Chapter 1: Wei-Jin Style and the Nine-Rank System
"Demeanor" was originally a term used in the Wei-Jin period to appraise figures.
During the Wei and Jin periods, people's appraisals of figures shifted from moral character and bearing to physical appearance, and further developed into spiritual disposition and temperament. The Wei-Jin Men of Letters spoke and acted in ways that differed from worldly conventions, and even from those of any other historical period. Demeanor was not merely the reflection of personal cultural quality and spiritual state in conversation and appearance; for a certain social stratum, demeanor concentratedly embodied their outlook on life and worldview, and centrally shaped their social image. It was not only a political and cultural phenomenon, but also deeply influenced people's psychology and behavior, thereby constituting the social phenomenon peculiar to this era. The Seven Scholars of Jian'an, the celebrities of Zhengshi, the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, and others precisely reflected the zeitgeist of the Wei-Jin Men of Letters.
Wei-Jin Style was a kind of charming and influential personality beauty pursued by the scholars of Wei and Jin, or rather, the artistic life they eagerly sought, using their own words and deeds, poetry and prose, and arts to render their own lives artistic. This emerged against the broad backdrop of Wei-Jin Neo-Taoism, the formation of which changed the life pursuits, living fashions, and values of the scholar-bureaucrats. The conditions constituting Wei-Jin Style were: Mysterious Mind, Insight, Subtle Appreciation, and Deep Feeling. Its external characteristics were: Penetrating Understanding, Magnanimity, and Sincerity. Its representative figures were Tao Yuanming, Wang Xizhi, as well as the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, and others.
I. An Era of Bewilderment
The Three Kingdoms and the Two Jins were an era when unified dynasties vanished. From the end of the Han dynasty through the Wei-Jin period, class conflicts and social contradictions continuously worsened, and the ruling class engaged in mutual infighting, causing society to become turbulent and restless and the political situation to fluctuate unpredictably. The political corruption at the end of the Eastern Han dynasty triggered the Yellow Turban Rebellion, followed by the separatist regimes of warlords and the emergence of the Three Kingdoms' tripartite confrontation. By the time of the Western Jin dynasty, although unification was achieved, the War of the Eight Princes broke out shortly after, and northern nomadic tribes took the opportunity to invade, bringing Western Jin's rule to an end while the Central Plains became a battlefield for the contention of various tribes. After the Jin imperial house crossed south, it established the Eastern Jin, content to rule over a fractured realm. However, due to continuous internal strife within the ruling clique and the surging rise of peasant uprisings, Liu Yu eventually replaced the Sima house regime and established the Liu Song dynasty.
These chaotic and painful historical facts left the celebrities of the time desiring order in vain, merely striving to preserve their lives in a troubled age, and exerted a tremendous impact on culture, thought, and social customs. Those who followed the rules and those who put on self-righteous airs all seemed to become one joke after another; the power of tradition vanished invisibly, and an increasing number of celebrities chose rebellion in the face of a hopeless tomorrow. Some feigned madness to escape the world, wandered at ease between sobriety and intoxication, and lost themselves in pain and frantic delirium. Thus arose the so-called "Wei-Jin Style". Reading Shishuo, one feels the boldness and untrammeled spirit completely out of step with the entire feudal ruling period. The book records: Liu Ling constantly indulged in wine and unrestrained freedom, sometimes taking off his clothes and going stark naked inside the room. When people saw this and ridiculed him, Ling said, "I take heaven and earth as my pillars and roof beams, rooms as my trousers, why on earth do you gentlemen crawl into my trousers!" Such unrestrained abandonment of bodily form gradually became a prevailing custom, "hence discarding headwraps and turbans, stripping off clothing, exposing ugliness, and acting like beasts and birds." Among celebrities, there even existed the deformed social phenomenon of men pursuing a feminized appearance, applying powder and rouge, and "wearing women's clothing."
If Wei-Jin Style was an untouchable ancient myth, then that creative movement which took place on the West Coast of the United States remains 40 years later so profoundly linked with the term "America"-it was a banquet that seemed to have just dispersed; its failure and its continuation do not seem contradictory, and it still permeates the thought and culture of Western society. The anti-war movement, the radical student movement, and the civil rights movement accompanied the ideal wine brewed by 400,000 people at Woodstock, accompanied the communes of the "hippies," accompanied the feminism of "the personal is political," accompanied the smoke-filled marijuana, and accompanied the slogans of "love and peace." They could sting the moral models, economic machinery, and political lies throughout the entire system. Accompanied by a certain baby boom, what was produced was not only those "youths with bushy hair wandering the streets," but also the discovery of the self, alertness to society, and suspicion directed at national military and political leaders.
Viewed today, these two turbulent and bewildered histories both carried a profound helplessness, yet these stories-whether happening a thousand years ago or in a foreign land-always brought people a sense of yearning.
II. Peach Blossom Spring
What sustained the spiritual world of the "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove" during their heavy drinking and drunken conversations, and Tao Yuanming's pastoral life and that Peach Blossom Spring in his dreams? What guided them on their moth-to-a-flame journey?
The celebrities of the Wei-Jin period all emphasized the purity of the spiritual world, disregarded fame, wealth, and high office, and possessed magnanimous inner hearts with unrestrained outward behavior. This reflected the entire era's challenge to traditional rituals and dissatisfaction with corrupt culture. Lao-Zhuang Thought was the sharpest weapon.
The most special ideology of the Wei-Jin period was Xuanxue. Lao-Zhuang Thought allowed people to cast off worldly disputes to return to nature and return to themselves. Meanwhile, Confucianism had fallen into contradiction: in this turbulent era, it was truly incapable of becoming the social norm and mainstream, yet it could not completely vanish from people's thoughts. Thus arose Xuanxue, which "drew Daoism into Confucianism and achieved the convergence of Confucianism and Daoism."
"The celebrities of Wei and Jin loved Lao-Zhuang. He Yan had the Treatise on Nonaction; Wang Bi had the Commentary on Laozi and Zhuangzi; Ruan Ji had the Treatise on Understanding Zhuangzi; Guo Xiang had the Commentary on Zhuangzi; while Ji Kang flaunted, 'Laozi and Zhuangji are my teachers'" (Outline of National History).
What truly reflected the spiritual traits of "Wei-Jin Style" was the behavioral demeanor of acting naturally and spontaneously without being burdened by external things: Prince Ziyou lived in Shanyin. One night, a heavy snow fell. He awoke from sleep, opened the room, and ordered wine to be poured. Looking all around, everything was bright white, whereupon he rose and paced about, chanting Zuo Si's Poem Summoning a Recluse. Suddenly he remembered Dai Andao. At the time Dai was in Shan, and he immediately boarded a small boat at night to approach him. After passing the night he finally arrived, but he reached the gate without going forward and turned back. When people asked him the reason, Wang said, "I originally set out on an impulse of the spirit, and when the spirit was exhausted I returned, why must I see Dai!" (Shishuo)
Zhuangzi's natural and plain aesthetic view manifested a tranquil and rustic natural artistic conception for people, demanding that they strip away artificial fabrication, advocating a return to nature, and holding fast to one's own plain inherent character. In his view, that which conformed to natural character was beautiful, and what was natural in itself was beauty. Tao Yuanming, in describing his tranquil and rustic life, wrote of an existence detached and transcending the vulgar, precisely echoing the artistic realm of Daoism: "Since youth I have lacked the worldly rhythm, / My nature inherently loves the hills and mountains. / Mistakenly falling into the dusty net, / Once gone it has been thirty years. / The caged bird longs for its old forest, / The pond fish thinks of its former abyss. / Clearing wasteland on the southern borders, / Clinging to rusticity, I return to the fields and gardens. / My square homestead spans over ten mu, / The thatched cottage numbers eight or nine rooms. / Elm and willow shade the rear eaves, / Peaches and plums are arrayed before the hall. / Dim and distant is the hamlet of men, / Lingeringly smoke rises from the village lanes. / Dogs bark deep within the alleys, / Roosters crow atop the mulberry trees. / Courtyard and gates are free from dusty clutter, / The empty rooms have surplus space. / Long confined within the cage, / I have once again returned to nature." (Returning to Dwell in the Fields, Part 1); "Building my hut in the realm of men, / Yet free from the noise of carriages and horses. / You ask how this can be done? / With the heart distant, the place naturally becomes secluded. / Gathering chrysanthemums beneath the eastern fence, / Leisurely I catch sight of the southern mountains. / Mountain vapors are fine at dusk, / Flying birds return together. / Within this is a genuine meaning, / Wanting to discriminate, I have already forgotten how to speak." (Drinking Wine, Part 5)
Such a way of escaping reality was chosen and pursued by many celebrities, and it was their best path to keep themselves uncorrupted: it both expressed their dissatisfaction with those in power and was relatively safe, while also conforming to Lao-Zhuang Thought's values opposing utility. They also yearned for a utopian "Peach Blossom Spring": without rulers or ministers, farming and weaving themselves, free from worry and care.
Yet reality harshly pierced the dream: Cao Cao, to eliminate dissenters, killed Kong Rong, Yang Xiu, and other celebrities; when the Wei and Jin regimes alternated, the Cao and Sima houses engaged in a life-and-death struggle, and among those victimized were He Yan, Ji Kang, Xiahou Xuan, and others. By the Two Jins, the political environment continuously deteriorated, to the extent that "few celebrities remained whole" (Book of Jin: Biography of Ruan Ji). Discussing politics was not dared, and to fill the spiritual void, Pure Conversation dedicated to discussing profound principles flourished. The content of Pure Conversation was principally the "Three Xuan"-the Book of Changes, Dao De Jing, and Zhuangzi-breaking through the monopoly of "solely honoring Confucianism" while combining Confucian and Buddhist thought to reach a philosophical peak.
Pursuing a lifestyle transcending the mundane, bearing heavy cultural skepticism and the helplessness of escaping the world, maintaining the desire for a pure soul and the notion of returning to nature—such were the Wei-Jin Men of Letters...
III. The Beauty of Personality
Wei-Jin Demeanor, in the eyes of many, was a true celebrity bearing, the so-called true celebrities possessing their own style. From Zhengshi talents like He Yan and Wang Bi to Bamboo Grove celebrities Ji Kang and Ruan Ji, Central Dynasty paragons Wang Yan and Le Guang, and onward to the Jiangzuo leaders Wang Dao and Xie An, none failed to be pure, lofty, and unrestrained, displaying that aura of "mist, clouds, water, and vapor" while "appreciating their own style with romantic abandon," closely approximating immortal bearing, and winning the admiration of later generations.
Wei-Jin Demeanor, as a personal expression of the scholar-aristocrat ideology of the time, became the aesthetic ideal of the period. The stylish celebrities worshipped nature, transcended worldly things, were spontaneous and unrestrained, and appreciated their own style. The Jin dynasty repeatedly invited Minister Wang Youjun to take office with the seals of various ministries, but met with repeated refusals. I imagine it was precisely because of this spiritual transcendence-"entrusting one's cup to profound victory, chanting far and wide of Zhuang and Lao," "using Pure Conversation for statecraft," loving wine, ignoring worldly affairs, and holding such a humanistic philosophical view that placed seclusion as supreme-that could forge the legendary Preface to the Orchid Pavilion.
However, why did Wei-Jin Demeanor repeatedly suffer denigration across successive dynasties? Examining the reasons, it was broadly due to these celebrities drinking to excess and living in a drunken dream; secondly, their untrammeled behavior overstepped boundaries and violated common sense; and thirdly, Pure Conversation ruined the state. According to legend, Liu Ling, one of the "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove," indulged in wine and feigned madness, frequently carrying a coffin while drinking wildly, and remaining stark naked inside his room. When people saw this they all sneered at him, but he retorted: "I take heaven and earth as my house, and the house as my garments and trousers, why on earth do you gentlemen crawl into my trousers!" These celebrities took alchemical pills and drugs in pursuit of longevity, and favored wearing wide-sleeved robes that they never washed for a long time, thus breeding many lice, so that "discussing matters while pinching lice" was a very elegant act at the time.
In fact, the complementary spirit of Confucianism and Daoism initiated by Wei-Jin Demeanor fundamentally laid the personality foundation for Chinese intellectuals, exerting a far-reaching influence. Yet the reach of Wei-Jin Demeanor also brought disadvantages; many people followed the fashion, their moods not burdened like those of Ji Kang and Ruan Ji, yet they still imitated their untrammeled ways. In fact, today's young people, as an expression of their love of life and the discovery and affirmation of the self, share a single vein lineage of value concepts with late Eastern Han and Wei-Jin Demeanor. And today's youth, in their pursuit of beauty, elegance, and individuality in posture and demeanor, complement the aesthetic concerns of Wei-Jin Demeanor.
The Nine-Rank System
[Basic Concepts]
The Nine-Rank System was an important official selection system during the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties. Also named the Nine-Rank Official Selection System, it was divided into nine grades, serving as the basis for the government to select and employ officials. Zhongzheng: prestigious recommenders who assessed the grades of talent. It was adopted by Emperor Wen of Wei, Cao Pi, upon Chen Qun's advice in order to win over the scholar-aristocrats. It was formulated by Chen Qun, Minister of Personnel of Wei, in the first year of Yankang (220 AD) on the eve of Cao Pi's usurpation of Han. This system gradually grew complete by the Western Jin and underwent further changes during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. This system originated in Cao Wei, developed and matured in the Two Jins, declined during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, was abolished in the Sui dynasty, and was followed by the formation of the Imperial Examination System.
[Establishment Method]
Taking the system of the Wei-Jin period as an example, its main contents were:
Zhongzheng were first established in each commandery, and shortly after, Grand Zhongzheng were established in each province. Provincial Merit Assessors and commandery Zhongzheng could only be filled by local people, and were mostly concurrently held by incumbent central officials. Those serving as Zhongzheng were generally of the second rank among the nine ranks, namely high-class. Commandery Zhongzheng were initially elected by the chief officials of each commandery; during Jin, this was changed to recommendation by Provincial Merit Assessors, and the appointment power over Zhongzheng rested with the Minister of Works' Office. Provincial Merit Assessors and commandery Zhongzheng all had subordinate officials called "Advisers." Ordinary figures could be evaluated by the subordinate officials, while important figures were personally evaluated by the Zhongzheng.
The duties of the Zhongzheng were primarily to evaluate figures, using three criteria: family background, morality, and talent. Family background was also called "Family Register" or "Family Record," referring to the evaluated person's clan prestige and father's and grandfather's official ranks. The Zhongzheng made only generalized evaluative comments on a figure's morality and talent, called "appraisals." For instance, during Cao Wei, the Zhongzheng Wang Jia "appraised" Ji Mao as "superior in virtue, lesser in ability." During Western Jin, the Zhongzheng Wang Ji "appraised" Sun Chu as "naturally talented, brilliant, and outstanding." Based on comments regarding family background, talent, and virtue, the Zhongzheng made high-and-low gradings of figures, called "ranks." The ranks were divided into nine classes in total: upper-upper, upper-middle, upper-lower, middle-upper, middle-middle, middle-lower, lower-upper, lower-middle, and lower-lower. However, the categories were only two: high-class and low-class. The first rank could be attained by no one and existed in name only, so the second rank was actually the highest rank. At the beginning of Western Jin, the third rank could still be considered a high-class (high-class), but was subsequently demoted to a humble rank (low-class).
The evaluation results of the Zhongzheng were submitted to the Minister of Works' Office for review and approval, and then sent to the Ministry of Personnel to serve as the basis for selecting officials. The grades determined by the Zhongzheng were also called "Local Ranks," and were closely related to the evaluated person's official career. For those taking office, their official rank had to match their Local Rank; those with high Local Ranks often had a First Appointment as a "Pure Official," rose in promotion relatively quickly, and were respected by people; those with humble Local Ranks often had a First Appointment as a "Turbid Official," rose in promotion slowly, and were looked down upon by people.
Zhongzheng evaluations of figures were customarily adjusted once every three years, but a Zhongzheng could also raise or lower the rank of an evaluated figure at any time. After a person's Local Rank rose or fell, their official rank and the purity or turbidity of their holding office often changed accordingly. Because the Zhongzheng grades were all written down in yellow paper and stored in the Minister of Works' Office, called "Yellow Registers," lowering or restoring ranks both required going to the Minister of Works' Office to correct the yellow paper. To enhance the authority of the Zhongzheng, the government also prohibited evaluated persons from filing lawsuits over grievances. Yet if a Zhongzheng violated the law in determining ranks, the government would investigate their responsibility.
[Reasons for Establishment]
The Nine-Rank System was the result of inheriting the Eastern Han official selection system and making reforms to it. Selecting officials in the Eastern Han was principally based on Confucian moral behavior standards, and evaluations by clans and local neighborhoods became the primary or even sole basis for the government to select officials (the specific avenues being the Recommendation System and Recruitment System). The great chaos at the end of the Han caused people to wander and migrate, bringing difficulties to local neighborhood evaluations, making it impossible for the employment of personnel to be verified one by one with the local neighborhoods. During the more than twenty years of Cao Cao's administration, the situations of employing people "decided from the chest and mind" and "each drawing upon their own kind" existed in large numbers. Yet local neighborhood evaluation was not entirely discarded; historical records state that when Cao Cao pacified Jingzhou, he entrusted the local great celebrity Han Kang to "itemize and grade the strengths and weaknesses of the people of the province, and all were promoted and employed"; it is also recorded that Cui Mao and Mao Jie, who presided over elections for Cao Cao, "marshaled and balanced Pure Conversation for over ten years." The so-called "marshaling and balancing Pure Conversation" meant grasping and balancing local Pure Conversations. Cao Cao did not flatly negate local neighborhood evaluations; what he opposed were the abuses produced in the local neighborhood evaluations of the late Han. The methods by which he corrected this were, first, advocating "Promoting the Worthy Based on Talent," to oppose hypocritical morality and discrepancy between name and reality; and second, suppressing factionalism, superficiality, and private manipulation of elections, striving to control the power of elections within the government. For instance, Han Kang's itemizing and grading of Jingzhou personages differed from the private neighborhood evaluations manipulated by late Han celebrities, and was much closer to the subsequent situation where Zhongzheng were appointed by the government and responsible to the government. Many features of the Nine-Rank System already had their embryonic forms during the period of Cao Cao's administration, and Cao Pi and Chen Qun further institutionalized them.
[Development History]
At the inception of the Nine-Rank System, the criteria for evaluating figures gave equal weight to family background, morality, and talent. The Liang dynasty historian Shen Yue even stated that it "was meant to discuss the superiority and inferiority of talent and virtue, not referring to the high or low status of noble lineages." However, because those who served as Zhongzheng during the Wei-Jin period were generally of the second rank, and the second rank possessed the power to participate in the recommendation of Zhongzheng, while those who attained the second rank were almost entirely aristocratic gatehouse clans, the aristocratic gatehouse clans completely monopolized the power of official selection. Thus, in the process of Zhongzheng grading, the criteria of talent and virtue were gradually neglected, while family background became increasingly important, even becoming the sole criterion, finally forming the situation by the Western Jin where "in high classes there are no humble gates, in low classes there are no commoner clans." The Nine-Rank System not only became an important tool for maintaining and consolidating aristocratic rule, but in itself constituted an important component of the aristocratic system. By the period of the Southern Dynasties, in the evaluations of the Zhongzheng, even the height of the father's and grandfather's official ranks ceased to be important; what was valued was merely the fame and position of distant ancestors from the Wei-Jin period, and distinguishing bloodlines and surname lineages only required inspecting genealogical charts, making the Zhongzheng gradings into inconsequential routine chores. During the Sixteen Kingdoms and Northern Dynasties periods, because the various regimes possessed the character of minority ethnic rule, the function of the Nine-Rank System could not be compared with that of the Two Jins and Southern Dynasties. Shi Le, the ruler of Later Zhao, once purified and determined the nine ranks, and Shi Hu also restored the tax-exemption privilege for the prominent clans of Yong and Qin provinces, but he seemingly did not establish the office of Zhongzheng. In the early and middle periods of Northern Wei, the Nine-Rank System was not implemented. Cui Hao once desired to restore the practice of distinguishing surname lineages, and was consequently killed. Emperor Xiaowen reformed the system, promulgated surname lineages, and initially established the Nine-Rank System. Yet after the Heyin Incident, this system also devolved into mere formality. By the Sui dynasty, along with the decline of the aristocratic system, this system was ultimately abolished.
[Related Commentary]
Initially, this system was dedicated to resolving the unified problem of court official selection and local neighborhood Pure Conversation, representing a continuation of the Han dynasty official selection tradition and an inheritance of Cao Cao's personnel policy. However, by the intersection of the Wei and Jin dynasties, because the senior and junior Zhongzheng officials were all monopolized by the "prominent scholar-aristocrats" of each province and commandery, they favored aristocratic figures when determining grades, and the division of the nine ranks already deviated from the principle of "disregarding family rank." For the three hundred years thereafter, there appeared the situation of aristocratic gatehouse clans monopolizing state power where "in high classes there are no humble gates, in low classes there are no powerful clans," and the Nine-Rank System had continuously been a bureaucratic selection system protecting the hereditary political privileges of the aristocrats. Therefore, after the aristocracy declined, the Nine-Rank System was also thoroughly abolished.