A Study On The Han Officials' Political Positions In The Later Zhao Dynasity

The Later Zhao Dynasty,as the first minority regime built by Jie-Hus(a nomadic minority once lived in North China)in the core farming area of the Han People--North China region,faced great difficulties that how to treat relationship between the Hans and the Jie-Hus and maintain its own ruling.One the one hand,to keep a foothold in Northern China,they had to unite those influential Han people such as the aristocratic families,local powers and even refugee organizations.On the other hand,considering the lack of population and demand for enhancing ruling,they had to be cautious when appointting Han people as officials.All these contradictions lead to a special political situation for the Han officials in the Later Zhao Dynasty,At the central government level,the Three Councils(a tripartite political system),as the government core institutions,had been occupied by the Jie-Hus aristocrats with their key posts like General Imperial Secretary and Chief Imperial Secretary(two main posts of Shangshu Council,General Imperial Secretary is higher than Chief Imperial Secretary and enjoys leadership priority).Meanwhile,the Shangshu Council was also further controlled by the prince who was authorized by the emperor to “inspect and decide government affairs that Shangshu Council is charge of “.By comparison,some unimportant posts of Zhongshu Council and Menxia Council(the rest two of Three Councils)were mostly occupied by Han people.At the local government level,the important posts in main areas like Sili Xiowei(a censor who supervises political affairs)and provincial governor of Jizhou(Hebei province)were occupied by the Jie-Hus.By comparison,provincial governors and county governors in minor areas were what the Han people can take,especially the later one,which both shows the powerful influence of Han people at local government level and the compromise of minority rulers to local Han people's force.In terms of nobility title conferring,records of Han officials who were given nobility titles are mostly seen in Shile reign time.The reasons can be the greatly individual power they had,the meritorious deeds they made.It shows a relatively open nobility title conferring policy the Later Zhao Dynasty embraced.At the same time,the Han of Jie-Hus people(the Han people who behaved like and lived with the Jie minority),as special members of the Later Han royal clan,witnessed their social status from the top to the bottom: during Shile reign time,they held an significant position both in nobility title conferring and local government guarding,however,during Shihu reign time,they were suppressed and finally total marginalized.This indicates the efforts that Later Han rulers made to strengthen central authority to some extent.Moreover,this essay also has a discussion on Ran Min's(the founder of Ran Wei Regime)political activities and the Han officials during Ran Wei Regime.In the last period of the Later Zhao,Ran Min led a series of policies to unite the Han officials and suppress the Jie-Hus ones,the explanation to which,however in my opinion,is due to political struggle and the ethnic contradiction applied in the past to illustrate those policies is biased.Nevertheless,during Ran Wei reign,there was a big estrangement between the Han officials and the rulers,which had already existed before the foundation of Ran Wei.Ran Min once took measures to remove this hidden peril but it turned to be fruitless.And eventually,it became a foreshadowing for the death of Ran Wei regime.