A Petty Bureaucrat, the Great Epitome: a Study of Luo Dajing’s Official Career—the Empirical Studies of the “Song-Yuan Transition” (Part Ш)  

Wang Ruilai

Abstract: As an officer candidate, Luo Dajing did not get any position for a long time over eight years after he passed the highest imperial examination. Afterwards, he began his official career in the distant Guangxi with the help of his father’s friends. Yet eighteen years later, he still floundered in the deep officialdom. Moreover, he was completely driven out as being involved in the political conflict between his superiors, and his bumpy official career then came to an end. Such official career of Luo Dajing was not an exceptional case in the Southern Song Dynasty, and his experience just reflected the common fate of the common low-level officials without any powerful background at that time. This case suggests that the promotion to capital officials was very difficult for the official candidates, and the procedure of being promoted through the seven ranks was also quite challenging. When suffering setbacks, many scholars instinctively gave up the tempting official careers, and their flow became diverse. Under the comprehensive function of politics, economics, society and culture, the scholars moving to local regions virtually led to the social transition.