Chapter 21 1. Agency and Authorization

Inventorying the possessions of an empire is actually a confusing matter, because the sky of history is often full of doubts, and problems and troubles often follow one after another.For example, according to the previous analysis, the politics of the empire is neither the rule of man nor the rule of law, nor is it really the rule of virtue. Then, what should it be, what could it be?In other words, how should the politics of empire be accurately expressed and defined? Perhaps, it is "government rule".Or rather, bureaucracy. The so-called "government by officials" means "rule the country by officials", just as "rule by virtue" means "rule the country by virtue", "rule by law" means "rule the country by law", and "rule by man" means "rule the country by people".So, what is the difference between the government and the government?Aren't officials and people both "people"?Aren't the rule of government and the rule of man both relying on people instead of other things (such as law, morality, etiquette) to govern the country?The difference lies in: first, the rule of man depends on a certain individual, while the rule of government relies on the bureaucratic group; The power of government comes from official authorization.In other words, official governance does not require a certain official to have high quality, level, or prestige, as long as he has a certain official title and sufficient power.Therefore, the rule of the government will not be like the rule of man.Therefore, the rule of man can only be a flash in the pan in the history of the empire, but the rule of the government can guarantee long-term stability.Because under the official system, policies and strategies are formulated by the entire ruling group, and they don't care much about the survival of a certain person (for example, Chao Cuo was killed and the vassal was cut as usual).What's more, when an official resigns, a new official will replace him; and the politics promoted by the former official have nothing to do with his charisma and personal prestige.

Such a kind of politics is undoubtedly the most in line with the imperial system.This is not only because the empire is a mature country and can no longer depend on one person, but also because the empire implements the county system.There are three differences between the county system and the feudal system: first, the feudal system is a system of decentralization, in which the Son of Heaven distributes power to the feudal lords, who enjoy independent sovereignty and governance over their "country"; The power of the world belongs to the central government, and the counties and counties are no more than the dispatched agencies of the central government.Second, the feudal system is a lordship system, and the states of the princes and the fiefdoms of the officials are all their own; the county system is a landlord system, and local officials have no property rights or sovereignty over the areas under their jurisdiction.Third, the feudal system is a hereditary system. The emperor, princes, and officials are all hereditary and passed down from generation to generation.The hereditary sons of heaven, princes, and high officials are nobles, and the appointed ministers (three princes), ministers (nine ministers), guards (junshou), and magistrates (county magistrates) are officials.This is also the important difference between the empire and the state-the politics of the state is aristocratic politics, and the politics of the empire is bureaucratic politics.

In fact, there are three differences between an empire and a state: first, the state system of the state is feudalism, while the empire is the county system; second, the political form of the state is aristocratic politics, while the empire is bureaucratic politics; The ruling class in the country is the lord class, and the empire is the landlord class.Therefore, if we say that the top priority at the beginning of the establishment of a state is to seal the country and establish princes, then the top priority at the beginning of the establishment of an empire is to set up counties and appoint officials. "Hanshu·Hundreds of Officials and Officials" said: "Qin is the world, the title of emperor is established, and the positions of hundreds of officials are established." It can be seen that the organization of the empire is inseparable from two elements, namely the emperor and officials; the management system of the empire also has Two major characteristics, that is, centralization and agency of officials.

The agency of officials is also the difference between the empire and the state.The early states, like the tribes, also implemented the "chief responsibility system".The so-called "chief responsibility system" means that the leader of the tribe (chief) directly manages the affairs of the tribe and is responsible for the rise and fall of the tribe.This system is still basically feasible when the tribe becomes a tribal alliance and a tribal country.However, since the scale is far larger than the tribe at this time, it is necessary to arrange some assistants for the chief while implementing the "chief responsibility system".This is the earliest "official".There are also two kinds of these earliest officials.One is to hold the position of the alliance as the chief of the tribe. In fact, he is participating in the affairs of the alliance on behalf of the tribe, which is part-time rather than full-time.The other kind of full-time assistants are mostly "technocrats", and some are even served by slaves (such as Yi Yin, the prime minister of Shang Tang), and they do not act as agents for local affairs.Obviously, the former is a "little boss" and the latter is a "wage earner", neither of them is an "agent".

What was not in the era of tribes and tribal nations, neither was it in the era of states.Because although the early states were more like countries than tribal countries, most of them were still small countries with few people. The big ones were no more than the current county, and the small ones were no more than the current township.Such a small state of Möll, if it implements democracy, can be a "direct democracy" (such as the Greek city-state); if it implements a monarchy, it can be a "direct monarch" (such as the early state). There is no inconvenience in the transition of "direct monarchy" from the "chief responsibility system"; and the assistants in the alliance era are transformed into the ministers of the state.However, the ministers of the state period and the state governors of the empire period are two different things.The latter is a government employee, and the former is a retainer of a prince.The difference between retainers and officials is: officials are appointed, retainers are hereditary (hence also called "shiqing system"); officials serve the country, retainers are attached to individuals; officials have to get a salary, retainers are to fulfill their obligations.More importantly, the retainers (Qing Dafu) and the princes were originally a family, they were the princes' uncles, brothers, and nephews, and the princes were theoretically the emperor's Xiaozong, so this system can also be called "family co-governance system". ".In other words, governing the country means "co-governance by the family" (retainers govern the country), and the family is "in charge of the head" (direct monarch).Of course, Dr. Qing also has his own "retainers", such as those "scholars" (diners, diners) with special skills.Scholars acted as the retainers of the ministers, and the ministers acted as the retainers of the princes; the princes were responsible for their "country", and the ministers were responsible for their "home". The "chief responsibility system" (chieftain system) and the "family co-governance system" (retainer system) coexist, which is the state system.

So, is there no agency problem in the era of Bang Guo?Have.It's just that what they represent is not the monarchy, but the way of heaven.According to tradition, the reason why the Son of Heaven can rule the world is because he has been authorized by the heavens.The way of authorization is "Mandate of Heaven", and changing authorization is "revolution". "The mysterious bird of destiny descended to give birth to merchants" ("Poetry · Shang Song · Xuanniao"), so merchants have the world. After "Zhou Ge Yin Ming", the authorization was changed, so the Zhou people had to have the world.This statement, the empire inherited.The so-called "following the sky" is actually reaffirming the authorization of heaven.

However, although states and empires are both "acting on behalf of Heaven," their methods of acting are different.Simply put, Bang Guo is the "Multiple Agents" and Empire is the "Sole Agent".A sole agency means that the emperor's family acts as an agent for Heavenly Dao; a multiple agency means that the emperor, princes, and doctors jointly act as agents.After the emperor in the state era obtained authorization from heaven, he could not swallow the "world" by himself, but had to distribute it to the princes, and then the princes distributed it to the officials. This is "feudalism."Feudalism is not only the division of land, but also the division of power, which is called "separation of powers".What rights?The management power granted by God.Since such a power has been divided and subcontracted layer by layer, it is certainly not the "exclusive agent" of the emperor.In fact, when the princes established a country, they did not represent the "power of the emperor";The emperor, princes, and doctors are all agents of the "Way of Heaven".What they represent is also "the right granted by heaven", isn't it "many agents"?It's just that the shares are different.

This is of course not in line with "the way of heaven".Because "the way of heaven is selfless", how can we "divide the world privately"?Therefore, the imperial system must replace the state system, the county system must replace the feudal system, and the decentralization system must be replaced by the centralization system.Since it is centralized, Tiandao can no longer "many agents", but only "exclusive agent".But the empire has such a vast territory and such a large population, it would be unreasonable and impossible for the emperor to personally "do justice for the heavens" in every detail.The reasonable and possible way is to appoint officials to act as agents, just like a farmer hires people to herd sheep.This is the "agent system" that goes hand in hand with the "centralization system", that is, the emperor acts as the agent of heaven, and officials act as agents of imperial power.The emperor is the main switch of power, and officials are the taps of power, thus forming the heart of the empire.Since it is a cardiovascular system, there must not only be a heart, but also arteries, veins, and capillaries.Therefore, the administrative regions and bureaucratic system of the empire must be divided into levels, such as states, counties, counties, and townships.Centralization, hierarchical management, this is "centralization".The power of the monarch is granted by God, and officials act as agents. This is the "agency system".Centralization (centralization) and official agency (agency) coexist, which is imperialism.

The officials of the empire can be divided into two parts on the whole, namely central officials and local officials.Among the central officials, the highest and most important is the prime minister, who is usually called a prime minister and is equivalent to a prime minister.But strictly speaking, Zaifu is not an agent of imperial power, but a senior assistant to the king.Their status, powers, and responsibilities were often vague and variable, sometimes serving as little more than the emperor's secretary or steward, and sometimes almost rivaling the emperor.Therefore, imperial power and prime minister power have always been a pair of contradictions, which eventually led to Zhu Yuanzhang's resignation.The rest of the central officials can be divided into three major systems, namely administration, judiciary, and supervision.For example, the six ministers (ministers), ministers (deputy ministers), and principals (directors) are officials of the administrative system (the Ministry of Criminal Justice and inter-judicial); Dali Siqing (president of the Supreme Court) and Shaoqing (deputy president) are judicial officials. System officials; Du Yushi (Minister of Supervision), Deputy Du Yushi (Deputy Minister) and Supervision Yushi (Director) are supervisory system officials.In addition, there are some service and professional departments, such as Qintianjian (National Astronomical Observatory), Honglu Temple (organization in charge of minority affairs), Hanlin Academy (National Academy of Social Sciences), etc.These latter officials are not agents either.The three major systems of administration, justice, and supervision can only be said to be partial agents.

It is the local officials who really embody the "official agency system". They are the ones who replace the farmers to shepherd the sheep, so sometimes they are simply called "shepherds" (for example, Yuan Shao, Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Quan have all been "state shepherds" ).The main tasks of local officials are: proclaiming morality, promoting ethics, collecting taxes, recruiting soldiers, maintaining order, maintaining law and order, and providing welfare to subjects under special circumstances (such as selling disasters).The first two embody the spirit of the rule of virtue and the rule of propriety. In fact, improving customs has always been an important task of officials, especially local officials.The last few items are the actual needs of the empire, so they often become the hard indicators for assessing whether officials are mediocre or capable.

There are also two types of local officials.One is officials who are directly close to the people, herdsmen, and govern the people, which are prefectures and counties.The state is the name of the local administrative region that changes the most.During the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the local administrative area was divided into three levels: prefecture, prefecture, and county.The state leads the county, the county leads the county, and the state has the highest level.However, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were no prefectures dedicated to supervising counties.The status of the state is below the province and government.State officials, like county officials, are also officials of herdsmen.Above the prefectures and counties, in the Ming and Qing Dynasties they were prefectures and provinces.The local administrative regions in the Ming and Qing Dynasties also had three levels: provinces, prefectures, and counties.The provincial government, the government and the county, the highest level of the province.The prefecture is equivalent to the current prefecture-level city or region, and the administrative level of its chief (prefect) is the fourth rank.His task is mainly to supervise the county.This is the second type of local officials - the officials of the prison.Their task is not "herders", but "priests".This is also a major feature of the "official agency system", that is, not only the power of governing the people is delegated by officials, but also the power of governing the government is delegated by officials, which can be described as a comprehensive proxy. This was of course because the empire was too large, and the emperor could not directly direct not only the herdsmen, but even the herdsmen.Therefore, it is not only necessary to set up relevant agencies (such as the Ministry of Officials and the Metropolitan Procuratorate) at the central level, but also implement a system of hierarchical management (level agency) at the local level, and even send officials above the provincial level.For example, in the official system of the Qing Dynasty, provincial and local officials were appointed to announce the political envoy (abbreviated as the chief envoy) and the procuratorial envoy (referred to as the envoy) for the punishment.The Chief Envoy, also known as Fantai, is in charge of the civil affairs and finance of a province;Both the chief envoy and the procuratorate have their own yamen and subordinate functional departments.The office of the Chief Envoy is called the Chief Envoy (Vansi), and the office of the Inspectorate is called the Inspectorate (Neisi), known as the Second Division (in the Ming Dynasty, there was also the Commander's Division, known as the Third Division).The second department is a unit at the same level, and usually conducts its own affairs, but in case of major events, the second department meets. Therefore, the feudal department and the standard department are equivalent to the provincial government.It's just that the status of the vassal is slightly higher (from the second rank), and the status of the table division is slightly lower (the third rank). Above Fantai and Jintai are governors and governors.Both governors and governors are local officials dispatched by the central government. They are "local officials above the province" and both have the title of the central government.Governor-General and Metropolitan Procuratorate Youdu Censor title, Governor-General and Metropolitan Procuratorate Right Deputy Capital Censor title, is the nominal minister and deputy minister of the Ministry of Supervision; The Minister of Defense and the Deputy Minister of National Defense have their own troops directly under their control.The governor's directly-administered troops are called superintendents, and officers include deputy generals and generals; the governor's directly-administered troops are called Fubiao, and officers include generals and guerrillas.The governor's jurisdiction generally has three provinces, and the few generally have two provinces (one province in some cases), and the governor only has one province.The governor "gets on the horse to manage the army, and gets off the horse to manage the people", while the governor basically only manages the people, not the army.But regardless of their power or status, governors and governors are provincial supervisors representing the central government. The governors and governors supervise the provinces, the provinces supervise the government, the government supervises the counties, and the governors are supervised by the central government.In this way, from the central government to the local government, from provinces, government offices to counties, everything is under centralized control.The official agency system of the empire should be foolproof. However, this does not appear to be the case.