Abstract: Corruption among government officials had become a serious problem in middle and late Ming Dynasty. The most prominent and common manifestation of this problem was the so-called “guxi zhibi” (the attitude of tolerance, connivance and irresponsibility towards corruption), which was similar to what we call “bureaucratism” today. To deal with this problem, Zhang Juzheng aggressively implemented the system of “Kaochengfa” (a government official performance appraisal system) in his reform. “Kaochengfa” was a strict system consisting of imperial edicts or rules on the appraisal of government officials, supplemented and improved rules on the appraisal of government officials, and relevant provisions of the six boards of the imperial government (the Board of Civil Office, the Board of Rites, the Board of Revenue and Population, the Board of War, the Board of Punishment, and the Board of Public Works). The effective implementation of this system had enabled the government to successfully overcome the problem of “guxi zhibi”, promoted the implementation of other reform measures, and provided a strong guarantee for the realization of the goal of making the country rich and building up its military power. Despite its success, this system had its limitations, which led to its abolition after the death of Zhang Juzheng. “Kaochengfa” and its implementation are of important reference value to us today in overcoming bureaucratism.

Key words: Zhang Juzheng’s Reform; “Kaochengfa”; “guxi zhibi”; bureaucratism

This author of this article is the Secretary of the Joint Party Committee of CASS Law Institute and CASS Institute of International Law and an associate research fellow at CASS Law Institute. This paper is published in China Legal Science 4 (2020)