VOLUME IV, CHAPTER 6
Three Together, and Only Then a Time of Good Rule
Last chapter set out the three things, the examination, the will of the people, and the enlightened ruler. This chapter goes deeper: what the three are together, where this system came from, and why it hardened. The first section answers a question every reader of history feels. Dynasties averaged two or three centuries, so why were true times of good rule so few? Because good rule takes all three at once, the merit selection of the examination, the will of the people running from below, and the enlightened ruler running from above, and any one missing is not enough, while all three wear away with time, so good rule is both rare and short. The second section walks the examination's road, the step Chinese ancestors took thirteen centuries ago in the Sui, out of the trap where great families held everything, and how it completed only half a dream, reaching down through the middle and lower ranks but never touching the throne. The third section asks why the examination hardened, the thirteen hundred years from the Sui to the Qing in five stages, the eight-legged essay of the Ming and Qing, three inner reasons for the hardening, and the hidden internal examination that long-lived dynasties quietly ran among the princes to choose an heir. This chapter shows one thing: the examination is among China's greatest gifts to the political wisdom of humankind, and its glory and its boundary are two faces of one system.
Chapter contents
Section One. Why good rule is rare, the difficulty of having all three
Section Two. Where the examination came from, the half dream the Sui and Tang made real
Section Three. Why the examination hardened
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.