These “assessment reviews” and “interview forms,” bound into volumes totaling several dozen in all and each half a finger’s width thick, took Pei Shaohuai a number of days just to skim through.
He then selected certain pages throughout the volumes, marking them by folding the corners, and had those passages copied out.
Faced with assessment reviews that had been carved and refined word by word, and interview forms of every variety — each concealing its own private agenda — Pei Shaohuai sighed with a sense of resigned wonder. Within the Capital Evaluation, the assessment review held primary importance, with the interview form as supplement, the two meant to complement one another — a well-intentioned design in its origins. Yet as time had passed, the court officials had found the gaps and moved to exploit them, and what had once seemed a rigorous system had gradually lost its integrity.
For officials appearing before the formal examination, the quality of an assessment review depended entirely on the preferences of the presiding superior — if he took a liking to the man, he spoke in his defense; if he disliked him, he used the review to push him out. Without standards, without any counterbalance, trusting entirely to the presiding superior’s personal integrity and impartiality, the assessments became largely worthless.
The anonymous interview forms had become an equally serious problem.
Pei Shaohuai read through several hundred anonymous interview forms and found genuine recommendations of upright and capable men to be vanishingly rare. Far more common were impeachments and malicious attacks — the court’s ordinary culture of contention and accusation transplanted wholesale into the anonymity of the interview form.
If one was to reform, one had to begin where the rot and decay were worst. Pei Shaohuai had fixed on this from the outset.
For a full half month, Pei Shaohuai spent every single day “buried” inside the Capital Evaluation Chamber turning over old volumes. He did not go to the Censorate to confer with colleagues or discuss the major plans for the Capital Evaluation; nor did he go to sit with Minister Wang.
In the eyes of his subordinates, the Ministry of Personnel was all one house, and however much there might be internal friction, one ought at least to keep one another informed and avoid tripping each other up in open court.
Could those yellowed volumes truly yield something worth finding?
This young Bureau Director — if he truly did not know what the Capital Evaluation was supposed to involve, or how its practical workings went — ought to be urgently seeking guidance from those who did, lest he bring harm to the whole undertaking through his ignorance.
The Capital Evaluation could not be completed in a matter of days. From preparatory work to the Imperial decree, and then through the compiling of interview forms, the formal examinations, and the final determination of whether each official was to remain, be promoted, or be dismissed — the whole affair would consume several months from start to finish.
According to the schedule established in past Capital Evaluations, at this point in the calendar Pei Shaohuai ought to be working together with the supervising censors of the Henan Circuit to verify the identities of the capital officials and compile their curriculum records.
Following that, he ought to be distributing the interview forms, and once all the officials had completed and returned them, he should be collecting them.
These were the preliminary preparatory tasks.
Once the interview forms were all gathered, Pei Shaohuai would then need to represent the Ministry of Personnel, and together with the appointed circuit censors and supervising secretaries, convene at the City God Temple in the capital to read through the interview forms, deliberate and weigh their contents, judge the truth or falsehood of what had been written in them, and on that basis draft the list recommending each official’s disposition — a process called “the joint assessment.”
And why the City God Temple? Because with divine spirits in the rafters, one might deceive in the light but not in the dark.
Task after task, each plainly urgent — and yet Pei Shaohuai showed not a flicker of anxiety, and showed absolutely no sign of intending to set anything in motion. Bureau Head Miao, who accompanied him throughout, reminded him on several occasions — Pei Shaohuai only smiled, offered a vague reply, and let the matter pass.
From the day Pei Shaohuai took up his post, he experienced for himself what it was to be attended on all sides and showered with flattery.
Every time after morning court had ended and the walk from the great hall back to the yamen was underway, acquaintances and strangers alike would approach and engage him in conversation. “Bureau Director Pei is distinguished in talent and great in potential” — he heard some variation of this so many times he lost count.
With no good alternative, Pei Shaohuai could only make his way back at a brisk clip, barely short of breaking into a run.
At the end of the working day, rather than leaving through the Ministry’s main gate, he would circle around, pass by the Qianqing Palace, and exit the city by an alternate route — deliberately avoiding the crowd.
Some were avoidable; others were not. As his father-in-law had warned, people had begun approaching him under every conceivable pretext to make their acquaintance, for example:
“Bureau Director Pei — it has been so long! In the blink of an eye, how many years it has been — the year of Yiyou and the Palace Examination seem like only yesterday.” — Invoking the bond of sharing the same cohort in the same examination, making a point of an uncommon connection.
“Grand Secretary Zhang has shown me great kindness in his guidance — were it not for the weight of official duties and the need to avoid the appearance of impropriety, men like us ought to be calling upon him more often.” — Implying that, like Pei Shaohuai, this person too was a student under Grand Secretary Zhang.
And then there were the examiners who had recommended Pei Shaohuai in the provincial and metropolitan examinations, who sent him letters mentioning that such-and-such was their granddaughter’s husband, or their nephew — and so on.
While Pei Shaohuai remained still and showed no hand, Wang Gaoxiang could no longer contain his impatience.
In his position as Minister of Personnel, Wang Gaoxiang naturally did not stake everything on Pei Shaohuai’s side — he still needed to find ways to reclaim the Ministry’s credibility and authority. After all, in the Capital Evaluation, the word of the Minister of Personnel still carried considerable weight.
But how to reclaim it?
As they say: the butcher sharpens his blade with a great ringing sound — and the first pig he slaughters is one from his own pen.
Before the Capital Evaluation formally commenced, Wang Gaoxiang conducted an internal audit of the Ministry of Personnel itself, uncovering Senior Department Official Lv Changsheng of the Office of Appointments and finding him implicated in a case of trafficking in offices. He had him stripped of his post and sent to prison.
A wound already torn open — one might as well cut deeper, drain out the rot entirely, and save the body from worse harm — while at the same time demonstrating one’s own integrity. Wang Gaoxiang’s move was no small stroke of cleverness.
He then followed this with a sharp official censure — on grounds of frivolity and carelessness in conduct — and removed his own nephew, who had been serving as a Junior Department Head in the Ministry of Revenue, transferring him out of the capital with no prospect of ever returning.
The result was exactly as Wang Gaoxiang had anticipated — it caused an immediate sensation throughout the court, with officials everywhere praising him for his impartiality even toward his own kin.
Wang Gaoxiang then chose a fitting moment to perform a show of grief before the Emperor, tears streaming down and his collar soaked through, saying: “To govern one’s family as one governs the state — one cannot let personal sentiment stand in the way of the law, nor shield a kinsman who has erred. Rather than betray the trust Your Majesty has placed in me, this old servant would rather choose the difficult path of righteousness, even against his own flesh and blood.”
Whatever the Emperor privately made of it, the performance, at least, was given with complete commitment.
That Lv Changsheng may well have been genuinely guilty; but the charge against the nephew in the Ministry of Revenue — “frivolity and carelessness” — was neither serious nor light, and who could truly say whether it had been earned? He had in effect been offered up as a ritual sacrifice by his own uncle.
Should anyone during the Capital Evaluation suspect Minister Wang of partiality, Wang Gaoxiang needed only to lament before the Emperor: “If I harbored personal interest, would I have first dismissed my own closest kin? Your Majesty can see my heart.”
By acting first, Minister Wang had taken back the initiative in appointments.
Having accomplished all of this, Wang Gaoxiang was in considerably better spirits, and turned his attention to drawing Pei Shaohuai in. With the Office for Evaluation of Merit firmly in hand, Minister Wang would be able to count the Capital Evaluation a thorough victory.
One day, Wang Gaoxiang summoned Pei Shaohuai to his ministerial office, intent on having a candid exchange.
“Bureau Director Pei has been in the Ministry for half a month now — how are you finding it? Are things manageable?” Wang Gaoxiang inquired with a show of concern. “We are all working within the same courtyard — if anyone is making things difficult for you, you must tell me, and I will see that justice is done.”
With his hawk’s nose and triangular eyes, Wang Gaoxiang’s face carried a natural severity even in moments of apparent warmth.
“Everything is well,” Pei Shaohuai replied. “It was I who should have come to report to you earlier — having let it go until today, the fault is mine for the discourtesy.”
“A small matter — do not trouble yourself,” Wang Gaoxiang said, waving it off. “The Capital Evaluation keeps one busy in all directions — it is entirely understandable.”
After the pleasantries, Wang Gaoxiang gathered himself inwardly and moved toward the substance of the conversation.
“Xiao Pei — the court holds a set of scales, and the Ministry of Personnel is the very weight upon those scales. Let the weight grow too light, and the scales tip out of balance.” Wang Gaoxiang spoke with feeling.
It was the Ministry of Personnel, after all, that weighed out the worth of the civil and military officials.
He continued: “My earlier proposal to bring you into the Office of the Heir Apparent was not done out of small-mindedness — it was a move compelled by circumstances. Now that we find ourselves working together in the Ministry, one above and one below, I hope what has passed between us will not breed ill feeling or ill will.”
“Your subordinate has harbored no such thoughts,” Pei Shaohuai replied. He understood perfectly well the spirit of Wang Gaoxiang’s overture — and he intended to make use of it.
A man of such standing as a Minister of Personnel — it would indeed be something of a waste not to put him to work.
Pei Shaohuai said: “The Minister speaks very wisely — the scales must not be allowed to tilt. To ensure the impartiality of the Capital Evaluation, I have drafted a proposal and wish to submit it to the Emperor. I hoped to have the Minister review it first, and lend me a hand in advancing this new policy.”
“Oh?” Wang Gaoxiang’s expression brightened with curiosity. “Bring it here and let me have a look.” He was also mildly pleased — this gesture from Pei Shaohuai seemed to carry something of an intention to court his favor.
Pei Shaohuai returned shortly. Wang Gaoxiang turned the pages of the several-thousand-character memorial. The curiosity and mild pleasure he had felt at the outset gave way, gradually, to astonishment — and then alarm — and finally settled into the darkening of a deeply displeased expression.
This was not Pei Shaohuai being drawn onto Wang Gaoxiang’s boat — this was Pei Shaohuai maneuvering Wang Gaoxiang onto his.
“You intend to replace the ‘interview forms’ with an accounting of official achievements — and to replace the formal examination with a written examination? And for evaluating officials in the provinces, you would add a survey of public opinion?”
The scope of the proposed changes was far too sweeping.
Pei Shaohuai’s expression remained composed and pleasant. Rather than answering, he posed his own question: “What does the Minister think?”
Restricted by the world as it was — if one asked which was the most equitable system, the answer had to be the Imperial Examinations. Whatever their limitations, they at least left a crack in the wall for men of common birth to rise, and history had proved that the examination system could sustain itself within this order. If that was so — why not apply the same principle to the Capital Evaluation?
The formal examination had emphasized “examination” in the sense of “questioning” — a process highly susceptible to personal influence and the manipulation of the powerful.
The new written examination would emphasize “examination” in the sense of “testing” — concretely testing the governing ability of the capital officials. It too had its flaws and fell short of perfection, but it was a far more just system than one driven entirely by human judgment alone.
This was Pei Shaohuai’s reasoning.
His new policy would first examine achievements, then examine ability, and finally survey public opinion. This last step was the most difficult of all — but at minimum, the first two could be put in place.
Wang Gaoxiang, reading this, began to grasp what was in front of him. This was not Pei Shaohuai asking him — it was Pei Shaohuai conveying the Emperor’s question to him. It was the Emperor himself who was asking what Wang Gaoxiang thought of the new policy.
A man appointed as a close attendant of the Son of Heaven, given a task of specific purpose — a memorial produced through careful deliberation — how could it not have been shown first to the Emperor before being placed before a Minister?
From the moment he had agreed to “take a look,” he had walked straight into Pei Shaohuai’s scheme.
If he had not read it, he might have had room to push back at a court discussion and plant himself in opposition to Pei Shaohuai. But he had read it — he had seen it from first line to last, and he knew it was a plan that carried the Emperor’s personal intent. Were he now to oppose it, he would no longer be merely standing against Pei Shaohuai.
That would be standing in open opposition to the Son of Heaven himself.
He had been too careless. The mind and the capabilities of this young man before him were far greater than he had imagined.
Wang Gaoxiang made one last attempt to resist. He said: “The moment this new policy is made public and brought to court deliberation, the supervising secretaries of all six departments and the censors of all thirteen circuits will rise against it as one. Does Bureau Director Pei believe he can manage that?”
To alter the rules of evaluation on the eve of the Capital Evaluation would strike at the interests of a great many people. Of course they would rise against it.
It meant that all the relationships they had carefully cultivated, all the flattery they had diligently paid — it would all come to nothing.
“I can manage it,” Pei Shaohuai said without a trace of hesitation. “The debate in court deliberation is a straightforward matter of argument — I can handle it on my own.”
He added one more line: “The Minister has been long in the capital and must surely have witnessed your subordinate’s performance in court debate.”
Wang Gaoxiang had no recourse remaining. He said, in a tone rendered heavy by resignation: “Go back for now — I will think it over.”
“Your subordinate takes his leave.”
A short while later, the Left Vice Minister of Personnel entered the office.
Wang Gaoxiang pushed Pei Shaohuai’s memorial across the desk to him. Left without any other option, he said with a helpless resignation: “When this comes to court deliberation, you will go forward on behalf of the Ministry and give your full support to Pei Shaohuai’s proposal for the new policy — I myself will have taken ill these next several days.”
The Vice Minister read through it. He slapped his thigh with great force, sighing again and again: “Done this way, has not all the Minister’s effort over recent days gone entirely to waste?”
He might have left it unsaid — saying it was no different from plunging a blade directly into Wang Gaoxiang’s heart.
Wang Gaoxiang’s expression grew darker still.
Indeed — the nephew who had been “sacrificed” could be considered sacrificed for nothing.