捐纳、保举与晚清的吏治失范

Subscription,Recommendation and Bureaucracy Anomy in the Late Qing Dynasty

清代以"永不加赋"为祖宗家法,而当国家的收支不能平衡之日,便不能不"开捐例",用卖官的办法敛聚费用。咸同两朝长期的内战一面需要长期的饷需,一面又在一大片土地上使国赋因兵燹而化为乌有。而后"捐例大开"和"捐例减成"遂以筹饷为旨义一路推广,一路泛滥,又在筹饷的名义下造出了一批一批捐纳入仕的做官人。与这个过程同时发生的,还有因打仗而得军功和因军功而得保举,军功和保举产出的也是一批一批不由科目而径入仕途的做官人。以清代的官制为范围,当日的官场应当是一个有限的空间。因此,太多的人沿捐纳、保举涌入其间,不能不使官场成为人口过剩的地方。这种现象起于内战之中,又在内战结束后长久地延续于南北之间,随后,满坑满谷的候补官便成了与19世纪后期的中国历史相伴随的群类。他们以自己的存在改变了那个时候的官界秩序。

Though the Qing dynasty kept 'never adding taxes' as the top legislation,however,when the balance of receipts and expenditures was broken,it had to carry out subscription system to gain more money. The longtime civil war in the time of Emperors Xianfeng and Tongzhi needed sustainable military expenditures,while lots of taxes were diminished by war. In the name of raising military expenditures,the subscription system was abused and made many officials. In the same time,many were recommended for military exploits. As the scale of bureaucracy was limited,too many people joined into it by subscription and recommendation and then made it too crowded. The phenomenon emerged in the time of civil war and long lasted. Actually the existence of those official-candidates changed the bureaucracy order deeply.