"Administration was a bureaucratic operation. It combined very old aristocratic families with what we could call new men. They were divided into various ministries-public works, the economy, there was a military board-and then the largest of all, the one in which more officials were involved than in any other activity, was ritual, with something like between 30-50 per cent. And they would organise recurrent annual or monthly rituals, celebrations of the emperor's birthday, or princes'and princesses'birthdays, seasonal observances-things like the ploughing rite, where the emperor would open the agricultural season by symbolically ploughing a field somewhere in the palace.

"There was a very small group, whose significance grew throughout the Dynasty, who took examinations and competed for state degrees. Later on, this system becomes magnified. So that by about the year 1000, you have something like 15,000 men coming to the capital to take exams, of whom only around 1,500 would get a degree. So this is a system in which the largest number, well over 90 per cent, will fail-repeatedly for the whole of their lives. And at the same time, this is a system which fosters loyalty to the Dynasty-which is quite remarkable really."