What is the reason for the decline of the gate politics in Tang Dynasty?

In the Tang Dynasty, things began to get interesting. In the early Tang Dynasty, Tang Gaozu and Emperor Taizong showed different reactions to this big family. On one occasion, I boasted to Minister Pei Ji how noble the ancestors of the Li family were. The Peiji family is one of the most prominent families in China in the Middle Ages. Tang Gaozu boasted: When we were in Longxi, the Li family was rich in soft-shelled turtles and jade. When the troops were dispatched, the four seas gathered and the emperor was promoted in just a few days. Our two families are both great families. Turtle jade is tortoise shell and Baoyu, which is a very important ritual vessel in ancient times. Later, it was extended as a symbol of national auspiciousness, which was not available in ordinary families. He is very proud of this, but he still dares not say that his family is the first to surpass Pei's, only that we are on the same level. It can be seen that the influence of the family level is so great that even the emperor will acquiesce.

Li Shimin did not inherit this attitude. When he saw that his family tree actually ranked Shandong, that is, the gentry east of Xiaoshan, as the first class, ahead of the Li family, he was very dissatisfied and used the imperial power to modify the long-standing default ranking of his family. Tang Taizong believed that a person's status should depend on his successful experience in government agencies, not the old reputation from his family. On many occasions, Emperor Taizong advocated explicitly or implicitly that a person's official position and ability should be more important than his bloodline. He said: the gentry in Shandong declined, and the customs had no crown. I don't understand why people value them so much. In Tang Taizong's view, bureaucrats above the imperial court, either loyal and filial, or knowledgeable, should obviously win more respect than the ruined gentry in Shandong. Since people respect the ordinary family background of Emperor Gaozu, people should also respect the Tang Dynasty bureaucrats who started from the grass.

In the sixth year of Zhenguan, Emperor Taizong ordered Gao Shilian and others to revise Zhenguan genealogy, which fully showed his attitude. Zhenguan Genealogy was written in the twelfth year of Zhenguan, that is, in 638 AD. The standard of this reconstruction is very simple, that is, ranking according to the position of the current official rank. The higher the rank, the higher the rank, and the lower the rank, the lower the rank. The emperor's will has been thoroughly implemented, and the standard of Zhenguan genealogy is official position, not family background. In the second year of birth, that is, in 7 13 AD, Zhenguan Genealogy was revised again and named aristocratic genealogy. It is worth noting that this is the last official genealogy compiled by the state in the Tang Dynasty, and it is also the last time in the history of China. Since then, there have been no official work arrangements for clans.

However, the author of this book thinks that Li Tang's spirit is aristocratic. Emperor Taizong didn't want to deny the gentry, but wanted to change people's ideas. What is noble and what is humble should be redefined by him. Emperor Taizong took advantage of the government's conditions to promote new standards, hoping to raise the dignitaries of the dynasty to a more prominent position and cover up the prestige of the famous families, so as to regain the dominance of social fashion and political order from these families and concentrate them in the hands of the emperor.

In addition, since the Sui and Tang Dynasties, there has been a completely different way of selecting officials, which is the imperial examination that we are familiar with. Although in the whole Tang Dynasty, there were far more aristocratic children who benefited from the imperial examination than ordinary families, after all, the opening of this promotion channel changed the previous situation that "birth is everything". This tendency of Emperor Taizong was carried forward in the hands of his successors. The author commented that by the 8th century, family factors in people's status, at least in the view of the government, had become insignificant, and official position became the only factor to measure people's status. The government is no longer interested in compiling the genealogy of the gentry, because now the state grants people status, not families. In the legal sense, everyone's status comes directly from the state.

When superior birth no longer brings too many benefits to people, scholars are ordinary.