功次による昇進制度の形成

Abstract

It has already been known that most of the officials were promoted by completing a certain term of service in the Han period. This paper investigates the process of formation of this system, through which explains the specific character of the seniority system of Han dynasty compared with similar systems of later periods, and intends to clarify its historical significance. At first, the recent view that an official gained one gong 功 (merit) for promotion through a four-year term of service in the Han period is reconfirmed. The author supposes that the gong was originally the unit to count severed heads, and hence surveys the historical process through which the gong changed its meaning from the unit counting severed heads to the four-year term of service. We can see traces of this process in the Han system. The establishment of the seniority system through such a process can be considered to have stabilized bureaucracy and have fixed the officials' promoting routes, and can be estimated to be one of the factors forming aristocratic bureaucracy later.