Free The Last Empress: The She-Dragon of China by Keith Laidler

has a similar population, sixty million souls, and each province boasts its own dialect, each largely incomprehensible to its neighbours. In the 1800s, with communication and transport difficult, the Empire, this vast mass of disparate humanity, could easily have fallen into anarchy and schism. That it did not (and that it had, by and large, held together since its inception in 221 BC) was due in large part to the mandarinate.
    Although unproductive themselves, they performed the socially indispensable function of supervising and coordinating the work of others. They ‘prepared the calendar, they organised transport and exchange, they supervised the construction of roads, canals, dykes and dams; they were in charge of all public works, especially those aimed at forestalling droughts and floods; they built up reserves against famine, and encouraged every kind of irrigation project. Their social role was at one and the same time that of architect, engineer, teacher, administrator and ruler. 4 Mencius (Meng-tse), arguably the ablest of Confucius’ disciples, made their position plain:
    Great men have their proper business and little men have their proper business...Some labour with their minds and some labour with their strength. Those who labour with their minds govern others; those who labour with their strength are governed by others. Those who are governed by others support them; those who govern others are supported by them. 5
    In contrast to Western ideas of specialisation, the mandarins recognised just one vocation: that of governing. They rejected careful study of agriculture, astronomy, architecture or any of the other myriad specialisations, believing that an education in the Classics and an appreciation of music, poetry and calligraphy would produce a more well-rounded and perceptive ‘manager’, one able to cope with the many and varied demands that their administrative duties demanded of them. In many ways this uniquely Chinese system was a palpable success: it can hardly have survived relatively unchanged for over two thousand years had it not possessed some merit. The Confucian ideals cherished honesty, reverence for the past and respect for parents and the Imperial line. It set out a stable net of societal relationships that should, in theory, have produced a well-ordered, well-fed and harmonious population of contented individuals.
    In practice, a rather less admirable society evolved, a form of hereditary bureaucracy, in which everyone knew (or was told) his or her place. Upward mobility was theoretically possible via the examination system, where scholars were tested on their knowledge of the Confucian Classics, their calligraphy and their ability to create an essay (the ‘eight-legged work’) which showcased all aspects of their education. Those gaining the highest marks found the door to high appointment in government service open wide, irrespective of the student’s purse or parentage. The mandarins made much of the populist/meritocratic nature of the examination system, but the truth was that such democratic levelling operated solely within their own class. Preparation for the examinations required years and sometimes decades of patient study with a mentor or tutor willing to instruct his pupils in the hidden depths of the Classics or the intricacies of a literary style. Peasants, merchants and artisans could not afford the onerous charges such an education demanded–only a well-placed mandarin could generate the required income. For all their high-flown rhetoric on truth and honesty, the mandarinate was, in effect, a self-perpetuating oligarchy. And like all oligarchies, when threatened it had no compunction in using the sternest measures to protect its vested interests.
    Justice in nineteenth-century China was arbitrary, tyrannical and biased towards the ruling class The state’s wrath fell not just on the individual, but on all his kin. The extended family or clan system–where each member of a