Wen | Zhao Nengjing
Introduction: The "official secret books" such as the "Theory of Long Follow" that prevailed in the Qing Dynasty can be seen everywhere, and although they have a low status, they hide in the door of or next to the official master and hold invisible power, becoming a typical figure of "how big the old man is, how big is the slave".
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In the Qing Dynasty, at least a dozen or even dozens of the local officials' brigades were the chiefs of the prefects and county grand masters, and the number of officials of the first type of governor was needless to say. Although they do not belong to the people in the yamen, the income is paid by the official lord himself, so he has become a family member of the official's family that cannot leave, and some of the long followers who have followed the "old man" for decades are basically members of the official's family.
In addition, according to the regulations of the Qing Dynasty, local officials should recuse themselves from their posts, and they could not serve in their hometowns or in the places where their immediate family members were officials, so every time a local official went to a new place, he had to face the situation of unfamiliar life. If these people rely on the local area alone are a huge number of practical servants, if the officials lose their supervision to them, first, they will lose the trust of the local gentry and people, and they will end up with a very poor reputation; second, once there is a problem in the service, the officials will inevitably have unshirkable responsibility, so it is very important for the local officials to take up their posts with their own long-term followers and set up their own "team" in the yamen.
The door of the "gourd monk judging the gourd case" in "Dream of the Red Chamber" is this typical figure, he knows the power of the major families under the imperial court, and the feathers of the various yamen, so he let the county grandfather Jia Yucun look for the official "amulet".
Therefore, the role of "long follower" is becoming more and more important. For this issue, the imperial court also gave clear regulations.
In the twenty-fifth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1686), the Qing court formally issued a document to implement the "quota system" for carrying domestic servants: in addition to bringing brothers, wives, concubines, and children, local officials were allowed to bring 50 governors and inspectors appointed by Han Chinese, 40 envoys and envoys, 30 Taoists and prefects, 20 tongzhi belts, 20 general judges, zhizhou, and zhixian belts, and 10 prefectures and counties below. If the flag bearer serves as a magistrate, he can carry twice as many family members as the Han Chinese. Obviously, the family here is a lowly family member, a servant, and the like, and has a close or loose semi-subordination relationship with the master. In the Main Qing Dynasty, these people had an image title, which was collectively called "Chang Sui".
"Long follow" was originally derived from a sentence of Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty. At the beginning, Zhao Kuangyin had not yet calmed all the areas, so one night it snowed heavily, and suddenly on a whim, he took the initiative to go to Zhao Pu's house, and saw a family member following Zhao Pu around, behaving respectfully and decently, so Zhao Kuangyin quipped: "This is AiQing's long entourage, right?" Therefore, this title was retained, and there is also a painting in this story, "Snow Night Visiting Putu", in which the two monarchs talk about the world's major events while eating barbecue.
Thus appeared the saying of "seven pin officials in front of the prime minister's door", due to the superiority of the near water tower platform to get the moon first, many long-term officials were mixed up. So how many classes are there in the long follower? The "Theory of Long Follow" is mostly divided into long follows according to "origin", and there are super-equal long follows (temporary follow-ups), special-level long-following (and followed), and second-class long-following, etc., and the upper sect chief, the second-level long-following, and the lower-level chiefs are named "evil follow-up". Therefore, there is also a hierarchical relationship and the priority of the position. According to their functions, there are "division valves" or "doors" responsible for turning the door, "signing" or "draft cases" responsible for the circulation of documents and bookmarks, "sicang" who manage warehouses, "duty halls" who are on duty in the public court, "book qi" responsible for communications, "printing with seals" who are in charge of printing letters, "money and wine" responsible for taxation, and "supervisors", "kitchens", "pipe numbers", "followers", and so on.
If the chief executive manages or participates only in the family affairs of magistrates, then they will not become an important type of yamen, on the contrary, the vast majority of their participation in the management of yamen administrative affairs. Therefore, due to the difference in the relationship between the long-term and the palm seal official, as well as the difference in the division of affairs, they are also naturally divided into three, six, nine and so on.
The great master of the door government of the rich and the noble", responded to the sentence, "The king of Yama is good to see, and the little devil is difficult to get around." ”
The so-called door government is to give the official master the door, in various film and television dramas can see that you want to be received by officials, the door of the door must be filial piety, otherwise it is bound to eat "closed door soup", so this long follow is a very popular one. They collect money called "door bag", and even agreed to become customary, how much to send, there are clear rules, to the peak of the period, the door bag has also developed to the point of "door respect", every year every New Year's Festival, you must give officials to send the door "door respect", otherwise the consequences are very serious.
The signing of the long follow, can be called a heavyweight personnel, has become the official grandfather's "intimate Douban".
Another important role of chang suizhong known as "uncle" is "foreman", commonly known as "manuscript sign", which is a heavyweight role in chang suizhong, known as the "big seat" of the official master. This kind of person is related to the career of the state and county lord, so if it is not the "intimate Douban" of the official lord, he cannot hold this important position. "Signing is like the Military Aircraft Department" is equivalent to the head of the daily affairs of the official, such as understanding the legal documents, understanding the style of official documents, distinguishing priorities, and whether the criminal name Qiangu is wanted or not, all of which must be coordinated by the real "signature".
Generally speaking, the door government uncle to do things, but also to go to the door of the draft signature master, at least to "out of the breath" and "into the item" part of the filial piety to sign the master, in terms of social status, he is also higher than the door government master, therefore, "a wise man, willing to charge the signature is not on the door" it is very natural.
Late Qing Dynasty official
In order to get more money "at the door" or in the signing room, the two types of uncles usually "work closely together". For example, if a squire wants to occupy an industry, first draw up a certificate, and then give money to the door master, the door master must take out a part of the money to give to the signing, so as to arrange for the old man to approve or ascend to the church earlier. In the Qing Dynasty, there were often cases and no transmissions, there were no transmissions, there were no messages, and there were no messages" in the prefectures and counties of the Qing Dynasty, mostly because the signing uncle did something from it.
In addition to the manuscript, there are also five people in the signing room, name, office, seal, number and book, and the duties of such long followers can be learned from their names. Because the head of the duty hall often follows the state and county officials out, it is also known as the "outer hall" to do a good job, and will be promoted to the door.
In fact, the long-term income of the number and the book is not high, and it is also very busy, which is the "small seat" in the long follow, so the "big seat" manuscript should often try to subsidize the number and book.
Where there is a major shortage in the first county of the provincial capital, there shall be no less than ten people to sign the draft: one person for the draft and one for examination, and two for each other. In terms of income, the number is higher than that of the scribe, not only because the number is complicated, but also because "all the colored affairs are seen by the number." Because the number piece deals with the correspondence every day, it can be practiced skillfully, and it is natural to understand the various styles of official documents.
Before entering the "big seat" of the manuscript, you must first start from the number piece, which is the deputy of the draft, so every time there is a shortage of the draft, it is filled with the number. It can be seen that the "long follow" of this set of combination fists is closely related to each other and influences each other. There is a lot of information contained in this, which deeply affected the overall atmosphere of Qing officials, and eventually evolved into a chronic disease that was difficult to remove in the official field.