Taking up a charge — how to hold office涉務

For a gentleman and a man of learning, what is worth prizing in his place in the world is only that he can be of use to others. He must not merely talk high and argue emptily, with a zither on his left and books on his right, and eat up his lord's salary and office. The men a state uses come, in the main, to no more than six kinds. First are the ministers of the court, and what is taken in them is that they see through the great frame of governing and that their ordering of affairs is broad and refined. Second are the ministers of writing and history (文史), and what is taken in them is that they set down the statutes and do not forget the old days. Third are the ministers of the army, and what is taken in them is that their decisions have a plan in them and that they are strong and practiced in the business. Fourth are the ministers of the outer defenses (藩屛), and what is taken in them is that they know the customs clearly and are clean-handed and love the people. Fifth are the ministers of the mission (使命), and what is taken in them is that they know a change and follow what fits it and do not disgrace their lord's command. Sixth are the ministers of building (興造), and what is taken in them is that they measure the work and save the cost and have method in their planning. All of these are what a man who studies diligently and keeps his conduct can do. The natures of men have their long side and their short. How should one require that all six roads be complete in one man? Let a man only understand the point of them all and be able to keep one office, and he is without shame.

I have seen men of letters in the world who rank the men of old and of today as if they were pointing at their own palm, and yet when they are put to use many of them cannot bear it. Living in an age of peace, they do not know that there is such a calamity as ruin and revolt. Standing below the hall of state, they do not know that there is such urgency as the battle line. Holding the stock of a salary, they do not know that there is such hardship as plowing and sowing. Sitting above the clerks and the common people, they do not know that there is such toil as forced labor. Therefore it is hard for them to answer to the age and to manage affairs. When the Jin crossed to the south it favored the gentry houses, and so among the capped and belted men of Jiangnan those who had ability were picked out for the posts below the director and the vice director and above the gentleman of the department and the drafter of the secretariat, and they had charge of confidential matters. The rest of the men of letters and learning were mostly far-fetched and floating and did not touch the business of the world, and men grudged the whip even for their small faults; so putting them in pure and lofty posts was on the whole a covering of their weak side. As for the clerks of the departments, the record keepers and the supervisors, and the signing clerks (簽省) of the various princes, all of them were practiced in the work of an office and settled what the time required. Though they had the manner of small men, all of them could be strictly overseen with whip and rod, and so they were often entrusted with business; and this on the whole was a use of their strong side. Men can never take their own measure, and the whole world resented Emperor Wu of Liang and his sons for loving small men and keeping gentlemen at a distance. This too is only the eye that cannot see its own lashes.

The gentlemen of the Liang age all esteemed wide robes and broad sashes, great caps and high shoes. Going out they rode in carriages, coming in they were held up by attendants, and within the city and its outskirts there was no one who rode a horse. Zhou Hongzheng was loved by the prince of Xuancheng and was given a small orchard pony, and he rode it always, and the whole court thought him unbound. It even came to this, that if a gentleman of the department rode a horse he was impeached for it. When the revolt of Hou Jing came, their flesh was soft and their bones were weak so that they could not walk, and their bodies were thin and their breath faint so that they could not bear cold or heat, and those who sat where they were and died all of a sudden were found everywhere. Wang Fu, the magistrate of Jiankang, was gentle and refined by nature and had never ridden. Whenever he saw a horse neigh and snort and prance he was struck with terror, and he said to people, "This is a tiger. Why is it called a horse?" To such a point had the custom come.

That the ancients wished to know how hard plowing and reaping are was, on the whole, the way of prizing grain and working at the root. Food is the heaven of the people, and the people do not live without it. Three days without grain, and father and son cannot keep each other. It is plowed and sown, it is hoed and weeded, it is cut and gathered, it is carted and stacked, it is beaten and threshed, it is winnowed and tossed; through how many hands it passes before it comes into the granary. How then should one make light of farming and prize the branch trades? The court gentlemen of Jiangnan, when the Jin were restored, crossed the river southward and became sojourners in the end, and to this day, through eight and nine generations, not one of them has worked a field. They all lean on their salaries for their food. Even where there is land, they leave it all to their servants to do, and they have never with their own eyes seen a spadeful of earth turned up or a single shoot weeded. They do not know in what month a thing should be put in and in what month it should be gathered. How then should they know the other business of the world? So when they hold office they cannot finish it, and when they manage a household they cannot settle it. All of this is the fault of their idleness.