaucratic intellectual class failed to anticipate, and they couldn’t devise a solution. The first was the military threat posed by the nation-states of neighboring countries after their formation; the second was the invasion of Western powers in modern times, ultimately bringing China into the modern world. The Confucian ideal was based on the model of a primitive superpower, a time without the powerful Mongol or Jin-Liao dynasties, nor the wave of global capitalism—both of which were based on material interests despised by Confucius and Mencius. As the saying goes, a wise man encountering a robber has few options and often simply observes the other side’s gain. The Southern Song and Ming dynasties both adopted a shift from introversion to autocracy: introversion to maintain peaceful relations with powerful neighbors, and autocracy to concentrate resources on strengthening national defense. Similarly, the Qing dynasty’s pursuit of reform in the face of Western modern political dominance was also understandable.

As for what measures could have been taken in Chinese history to ensure the uninterrupted process of Confucianization in Chinese politics, there are certainly many possibilities and corresponding prospects. Here, we will only cite a couple to illustrate the contingency of why Chinese emperors were not Confucianized. The first method was to transform Confucianism into a secondary social religion, similar to Christianity, by sending a large number of missionaries to the Mongols and the Jin and Liao dynasties to convert them to Confucianism. A missionary group with strict rules, a grand structure, and radiating the benevolent spirit and dedication of Confucianism would almost certainly be invincible against culturally backward barbarians, just as Christianity converted Germanic peoples after the fall of the Roman Empire. It must be emphasized here that Confucian bureaucratic intellectuals must be divided into two groups: one group to continue the original dream of a Chinese empire, and the other group to construct a secondary social Confucianism; otherwise, China would become like the Byzantine Empire.

The second approach is to establish peripheral regions with different systems as a buffer, similar to the military governorships of the Tang and Song dynasties and the “one country, two systems” principle in Hong Kong, but requiring a long-term implementation of one or two hundred years. In these peripheral regions, a competitive system aimed at solving practical problems should be established. Even without such a system, China could still produce Confucian military talents like Wang Yangming and Zeng Guofan. Given the intelligence and dedication of Confucian bureaucratic intellectuals, it is entirely possible to create a situation akin to that of Athens, a city-state with over 100,000 inhabitants and a wealth of talent. This would be a typical two-tiered society. This approach offers the hope of overcoming invasions from neighboring countries and dealing with capitalist nations, thus ensuring the continuation of the Confucian ideal of a Confucian-led China.

Both World War I and World War II were initiated by Germany, a nation with a relatively backward culture, and initially achieved successive victories before ultimately being defeated by culturally advanced nations such as Britain, France, and the United States. This illustrates a common historical phenomenon: a culturally backward and warlike nation may initially achieve victory, but in the long run, it cannot defeat a culturally advanced and more peaceful and humanitarian nation. History often unfolds in this way; the initial victories of a culturally backward and warlike nation are enough to alter history, even enough to cause the disappearance of a more peaceful and humanitarian culture. For example, Macedonia and Rome successively conquered ancient Greece, while many cultural traditions in the Middle East disappeared during the Islamic military conquests. The history of China after the Song Dynasty roughly falls somewhere in between these two outcomes, with conquest by the Yuan and Qing dynasties, but its cultural traditions were able to persist to some extent.

V. The Imperial Examination System and the Confucian Ideal State of a Sage-King

1) The Imperial Examination System as a Mark of the Confucianization of Bureaucratic Intellectuals: Because Confucianism idealized a primitive society, and due to the constant pressure of peasant uprisings, the middle class in the ancient Chinese social model (see Section 2) evolved. This included the disappearance of the powerful aristocratic class during the feudal states and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, replaced by a group of scholars who passed the imperial examinations. Considering that the grandfathers of most officials in the Ming and Qing dynasties were commoners, these intellectuals were free individuals, not members of any particular aristocratic class. Emperor Wu of Han established the Five Classics Doctors and the Imperial Academy, thus beginning the imperial examination system, which combined education with selection and elimination. The system of selecting officials through examinations only began in the Sui and Tang dynasties. Historians generally believe that the Chinese imperial examination system originated from the local recommendation system of the Han Dynasty, maturing only in the Song Dynasty, while the modern Western civil service system is inspired by and imitated from the Chinese imperial examination system. This is related to the Confucian emphasis on knowledge and education, and the tradition of classical studies, starting with Confucius, which is also similar to Plato’s Republic: education plus selection.

When China’s imperial examination system was introduced to the West, it greatly astonished Westerners. The strict management of the examinations, with its numerous intricate regulations governing the examination halls and grading process, was designed to eliminate any possibility of cheating and ensure an equal opportunity for every candidate. Since exam papers were not to be signed, some candidates resorted to writing pre-arranged coded messages on their papers to communicate. The extremes of both the rigid regulations and the rampant violations of the system mirrored the fierce political struggle between two parties in a Western parliament.

Although Emperor Wu of Han and Empress Wu Zetian were among the few extremely autocratic monarchs in Chinese history, Liu Zijian believed that the Chinese government in the Southern Song Dynasty became more introverted and autocratic, which was inherited by the Ming and Qing Dynasties. [11] This was related to the gradual maturation of the political management system of the northern ethnic minorities, which presented the possibility of destroying China. During the war, autocracy was needed to concentrate power. Taking the Western governments during the two World Wars as an example, this tendency toward autocracy was temporary and limited. War also forced the government to expand democracy in order to mobilize the entire nation to participate in the war. [12] After the Southern Song Dynasty, imperial autocracy was not the only option for China. If a group of political elites demanded the loose political atmosphere of the Northern Song Dynasty and made unremitting efforts, the previous tradition could be continued. If we assume that the loose political atmosphere of the Northern Song Dynasty continued, the imperial examination system would not have become rigid in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and become a laughing stock in The Scholars. Instead, more down-to-earth and far-sighted politicians like Wang Anshi would have emerged. If there were hundreds of politicians like Wang Anshi in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the various secondary social systems mentioned in the previous section were adopted, China would have a completely different appearance.

2) The Social Model of the Confucian Sage-King Ideal State: If the primitive society at the bottom and continuous peasant uprisings serve as the driving force for the continuous improvement of society, then after the imperial examination system completes the transformation of the middle level of the upper social model, the next step is naturally to transform the highest level of the upper model. There are two possibilities: 1) To make the emperor a puppet, following the path of constitutional monarchy, selecting a powerful prime minister from among the ministers through imperial examination competition; 2) To select the emperor from within the royal family through imperial examination competition. As for the lifelong system versus the rotation system, the former increases competition to ensure a lifelong effect, while the latter can reduce the degree of competition and compensate with rotation. If we choose the second possibility, then it is the philosopher-king described by Plato in *The Republic*, which is equivalent to the Confucian ideal sage-king. Only in this way can the claim that Confucianism is the official ideology in Chinese history be truly valid, and the top level of the upper model will no longer be Huang-Lao Legalism, but Confucianism. The social model of China realizing the rule of the Confucian sage-king is as follows:

The Confucian sage-kings and the original society (Confucianism)

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The original secondary society (Confucianism) of the bureaucratic and reserve intellectual groups.

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Village families (citizens) Primitive society (Taoism)

The biggest difference between this and Plato’s ideal state lies in the fact that the peasantry under the rule of the Chinese sage-king resided at the primitive social level, within the aesthetic order of a natural social state. Therefore, this China under the rule of the sage-king was many times larger than Plato’s ideal state, and the ratio of officials to commoners in the sage-king and his bureaucratic system was much lower than in Plato’s ideal state. This sage-king and his bureaucratic system resembled the Roman Catholic Church and its system of bishops and priests, except that the former possessed governmental functions while the latter did not. The system’s high efficiency relied on the natural order of the primitive society of the vast peasantry. In the above model, the primitive secondary society of the bureaucratic and reserve intellectual group refers to this bureaucratic intellectual class as the form and structure of a secondary society, but dominated by Mencius’s philosophy of mind and Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, which artfully and aesthetically pleasing life. This artful and aesthetically pleasing life also applied to the top-level Confucian sage-king. If the sage-king was chosen by the royal family but still lived within his own family, this constituted a quasi-primitive society.

3) The Invincible Social Barrier of Benevolence: Confucianism advocates the moralization, artisticization, and aestheticization of social life, thereby opposing the current society built on individual freedom and material interests as social values. Herein lies a paradox: the moralized and aestheticized Confucianism cannot overcome the social power structure of modern society built on individual freedom and material interests. A vivid analogy: the masterpieces of art masters cannot defeat guns and cannons, but guns and cannons cannot replace art. Art needs the protection of guns and cannons to avoid the ravages of war. Confucius and Plato both lacked an understanding of the diversity of secondary societies, failed to consider how different social systems should coexist, and did not consider that a culture of peace cannot withstand a culture of war.

The solution to this paradox relies on the establishment of a buffer zone in the border regions, as discussed in Section 4 above. This buffer zone, led by pragmatic Confucian scholars like Wang Yangming and Zeng Guofan, serves as the protector of the Confucian Sage-King Empire. This protection has both material and spiritual significance: the former involves armed defense, while the latter blocks the erosion of various heretical ideologies. This buffer zone forms its own secular society, capable of self-sufficiency, yet the Confucian Sage-King Empire has an obligation to provide economic support. This buffer zone maintains a strict geographical boundary with the Sage-King Empire, as they are entirely different societies. Through certain procedures, citizens of both sides have the freedom to choose between these two lifestyles, but it is crucial to prevent fickleness and inconsistency. If this freedom of choice leads to an overpopulation on one side, the boundary between the two can be adjusted, and the Sage-King Empire has a responsibility to ensure that this buffer zone remains at a minimum level and does not disappear. To some extent, the Four Asian Tigers mentioned above—Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, and Hong Kong—can be seen as such a buffer zone. However, these four regions lack any freedom of movement between their citizens and the core areas closer to Confucian tradition, thus failing to function as a mutually balancing force. More importantly, the Four Asian Tigers were not representative of the core regions or served as a buffer against the capitalist world. One direct consequence was that the Confucianization or utopianization of the core regions was limited, as these regions also had to contend with the influence and erosion of the capitalist world.

The author once argued that Confucianism used the original society as a template to govern the secondary society. This approach was very successful during the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, which placed the whole Chinese society at the level of the original society or a quasi-original society. The emergence of centralized empires after the Warring States period made this approach less successful. The reason for this was that Confucius and Mencius lacked the vision of the diversity of secondary society. (2, pp. 338-64) Although Plato also lacked the vision of the diversity of secondary society, the historical reality of the coexistence of pluralistic competition in the West forced political pluralism and democracy. There is only one type of original society, and members have no choice. Secondary society has countless possible directions and forms. Western democratic systems preserve social diversity and mobility, and this mobility is chosen by citizens through voting, thus better reflecting the essential characteristics of the diversity of secondary society. Today’s politics and society are largely shaped by war. Even the social diversity and mobility of Western democratic countries are far from reflecting the reality of the diversity of secondary society: the wishes of a minority cannot be realized. For example, it is almost impossible to live in an equal society or a communist society without being disturbed, and natural human rights do not guarantee this right. [13]

4) The various drawbacks of the incomplete Confucianization of politics in Chinese history: Lin Yutang, in his book “My Country and My People,” emphasized the existence of a large number of vagrants in Chinese society. Wang Xuetai recently conducted a systematic and profound study of vagrants in Chinese history, pointing out that vagrants are people who have lost their place in mainstream society. The space they rely on for survival is called the “jianghu” (江湖, a term referring to the world of martial arts and outlaws). There, danger lurks, and even basic sustenance is hard to come by. They live hand to mouth, and therefore are prone to suicide, pursuing only the distribution of gold and silver and the feasting of meat and wine. To obtain official positions, they would commit murder and arson to be granted amnesty; the emperor’s throne rotates, and next year it’s their turn—this is their highest ideal. They have no principles; whoever provides the benefits is their principle. They are obsessed with lawless freedom, yet once organized, their discipline is not only strict but also cruel. Their highest moral standard is loyalty, and the deity representing loyalty is Guan Yu, a figure of enduring righteousness. [14] Their attitude towards life cannot be summarized by Confucianism or Taoism. To be precise, it is a kind of attitude towards life based on a rebellious mentality formed by resistance against the Confucian ideology of the upper class in the upper social model. These vagrants are the detached individuals of the vast rural grassroots in the upper model who have broken away from the quasi-primitive social collective. Such individuals existed in prehistoric times, were a very small minority, and did not pose a great threat to society. However, in the upper social model, since the upper secondary society and the lower quasi-primitive society are essentially completely different social levels, like the relationship between Chinese characters and literature, these detached elements are generated at the junction of the two. Their main body consists of people with the vision and mentality of the secondary society, who are not tolerated by strict Confucianism and cannot be included in the upper class. In an era when feudal lords and powerful clans were everywhere, as relatively independent social forces, they had their own different attitudes towards life and could absorb and accommodate this group of people to a large extent.

The author compared the poems of the Book of Songs, including the poems of the Lesser Odes and the Greater Odes, and found that only the Lesser Odes were full of sorrow and complaints. This was the result of the lower-level bureaucrats being between the primitive society of peasants and the quasi-primitive society of feudal lords. The intersection of the two different societies easily stimulated the emergence of a secondary society. [15] For the same reason, in the actual social structure model diagram of Chinese history listed in the second section above, this vagrant class emerged at the intersection of the secondary society of bureaucratic intellectuals and the quasi-primitive society of peasants. They did not have the knowledge and cultivation of Confucian intellectuals, but they had the vision of a secondary society. There is a saying in Chinese history, “Since ancient times, emperors have all been rogues.” Wang Xuetai believes that Liu Bang and Zhu Yuanzhang were such vagrants and rogues. This is an unavoidable abnormal phenomenon in the process of the Confucianization of politics in Chinese history. If Confucianism also teaches people how to rebel and become emperors, it will not be Confucianism. If the Confucian sage-king model is realized, there will be no vagrants and rogues rebelling and becoming emperors.

Because the Confucianism that held the official dominant position was based on the ideals of the original society and despised the material pursuits and secular constructions of the secondary society, and Chinese history was unable to avoid the pursuit of material and secular things, it led to the peculiar phenomenon of vagrants and ruffians becoming emperors instead. If Confucianism allowed figures like Wang Yangming and Zeng Guofan to rebel and become emperors, it would not have been Zhu Yuanzhang and Hong Xiuquan’s turn. The distance between Zhu Yuanzhang, who was a beggar, and the emperor of the great Chinese empire was so far that it could not be settled in a day like King Wu of Zhou destroying the Shang Dynasty. This caused periodic large-scale turmoil and super-stability of social structure in Chinese history. [3] This super-stability is related to the long-term high degree of dictatorship in Chinese history.

5) The shrinking space for long-term autocracy and control in secondary societies: Plato’s ideal state was a philosopher-king’s autocracy, while the politics of Confucianism and Mencius were by no means autocratic. This is because the fundamental nature of the original society and the secondary society is different; autocracy only applies to the secondary society, just as no one speaks of parental autocracy today. After China entered the secondary society, Confucius’s concept of “ruler-subject, father-son” and his disregard for the essential difference between the original and secondary societies had the potential to become autocratic, leading Chinese history from a relatively relaxed political system to autocracy. This kind of autocracy in Chinese history was neither the autocracy of Plato’s ideal state nor the autocracy of the Confucian sage-king. The true Confucian sage-king autocracy was Wang Mang, who, due to immature historical conditions, paid the price with his head.

Influenced by the moral and aesthetic order of the Confucian ideal of a sage-king, China lacked the construction of a secondary social space for individual activity and the protection of corresponding social rules. This included the division of labor and authority between the emperor and his ministers, resulting in the saying, “Serving a ruler is like serving a tiger.” The personal lifestyle of the emperor was incredibly diverse and extravagant. Qin Shi Huang, despite having seventy scholars, did not employ them; all matters, large and small, were decided by him alone, and he reviewed over 120 jin (approximately 60 catties) of official documents daily. Emperor Shenzong of Ming, Zhu Yijun, neglected state affairs for over thirty years, neither attending court nor receiving ministers, yet memorials piled up like mountains. He even disregarded the appointment and dismissal of officials; in 1614, there was only one Minister of the Six Ministries, the position of Censor-in-Chief had been vacant for ten years, and more than half of the administrative positions at the provincial, prefectural, state, and county levels were vacant. When he killed his daughter, he said, “Why were you born into my family?” “Then Emperor Chongzhen, who hanged himself, was fickle in his appointments and quick to kill. During his seventeen-year reign, seven governors-general and eleven provincial governors were killed, fourteen ministers of war were replaced, seventeen ministers of justice were replaced, and fifty Grand Secretaries of the Cabinet were replaced. Emperor Wu of Liang during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Xiao Yan, was a devout Buddhist who ate only one meal of vegetables and coarse rice a day. When prisoners were being executed, he would weep to show his compassion. He once entered a temple four times and did not return, determined to become a monk. His ministers had no choice but to pay a huge sum of money to redeem him. These extreme examples are too numerous to mention, which is enough to show that no matter how much Confucianism, which advocates benevolence and righteousness, or how much Legalism, which is impartial and incorruptible, and the corresponding court system, their ability to restrain the emperor is negligible. They cannot replace the restraining power of the middle class of the feudal lords during the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties.” [16, p. 302]

For over thirty years, Emperor Shenzong of Ming, Zhu Yijun, neglected state affairs, neither attending court nor receiving ministers. This illustrates a serious problem: the shrinking space for social control at the secondary level, and consequently, the shrinking space for personal activity—a direct consequence of highly autocratic rule. If Zhu Yijun did not wish to be emperor, someone else could have taken the throne; if he did not wish to manage state affairs, he could have appointed a prime minister with full power. In the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, this would have been achieved through the rule of feudal lords. With only one minister in each of the Six Ministries, the position of Censor-in-Chief in charge of oversight vacant for ten years, and more than half of the administrative positions at the provincial, prefectural, state, and county levels vacant, the fact that the government did not collapse under these circumstances is a testament to the highly Confucianized nature of its bureaucratic intellectuals.

6) Conclusion: Since Emperor Wu of Han exclusively embraced Confucianism, under the guidance of Confucian thought and the coercion of peasant uprisings, Chinese history completed the transformation of the middle level of ancient society—the bureaucratic intellectual class—bringing it closer to the Confucian ideal. However, it failed to transform the highest level: the emperor and his court politics. If Chinese emperors had truly become Confucianized, like the European Papacy, and established marginal regions with different systems to contend with Western capitalist forces, as discussed in the previous section, the Confucian ideal of the sage-king would have endured forever. Secondary societies have countless possible forms, and countless forms of ideal states. Although the Confucian ideal of the sage-king and Plato’s ideal state are similar in form and share similar historical trajectories and successes and failures, they are designed for different secondary societies, and their guiding ideologies are completely different.

34. The Imperial Examination System and Plato’s Republic: An Analysis of the Historical Success and Possible Prospects of the Confucianization of Chinese Politics (Part 2)