Memorial to the throne
A memorial to the throne (Chinese:
Han dynasty
[edit]Under the Han dynasty, generally, the reception of memorials was the responsibility of the Imperial Secretary tasked with overseeing provincial administration. He was generally required to present any formal memorials, but could reject them for improper formatting.[2] Masters of Writing under the Minister Steward then copied and processed these prior to submission to the emperor.[3] Under Emperor An, however, Zhang Heng was placed in charge of reception of the memorials as part of his post as Prefect of the Majors for Official Carriages under the Ministry of Guards.[4][5]
Ming dynasty
[edit]During the early Ming dynasty, an Office of Report Inspection was established in AD 1370.
In AD 1375, Ru Taisu, a bureau secretary of the Ministry of Justice, was flogged by the Hongwu Emperor for two harsh comments of his 17,000-character memorial. At the time he was summoned for his punishment, however, the emperor had only gotten to the 16,370th one. Having the remainder read aloud the next day while in bed, the emperor instituted four of Ru's proposals and praised the last 500 characters as a model memorial for all future submissions. Hongwu admitted he had erred in getting angry, but blamed the victim for having forced him to listen to thousands of words before getting to the substance of his request.[6]
Two years later in August 1377, the Hongwu Emperor disbanded the existing Office of Report Inspection and created an Office of Transmission (
Replies varied from Ru's flogging in the Hongwu Emperor's presence to personal replies both handwritten and dictated. Most often, emperors or their secretaries would annotate the memorials with vermillion ink, whether "forward to the proper ministry", "noted", or a series of circles. These functioned as checkmarks, indicating that he had read the petition.[7]
Qing dynasty
[edit]![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/%E5%BA%B7%E7%86%99%E4%BA%94%E5%8D%81%E4%B8%83%E5%B9%B4%E5%85%A9%E5%BB%A3%E7%B8%BD%E7%9D%A3%E6%A5%8A%E7%90%B3%E9%97%9C%E6%96%BC%E5%8D%81%E4%B8%89%E8%A1%8C%E7%9A%84%E5%A5%8F%E6%8A%98.jpg/300px-%E5%BA%B7%E7%86%99%E4%BA%94%E5%8D%81%E4%B8%83%E5%B9%B4%E5%85%A9%E5%BB%A3%E7%B8%BD%E7%9D%A3%E6%A5%8A%E7%90%B3%E9%97%9C%E6%96%BC%E5%8D%81%E4%B8%89%E8%A1%8C%E7%9A%84%E5%A5%8F%E6%8A%98.jpg)
Under the Qing dynasty, memorials were received constantly, detailing personnel evaluations, crop reports, local prices, weather predictions, and local gossip at the national, provincial, and county levels.[8] Memorials were delivered by the imperial courier network and copied, summarized, and entered into official registers by the clerks of the Grand Secretariat.[9]
Because this great (largely Han Chinese) bureaucracy might interrupt, conceal, or lose information important to their Manchu rulers, the Kangxi Emperor developed a supplemental system of "Palace Memorials" (Chinese:
See also
[edit]- Prominent memorials
Notes
[edit]- ^ a b Brook, 33.
- ^ Wang (1949), 148–149.
- ^ Bielenstein (1980), 9.
- ^ Crespigny (2007), 1049 & 1223.
- ^ Yan (2007), 128.
- ^ Brook, 32.
- ^ Wilkinson, 534–535.
- ^ Spence, 70–71 & 87.
- ^ Wu, Silas. Communication and Imperial Control in China: Evolution of the Palace Memorial System, 1693–1735. Harvard University Press (Cambridge), 1970. ISBN 0674148010.
- ^ Elliott, 161–164.
- ^ Bartlett (1991), 48–53.
References
[edit]- Bartlett, Beatrice. Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in Mid-Ch'ing China, 1723–1820. University of California Press (Berkeley), 1991. ISBN 0520065913.
- Bielenstein, Hans. The Bureaucracy of Han Times. Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 1980. ISBN 0-521-22510-8.
- Brook, Timothy. The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China. University of California Press, 1999. ISBN 978-0-520-22154-3.
- de Crespigny, Rafe. A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23–220 AD). Koninklijke Brill (Leiden), 2007. ISBN 90-04-15605-4.
- Elliott, Mark. The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China. Stanford University Press (Stanford), 2001. ISBN 0804736065.
- Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China, 2nd ed. Norton (New York), 1999. page 70
- Wang Yu-ch'uan. "An Outline of The Central Government of The Former Han Dynasty", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1/2 (Jun 1949).
- Wilkinson. Chinese History: A Manual.
- Yan Hong-sen. Reconstruction Designs of Lost Ancient Chinese Machinery. Springer (Dordrecht), 2007. ISBN 1-4020-6459-4.