As I mentioned last time, the people who can be officials in this era are basically people from famous families, and those who can be big officials are even more prominent, and there are many people in the court who help them. The reason for this is that at this time, there was no imperial examination system, and even the nine-rank Zhongzheng system had just come out, and the poor scholars did not have the rank to enter the body at all.

The talent selection mechanism used in the Han Dynasty was the probation system, in which local governors inspected and selected talents at any time in their jurisdictions and recommended them to their superiors or the central government, and then appointed officials after probationary evaluation.

Although this kind of talent selection system also requires examinations later, it has a certain degree of fairness, but in the early stage, it must first be recommended by the local governor, which makes it difficult to avoid relying on the personal subjective consciousness of the local officials.

If the local magistrate is a fair and just person, it is fine, if he is a little selfish, then the person he recommends will definitely be someone who is related to him. Moreover, at that time, there was also a saying called "Virtuous people do not avoid relatives", which gave those local officials who recommended talents for the country a good excuse to avoid the system without scruples.

There is another question, it is difficult for people from poor families to have the opportunity to study, even if they have worked hard to study, no one has introduced them, and there is no money to socialize, how can the magistrate know you, appreciate you, and then be willing to give you a precious recommendation place?

Therefore, under this talent selection system, the people who were recommended to be officials in the Han Dynasty were basically people from big families. And when these people become officials, they will naturally recommend the descendants of the family when they drink water and think of the source.

As a result, as time went by, more and more officials were people from these big families, and these big families also got more benefits and preferential treatment because more and more people were officials in the court, which in turn made the clan more and more prosperous.

For example, Sima Yi's family, there is a saying that Sima Bada's eight brothers are all officials in the court, does that mean that these eight brothers are so capable? It's not impossible, but it's probably not. In ancient times, there was a legend that "a dragon gives birth to nine sons, not a dragon, and each has its own good", which is mostly used as a metaphor for the good and bad of siblings.

Therefore, we have reason to believe that not all of the eight brothers of the Sima family are as knowledgeable and resourceful as Sima Yi, but under the effect of this probation system, all eight of them can be officials.

There are countless similar examples, such as "Xun's Eight Dragons", Yuan Shao's "Four Worlds and Three Princes", etc., anyway, these big families, either they are not officials, or they are officials, they will swarm to be officials, and then everyone will take care of each other in the officialdom and make progress together.

This is a mutually reinforcing process, which shows the important role of the clan to a person, and it is not difficult to understand that people in this era will do everything possible to protect the interests of their clan. The clan helps them to ascend to the ~ position, when they are on the throne and have the ability, they will always find a way to make their clan more prosperous, and when the clan is in danger, they will also do everything to protect the clan and continue the survival of the clan.

In the troubled times of the Three Kingdoms, in order to maintain the continuation of the clan, those big clans can be said to have tried their best, one of which is to "not put their eggs in one basket", that is, to send several outstanding family children at the same time, respectively, to join each camp, each for its own master, each fighting, so that no matter the final force wins, in this force there is a child of their own in this camp who is in a high position in this camp and can protect the survival of the clan.

There are many such examples, the most famous example is the three brothers of the Lang Evil Zhuge family, each serving a master, Zhuge Liang helping Liu Bei, Zhuge Jin serving Sun Quan, and Zhuge Dan supporting the Cao family.

I have to say that this is a very strange phenomenon in ancient times when family affection was emphasized, but this is a reality. The reason for this phenomenon may be related to the concern of these families that the ruler likes "Zhulian".

At that time, it was not an era when one person did things and one person did things, if one person made a mistake, the whole family and even the same villagers and fellow villagers would be implicated. When the heroes rise together and the warlords are fighting, no one knows that the one in the future will win the world in the end.

At this time, once the wrong bet is made, and the person who chooses to help finally fails, the winner will definitely be angry with those families who have helped their opponents, so those families will be unlucky, and it is not impossible to be erased by the entire family or even the entire clan.

That's why they bet on both sides, or even on multiple sides, so that whoever wins, it won't lead to the extinction of the entire clan. Everything is for the sake of the clan, as long as you understand this, you can understand their behavior of betting on multiple positions, and you can also understand how lethal Zhang Bao's move is.

Zhang Bao threatens the diehards with the survival of the entire clan, a move that amounts to nuclear deterrence. A primordial~sub~bomb can instantly destroy a city and kill hundreds of thousands of people, although Zhang Bao does not have an original~sub~bomb, but he has 100,000 soldiers and horses, and it is not so difficult to remove a clan.

Of course, this is difficult in peacetime, these clans have people in the court, and they all have a huge network of relationships, protection~protection~ umbrellas, it is difficult for anyone to move them, even if the emperor wants to completely remove a clan, I am afraid he may not dare to start easily.

But in this kind of war, things are different, Xiucai can't explain it when he meets a soldier, if Zhang Bao doesn't reason with you at all, just find a reason to directly enter the clan's settlement, and cook the raw rice first, then what should you do?

Even if someone else wants to trouble him later, what's the use, the wood is already in the boat, people can't be resurrected after death, and the entire clan is gone, what's the point of making trouble with him again?

The bright moon was shining, and in a splendid mansion, a group of people had no intention of sleeping, gathered in the study, all of them looked solemn, and were talking nonsense, which was obviously a meeting.

At night, such a meeting held in the study of a private house is obviously not attended by the ministers of the DPRK and China, and it is not a matter of state affairs to be discussed. That's right, everyone here is a family member, and the first white-haired old man is none other than the Sikong of the Wei State, Wang Lang, the Marquis of Leping Township.

Although Wang Lang's background is not a famous family like the Taiyuan Wang family, their Tancheng Wang family in the East China Sea is also a large clan, and he studied under Taiwei Yang Ci in his early years, so Yang Ci's connections in the court were all in his pocket, which gave him the status of "three dukes" today.

In addition to him, all of those present, including his son Wang Su, are all people who are currently officials in the court of their Tancheng Wang clan in the East China Sea. Of course, people who are officials in the court will have a great right to speak in the clan, especially a person like Wang Lang, who is a very popular minister, can almost be said to be a man of his word in the clan, and the Wang clan of Tancheng is the head of his horse regardless of whether he is in the court or in the opposition, and even the patriarch of Tancheng in the East China Sea has no big right to speak.