Study On The Getting Promotion According To Seniority In The Northern Song Dynasty

The main purpose of this paper is to explore the process of transformation and development of the system of getting promotions according to seniority in the Northern Song Dynasty.As a convenient tool for the central government to gather the power of selection and facilitate the selection process under the centralized rule in ancient China,the system of "getting promotions according to seniority" always showed its tenacity and flexibility.In the Song Dynasty,in order to reduce the possible harm caused by the shortcomings of the system of getting promotions according to seniority and to balance the contradiction between the expectation of the selection and the actual operation of the system,the rulers of the Song Dynasty further adjusted the scope of application of the system and gradually incorporated the rules of recommendation into the operation of the getting promotions according to seniority system,following the adjustment ideas of the late Tang and Five Dynasties.On the other hand,the development of getting promotions according to seniority system in the Northern Song Dynasty was closely related to the development of the system of the county officials of Muzhi state,which was born in the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties.And after a long period of development from the late Tang Dynasty to the beginning of the Song Dynasty,the county officials and the local county officials were firstly integrated into a new system at the level of selection and appointment.This system underwent a process of re-integration in the Northern Song Dynasty,i.e.the original two separate groups gradually communicated with each other and on this basis a coherent hierarchical sequence emerged.This hierarchical sequence was not created overnight nor was it unchanging,and its ranking and composition varied in different periods of the Northern Song Dynasty.The sequence was finally fixed in the second year of Chongning of Emperor Huizong of the Northern Song Dynasty in the form of combing official rank,that is,the "seven ranks of election" we see today.In addition,with the trend of separating the official position and the position held by the officials in the system of county officials of Muzhi state,the function of getting promotions according to seniority system also shifted,and roughly after the reign of Emperor Zhezong,the phenomenon of "guansheng" was used to refer to the change of the selection of a candidate through the getting promotions according to seniority system.