The Sung Views On the Control of Government Clerks

Abstract

The extensive use of clerks (ii)--principally the clerical scribes (shu-li) and broadly all kinds of miscellaneous clercks (hsii-lu)-has been a striking characteristic of the Chinese government particularly since the Sung period. In the rigidly structured society, the clerks were a unique substratum between the two broad socio-political classes, the officials and the people 1). They worked for the government as a servile group and often had to suffer humiliating punishment when they displeased the officials. Most of them were prevented by specific segregating regulations from moving up into the officialdom. Usually, the clerks were not even allowed to take the civil service examination which was