Literature is a written material formed by human beings in social practice, which can only be produced after the appearance of words. After the Sumerians in the two river basins created cuneiform characters, clay tablets were produced, and after the ancient Egyptians on the Nile created graphic characters, papyrus documents were produced. The evolutionary history of ancient civilization has confirmed this point.
The leading department is formed after human beings form a social organization and have personnel to manage and direct it. In order to issue orders, formulate rules and regulations, record events and implement management, the leading departments of social organizations need to formulate documents! So there are official documents. Official documents need to be drafted, processed and kept, which leads to secretarial staff and secretarial work. Therefore, the emergence of secretarial work must meet two conditions: writing and social organization with leading departments.
With the development of productive forces and the emergence of classes, the early social organizations of human beings have evolved into the tools of class oppression-the state. In order to give orders and manage the country, rulers must use documents, which produces national official documents (we call them official documents). Because managing the country is much more complicated than managing the early social organizations of human beings, secretaries have different levels and different division of labor, and later a secretarial work organization was established, gradually forming a secretarial work system. Stalin said in the book Problems of Marxism and Linguistics: "The continuous development of production, the emergence of classes, the emergence of characters, the emergence of countries and the management of countries need more organized documents." In other words, the emergence of state official documents and state secretarial work must meet two conditions: there are words and there are countries.
After understanding the above two conditions, the signs of secretarial work-official documents and secretaries are self-evident, because official documents must be drafted, processed and kept by secretaries, so as long as one of them is available, it can be regarded as a sign of the beginning of secretarial work. Therefore, to explore the origin of secretarial work, we must start from tracing the emergence of writing, social organizations with leading departments and countries. When these two conditions are met, once the official document or secretary is found, it can be judged that this is the beginning of secretarial work.
The earliest mature script discovered by China was Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the Shang Dynasty about 3,000 years ago. However, it is not the source of Chinese characters. And more than 5,000 places have been discovered in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Such a mature character will inevitably evolve over a long period of time.
The source of Chinese characters should be the primitive Wen Tao in Yangshao culture about 6000 years ago. In the following three thousand years, it experienced a long process of germination, creation, evolution and development to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin and Shang Dynasties. Fuxi's word-making, Cangjie's word-making, Wen Tao of Dawenkou culture and Wen Tao of Wang Chenggang site in Gu Feng respectively marked the leap stage of the evolution of the original characters. In this long process, our ancestors have made simple documents with these primitive characters.
From the investigation of the origin and evolution of characters, we can know that as early as three years before the emergence of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty, a condition on which secretarial work in China was based-characters had already been possessed.
Let's examine another condition-the emergence of social organizations with leading departments.
The earliest social organization of mankind is primitive man. However, the organizational structure of primitive people is extremely simple, and its members only work together for survival and enjoy the fruits of labor. There is no leadership to give orders, no writing, and no conditions for secretarial work.
After hundreds of thousands of years of development, primitive people have formed a relatively stable social organization composed of blood relationship, that is, clan commune. Marx said: All "direct social labor or * * * cooperative labor needs management to a greater or lesser extent" (Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 23, page 376).
In order to ensure the normal work and life of the clan, it is necessary to establish a certain social order, which is formed through the management of the elected leaders. Clans form tribes and tribes unite into tribal alliances. The flourishing stage of Chinese tribal alliance began about 4500 years ago in the era of the Yellow Emperor. At that time, the categories of production development increased, and the management affairs of the public tended to be complicated. In order to meet the needs of management, the Yellow Emperor set up an official position, that is, "Six Phases", to be in charge of all aspects of work, thus forming the leading department of the tribal alliance, and the Yellow Emperor became the core figure in this leading department. With the expansion of the activity area of tribal alliance, the increase of population and the increase of affairs, it is difficult for leaders to manage only by language. Because the information transmitted by language is difficult to spread throughout the whole tribal alliance accurately and timely; Some important agreements, experiences, and important events are also difficult to survive accurately and for a long time by language. The limitation that language can't "spread in different places" in space and "spread in different places" in time affects management. Only by using words and relying on written materials can management be implemented. In this way, the official document was produced and the secretarial work began.
From the investigation of the evolution of ancient social organizations, we can know that these two conditions were met in the prosperous period of tribal alliances. Therefore, theoretically speaking, this period is the origin stage of secretarial work in China. Next, we look for signs of secretarial work from ancient records and archaeological discoveries.
The flourishing stage of Chinese tribal alliance, from the Yellow Emperor to the establishment of Xia Dynasty, lasted for hundreds of years.
The period of the Yellow Emperor is equivalent to the late Longshan culture about 4500-4400 years ago. During this period, many Wen Tao appeared, such as Chengziya Site in Longshan Town, Zhangqiu, Shandong Province, Lingyanghe Site in Juxian County, Shandong Province, Liangzhu Site in Hangzhou, etc. These Wen Tao are tangible, meaningful and explicable. In the works of pre-Qin philosophers, it is said that Cang Xie "wrote a book" and "made a good book". "Gouzi Jiepian" also said that at that time, "there were many good books, but Cang Xie was the only one who passed them on." It shows that in the urgent need to replace language with words, during the Yellow Emperor period, many people such as Cang Xie collected, sorted out and unified the original words of various tribes again, which greatly improved them, and as the common words of the whole tribal alliance, it was possible to use them to create official documents. Wen Tao mentioned above may be such a common language.
According to ancient records, in addition to setting up six phases, the Yellow Emperor also set up historians to accompany him, record his words and deeds, draw up documents, and compile them into books to remember and save. The name "historian" first appeared in the Shang Dynasty, and the Yellow Emperor established a historian. Perhaps later generations used the official position at that time in the period of the Yellow Emperor, but the appearance of such personnel marked the birth of the secretary. There are many historians who study the Yellow Emperor, such as Cang Xie, Ju Yong and Kong Jia.
Cang Xie, also known as Cang Xie, made great contributions in sorting out and improving the original characters, and was honored as the ancestor of characters by later generations. Sima Qian and Ban Gu in the Han Dynasty said that he was a historian of the Yellow Emperor and was responsible for recording words and deeds. Later generations also described him as Zuo's family, and according to the explanation in The Book of Rites Jade Algae: "Zuo's family moved, and you're Ji Yan", he said that he was inclined to keep his ambition. Juyong is the right history of the Yellow Emperor. At the book history meeting, it was said that he and Cang Xie jointly created a book contract, and that "everything conforms to discipline, and the law is the main system." According to the Records of Han Tiangong, Kong Jia is the historian of the Yellow Emperor, and Gui Yan Ji called him "the master of book history" and "the master of compiling records."
How are these historians selected? "Book of Rites Datong" contains: "The trip to the avenue is also for the public. Choose talents and appoint people, uphold faith and cultivate harmony. Old friends are not only relatives, but also only children. " During the prosperity of tribal alliance, class and class oppression have not yet occurred, and people help each other on an equal footing. Therefore, the criteria for selecting civil servants are meritocracy and meritocracy. "Xian" is willing to serve the public with enthusiasm, integrity and justice; "Talent" means being able to read and write the original text and having knowledge of society, religion, astronomy, calendar and punctuality. It was the highest education level at that time, and historians were selected from such people with both ability and political integrity. As leaders' assistants, they are not only engaged in writing work, but also play the role of consultants, which are expressed in the form of religion. Due to the low level of productivity, people can't explain many natural and social phenomena and think that all activities are manipulated by heaven. Because historians mastered the highest cultural knowledge at that time, accompanied by leaders, they became interpreters of God's will and were regarded as messengers of communication between heaven and man. The emergence of historians marks the origin of secretarial work.
Legend has it that there are many documents before and after the Yellow Emperor period, all of which have been compiled into books. According to the above, before the Yellow Emperor, leaders issued instructions in language, so it is unlikely to produce documents. The Book of Sacrifice Sweeping Records in the later Han Dynasty records that "there has been a book agreement since the Five Emperors", and Sima Qian said that "a hundred schools of thought talk about the Yellow Emperor". Therefore, the official documents appearing in the period of the Yellow Emperor are credible. There is a unofficial history in Li Zhou Guan Chun, which is dedicated to the books of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors, and there may be documents handed down from the Yellow Emperor period in the Zhou Dynasty. Legend has it that the ancient books of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors include "Three Tombs, Five Codes, Mansuo and Nine Hills", which is referred to as the tomb code for short, and is the oldest ancient book in China. "Three Graves" was written by san huang, and "Five Classics" was written by five emperors. It is said that many people in later generations have read these books. "Twelve Years of Zuo Zhuan Zhao Gong" records that during the Spring and Autumn Period, historians of the State of Chu could read these books with each other and won the appreciation of King Chu Ling, calling them "good history". The Book of Three Graves compiled by the Song Dynasty takes Gankun as the classic of the Yellow Emperor.
In addition, according to legend, the Yellow Emperor's life was divided into Jiazi to remember the time, and his life was made into a calendar to set the agricultural time, and his life was counted as the first record. In the era of the Yellow Emperor, Chinese medicine has made initial achievements. The Yellow Emperor asked Qi Bo about his medical skills and asked questions and answers. Someone recorded it and became the earliest medical work, called Huangdi Neijing. These are the ancestors' summaries of natural science achievements and the earliest scientific and technological archives in legend. The ancient calendar is the basis for arranging agricultural time, but it is actually a daily work plan in a year and has the nature of a document.
In this way, another symbol of the secretary's work-documents also appeared.
To sum up, during the period of the Yellow Emperor, the characters were greatly improved and used, and the symbols of documents and secretaries appeared, which can be regarded as the beginning of secretarial work in China.
When did the work of national secretary in China begin?
There are different opinions about the formation time of our country. To sum up, there are six theories: the middle and late Dawenkou culture, the late Longshan culture, the Yaoshun period and the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties. Most scholars believe that the Xia Dynasty, established about 200 years ago, was the beginning of China, probably before the summer.
Judging from archaeological achievements, Wen Tao unearthed from Wang Chenggang site in Dengfeng has made a big step forward in shape than Wen Tao discovered in Dawenkou. It is already a real script, inheriting the Yangshao culture and Dawenkou culture in Wen Tao, and opening up the Shang Dynasty Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which was made in the Xia Dynasty. Therefore, it can be inferred that the Xia Dynasty already had its own writing.
According to ancient records, Wang Xia became the supreme ruler, divided the ruling area into Kyushu, and set up separate officials to govern. There are six ministers under the king, who are in charge of all aspects of affairs, called "the people of six things", as well as officials such as Mu Zheng, Che Zheng, and set up a tributary system, an army, a criminal law (that is, "dangerous punishment") and a prison. In this way, the leading department in charge of public affairs during the tribal alliance period was transformed into a simple state machine that practiced class oppression.
Therefore, in the Xia Dynasty, two conditions for the work of the Secretary of State had been met.
The Tang Dynasty's Broken Book says, "When the Tao fails, there is a book, and when it is beneficial, there is a promise." With the emergence of class oppression, state official documents appeared in Xia Dynasty. Because Xia was established by abolishing the abdication system, it faced all kinds of resistance and frequent wars. The official documents of the Xia Dynasty are all military mobilization orders against the enemy.
Shangshu Shi Gan is an essay published by Xia Kaiwang when he crusaded against Hu Shi. "Historical Records Xia Benji" says: "If you start cutting, you will fight in Gansu; Will fight and make an' oath'. " When Zhong Kang, Qi's son, was in office, officials in charge of weather and calendar were addicted to alcohol and neglected their duties. Zhong Kang ordered Yin Hou to lead a crusade. Before he left, he wrote a letter, informing him of his guilt. Andrew was also included in Shangshu. These orders were issued in the name of Wang Xia, and the format was the same. They all condemned the enemy for violating their destiny, destroying them with our own will, sanctifying and legalizing the Crusade, and finally encouraging the soil to fight bravely, rewarding those who use their lives and severely punishing those who violate their lives and fear death. They not only have the official document names of "oath" and "levy", but also fully embody the intention of the rulers and become a relatively standardized official document style.
Confucius said in the Analects of Confucius: "I can say the ceremony of summer, but I can't prove it ... because of the lack of literature, I can prove it if I can prove it." As an affiliated small country, Confucius was unable to compile history due to lack of literature, while Li Xia was able to "speak" and successfully compiled history. There are many documents and files about or directly belonging to Xia Dynasty when explaining Confucius, which should be the official documents of Xia Dynasty.
These documents should be drafted by historians. Jiang's "General Theory of Thirteen Classics" and "General Theory of Shangshu" hold that "Yao Dian" is recorded by Xia historians, and according to Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals, it is dissolute and full of national crises. The abbot ordered him to show Jie Li the "painting method" in the palace and cried and admonished him. The Library Law is an important national record and file, and Taishiling is the secretary who collects, keeps and uses these records and files from ancient times to the present. Stubborn, he went to Shang Tang with indigenous methods. This shows that people have realized that documents and archives are related to the survival of the country and the importance of secretarial work. It also shows that after entering the slave society, historians, the originator of secretarial work in China, have begun to regard document and archive work as an important business.
To sum up, in the Xia Dynasty, official documents and secretarial staff, the symbols of state secretarial work, appeared, so the Xia Dynasty was the origin of state secretarial work in China.
The full text is taken from "Essays on Secretary's Work"