THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY IN THE MING DYNASTY (BUREAUCRACY, GOVERNMENT, EDUCATION; CHINA)

During the early Ming dynasty (1368-1644), the National University (Kuo-tzu chien) became the main source for recruitment of officials for the Chinese civil service. The Ming founder (Emperor T'ai-tsu), in his efforts to strengthen autocratic government and the emperor's position, on a scale unprecedented in Chinese history made the National University into a school for the molding of a loyal, highly disciplined, and capable corps of civil servants. For the first time the National University consisted almost exclusively of students recruited from the common people by virtue of their education rather than inherited social status, students who owed political loyalty only to the emperor.; T'ai-tsu appointed large numbers of University graduates to key positions in the government, positions which he was particularly anxious to staff with loyal and capable officials to strengthen his control over the bureaucracy. He also employed non-graduated students as an extra-bureaucratic cadre at the emperor's disposal to keep surveillance over the bureaucracy and for assignments which he did not entrust to the regular members of the bureaucracy. These recruitment policies were continued under three of his successors (Chien-wen, Yung-lo, and Hung-hsi). Thus the National University played an important role in the consolidation of autocratic (as opposed to bureaucratic) government in the early Ming.; After a more bureaucratic form of government which had its basis in the literati-gentry class emerged during the 1430s and 1440s, the government ceased to rely on the University as the main recruitment channel. The new ruling elite (the literati-gentry based bureaucracy) chose the civil service examination system as the more important recruitment channel, because of its more decentralized character and greater accessibility to the literati-gentry class, and subordinated the University to the examination system and the ruling elite's own special interests. Throughout the remainder of the dynasty the University continued to serve as major source for the recruitment of lower and middle ranking officials, especially at the local levels, and (through the intern system) for lower level functionaries in the central bureaucracy. Thus the National University continued to play a crucial role for the functioning of the Ming bureaucratic machine.