Chapter 13 3. Political Affairs Hall

To talk about the Sui and Tang Dynasties, we must first look at the Han Dynasty. The organizational system of the central government in the Han Dynasty was Sangong Jiuqing.Sangong, in the Western Han Dynasty, was the prime minister, Taiwei, and Yushi doctor, and in the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was the Taiwei, Situ, and Sikong. They were all prime ministers.Jiuqing is the head of nine or more departments, equivalent to government ministers.There are three public houses, and the public houses are equivalent to three provinces; Jiuqing has temples, and Qing temples are equivalent to six ministries.The political reform in the Sui and Tang Dynasties was to replace the Sangong and Jiuqing with the three provinces and six ministries.Although for this day, the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties prepared for 369 years.

This raises four questions: First, why should it be changed?Second, what changes have been made?Third, how did you change it?Fourth, what is the effect? Let's look at Liubu and Jiuqing first. On the surface, there is no difference between Liubu and Jiuqing.Jiuqing is a government minister, as are the six ministers.However, Jiuqing's work is not divided into government affairs and affairs.The Da Si Nong who is in charge of the country's finances and economy is the administrative officer, equivalent to the Minister of the Ministry of Households; the servant in charge of the emperor's travel is the affairs officer, who is still in charge of royal affairs.

If it is so unclear, shouldn’t it be reformed? Of course it should. The method of the Sui and Tang Dynasties was that all government affairs should be assigned to the six ministries, and all affairs should be assigned to the temple supervisors.For example, Taichang Temple is in charge of sacrifices, Guanglu Temple is in charge of banquets, Weiwei Temple is in charge of equipment, Zongzheng Temple is in charge of the clan and so on.As for the emperor's diet and daily life, it was handed over to the Dianzhong Province and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.The classification of affairs and government affairs, the separation of the royal family and the state, and the six ministries under the Shangshu Province became pure state organs and functional departments, and the reform was completely successful.

This is why the six-part system has continued. So, what's wrong with San Gong? Too much power. According to the system in the early Han Dynasty, the administrative, military and supervisory powers of the empire were all in the hands of the Sangong.The three gongs opened their own mansions and worked independently.In case of major events, the Sangong meeting will come up with a plan and then the emperor will approve it.The emperor once ruled every five days, but he listened to the report and expressed his approval, and did not participate in the decision-making. It was simply a rubber stamp.

Of course, this was unacceptable to powerful emperors such as Han Wu and others. Only then did the inner and outer courts come into being, and there were Shangshushi and Shangshutai.It's a pity that the one who helped the emperor seize the power of prime minister became the new prime minister himself, so the emperor had to start anew.What is the result?After Shangshu, there is Zhongshu, and after Zhongshu, there are disciples, endless. Obviously, there must be a permanent solution. The three-provincial system is such a "package" solution.To put it bluntly, it means that one by one the provinces that have moved from the palace to the outside of the palace will all be formally turned into prime ministers' institutions that replace the public government, but they will not recognize the three provinces as the prime minister's government, nor will they recognize that the governors of the three provinces are undoubtedly prime ministers.Even if it is, their phase power must be divided.

Of course there is a process involved.In the Sui Dynasty, the left and right servants of Shangshu Province were all regarded as prime ministers.The chief of Shangshu Province in the Tang Dynasty was Shangshu Ling.Of course, Shang Shuling is the prime minister, but no one dares to be the prime minister, because Tang Taizong held this position before he came to the throne.As a result, there were only two deputy chiefs in Shangshu Province, namely the left and right servants.Is the left and right servants the prime minister?Sorry, it depends. what's the situation? Whether to be eligible and actually attend the Council meeting.

What is a government affairs hall?It is the place where the governors of the two provinces under Zhongshumen met.Why did the governors of the two provinces have a meeting?Because the division of labor is different.To put it simply, the task of Zhongshu Province is to draft laws, and the task of Menxia Province is to review them.This is the reason why the departments of the two provinces under Zhongshu are facing each other. Of course, they also have to deal. In fact, although the drafting of the decree belongs to the Central Secretariat, whether it can be promulgated depends on the subordinates.One situation is that after the Ministry of Education of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has finished drafting and affixed its seal, it is submitted to the emperor for signature to form an imperial edict.The other is that after the text is formed, it will be sent to the province first, and will be reviewed by the chief minister, the deputy chief minister, and their subordinate officials. If there is no problem, the emperor will "draw a decree" (draw a character and issue it to the Shangshu province). .

But even in the first case, the emperor still had to be sent to the province after signing.Without the countersignature of Menxia Province, the imperial edict still has no legal effect.If Menxia Province finds that there is something wrong with the documents sent by Zhongshu Province to Menxia Province, it can even send back the original documents after being altered. That is to say, if Menxia Province does not agree, Zhongshu Province cannot do anything. This has its own profound meaning (see below).At least, the people of Tang already knew that whether governing or legislating, procedures must be followed, and one cannot do things according to one's temper.Unfortunately, this system does not seem to be seriously implemented.For the sake of efficiency, and because they were afraid of trouble, the prime ministers of the Tang Dynasty adopted a flexible method, that is, to hold a meeting before writing.If the two provinces agree, if the text is written again, it will not be "blocked and refuted".

The place where the meeting is held is called "Zhengshitang". Zhengshitang was originally located in Menxia Province, and later changed to Zhongshu Province. In the eleventh year of Kaiyuan (723) of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty, it was simply renamed "Zhongshu Menxia".In the meetings under Zhongshumen, both the chief and deputy chiefs of the two provinces participated, while the person in charge of the Shangshu Province either participated or did not participate.Therefore, in the minds of the people of Tang, only the disciples of Zhongshu are the real prime ministers.All orders can only be considered legal if they are stamped with the "Seal of Zhongshumenxia".

So, is Zhengshitang the central government? Yes and no.Because the Zhengshitang is not a government department, it is just a place for meetings, just like the Great Hall of the People.Although it was also called "government" (meaning the government of Zhengshitang) later, it was after the establishment of an office for Zhengshitang in the eleventh year of Kaiyuan.Before Tang Xuanzong, no one worked there all day. There is no set rule for the number of people attending the meeting of the political affairs hall. At most, it is more than a dozen, and at least it is two or three.The most embarrassing thing is the left and right servants of Shang Shusheng's deputy chief.Their official rank is higher than that of Zhongshumen (the former is from the second rank, the latter is the third rank, and was promoted to the second rank when Daizong), but if they are not awarded the title of "Tong Zhongshumenxia Pingzhangshi", they are not qualified Participate in the meeting, not the prime minister.

On the contrary, other officials with lower ranks can participate in the meeting if they are awarded the title of "Tongzhong Shumenxia Sanpin", and they are also prime ministers.This is different from the two Hans.The prime minister of the Han Dynasty was San Gong.Among them, except for the prime minister, there may be two people, and the rest are all one person. There will not be a group of people as prime ministers like the Tang Dynasty, and the number of people is variable, sometimes more and sometimes less. The "central government" of Zhengshitang also has no prime minister, and the meeting has only one rotating chairman, called "ruling Shibi", also called "holding the pen".Those who participated in the meeting took turns to write, sometimes every ten days, sometimes every day.Obviously, in the Tang Dynasty there were only "State Council" and "State Councilors", but no "Prime Minister", and of course there was no "State Council" or "Prime Minister's Office". Three provinces and six ministries are quite different from the Sangong and Jiuqing. However, the two systems also have similarities. The same lies in the division of power, but in different ways.The method of the Han Dynasty is to separate the three powers, the prime minister is in charge of administration, the Taiwei is in charge of military affairs, and the censor is in charge of supervision.The method of the Tang Dynasty was to check and balance each other, the Zhongshu was in charge of issuing orders, the subordinates were in charge of reviewing, and the Shangshu was in charge of execution.Shangshu has administrative power but no decision-making power; Zhongshu has decision-making power but no review power; although his subordinates have review power, they have neither administrative power nor decision-making power. As a result, no one can dominate the family. As a result of the check and balance of power, Shangshu Province suffered the most losses.Especially after Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty opened the Yuan Dynasty, the left and right servants no longer conferred the title of "Tongzhong Shumenxia Pingzhangshi", and completely withdrew from the ranks of prime ministers from then on.At the same time, the writing of the Zhengshitang was changed to the seal under Zhongshumen, and the three-province system became the Zhongshumenxia system. It was not until this time that the Political Affairs Hall changed from a conference hall for state affairs councilors to an operation center of imperial government affairs, which more or less had the meaning of "State Council".However, in the Tang Dynasty, there was no position like Xiangguo or Da Sima in the Han Dynasty.Li Linfu and Yang Guozhong's monopolization of power is only a special case, not a system. Therefore, even if Zhengshitang is the central government, there is a government without a head. This paved the way for subsequent political system reforms.In the Song Dynasty, the three provinces were combined into the Zhengshitang, which was juxtaposed with the Privy Council in charge of military affairs and the three departments in charge of finance, forming the so-called "two government and three department" system.In the Yuan Dynasty, the two provinces of Shangshu and Menxia were abolished, and the Zhongshu Province, the Privy Council and the Yushitai became the three major institutions in parallel.In the end, Zhongshu Province was also abolished by Zhu Yuanzhang, and the prime minister system withdrew from the stage of history forever. How can the significance of Sui and Tang political reforms be underestimated?

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