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The confidential memorial system of the Ch'ing dynasty reconsidered1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Pei Huang
Pei Huang
Affiliation:
Youngstown State University, Ohio
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Extract

Students of traditional Chinese political institutions cannot afford to disregard the importance of the Ch'ing confidential memorial system. Essentially, this dynastic institution had existed for centuries, but it reached maturity only in the Ch'ing dynasty. Under this system, government officials in various positions from many regions outside the capital submitted confidential memorials which reached the imperial desk through special channels. After reading and commenting on them in vermilion ink, the ruler returned the memorials to their authors confidentially via the same channels. This system resulted in direct communication between ruler and officials, and under the vigilant Ch'ing emperors, it enhanced imperial autocratic power in several ways

In the traditional Chinese state the ruler, however enlightened or benevolent, was an autocrat. His words were law; his decisions final. Without his sanction, no state affairs or government plans could proceed. His authority could only be circumvented or manipulated within the bureaucratic procedure and for this reason he worked hard to safeguard his authority by keeping a close eye on his officials throughout the empire.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , June 1994 , pp. 329 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1994

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References

2 See Li Hsi Tsou-che (Li Hsi's memorials), ed. pu, Ku-kung po-wu yüan Ming-Ch'ing tangan (Peking, Chung-hua shu-chü , 1976), imperial comment on Memorial #2, KH32/7, 2.Google Scholar

3 I used the phrase ‘secret report’ in the English summary of my ‘Yung-cheng shih-tai ti mi-tsou chih-tu-Ch'ing Shih-tsung chih-shu ti i-tuan’ — (The secret-report system during the Yung-cheng period, 1723–1735: a political practice of Emperor Shih-tsung), Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese studies, n.s., 3/1, 1962, 217–52Google Scholar. For the term ‘personal memorials’, see my ‘Aspects of Ching autocracy: an institutional study, 1644–1735’, ibid., 6/1–2, 1967, 109–16Google Scholar. Wu, Silas H. L. adopted the term ‘palace memorials’ in his ‘The memorial system of the Ch'ing dynasty (1644–1911)’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 27, 1967, 7–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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5 Liang's book was expanded by Chu Chih (n.p., 1875, 28 chüan, 6 vols.). For its information on the confidential memorial, see ch. 13, 3a. 14b–15a. 17a: ch. 22, 5a–7a; ch. 27, 5a. The Yang-chi chai ts'ung-lu (Collected notes from the Yang-chi study), by Wu Chen-yü (1792–1870), adopts the same approach. Wu's book is included in Yün-lung, Shen (ed), Chin-tai Chung-kuo shih-liao ts'ung-k'an , no. 22 (Taipei: Wen-hai ch'u-pan she , 1968, 26 chüan; Yü-lu , 10 chūan, 2 vols.). For its data on the confidential memorials, see ch. 4, 5a–6a, ch. 23, 3b–6a.Google Scholar

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7 Published through the Office of the Hunan Judicial Commissioner (2 chüan in 2 volumes).

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15 Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 4, 1939, 12–46 and 5, 1940, 1–71Google Scholar, reprinted in the same authors' Ch'ing administration: three studies (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960).Google Scholar

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17 Under the general title Kung-chung tang the National Palace Museum compiled and published in Taipei the following four series of confidential memorials: Kuang-hsü ch'ao tsou-che (‘Secret memorials of the Kuang-hsü period‘), (1973–75, 26 vols.)Google Scholar; K'ang-his ch'ao tsou-che (‘Secret memorials of the K'ang-hsi period’), (1976. 9 vols.)Google Scholar: Yung-cheng ch'ao tsou-che (‘Secret memorials of the Yung-cheng period’), (1977–80, 35 vols.)Google Scholar; Ch'ien-lung ch'ao tsou-che (‘Secret memorials of the Ch'ienlung period’) (1982–, 1– vols.).Google Scholar

The later versions from the Office of the Number One Historical Archives are as follows: K'ang-hsi ch'ao Han-wen chu-p'i tsou-che hui-pien (Collected Chinese confidential memorials of the K'ang-hsi period), (Peking: Tang-an ch'u-pan she, 1984–1985, 8 vols.)Google Scholar; Yung-cheng ch'ao Han-wen chu-p'i tsou-che hui-pien (Collected Chinese confidential memorials of the Yung-cheng period), (Shanghai: Chiang-su ku-chi ch'u-pan she 1986–90, 20 vols.).Google Scholar

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36 For the official work, see Ta-Ch'ing hui-tien shih-li {Collected statutes and precedents of the Ch'ing dynasty (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1908, 1220 ch.), ch. 13, lbGoogle Scholar. Several private studies adopt this date. For example, my Autocracy at work, 121Google Scholar; , Yang Ch'ich'iao, Yung-cheng ti chi ch'i mi-tsou chih-tu yen-chiu, 156Google Scholar; Te-yuan, Chü, ‘Ch'ing-tai t'i-tsou wenshu’, 225Google Scholar; Chih-ch'eng, Teng, Ku-tung so-chi _ch'iian-pien (Miscellanea of historical materials), (Peking: San-lien shu-tien 1955), 601.Google Scholar

37 Chin-fu, Chu, ‘Ch'ing-tai tsou-che chih-tu t'an-yüan’, 131Google Scholar; K'ang-hsi ch'ao Han-wen chu-p'i tsou-che, I, 2.Google Scholar

38 Ta-Ch'ing li-ch'ao shih-lu, Shun-chih Reign, ch. 102, 4b, SC 13/6/7; Hsi, Wang, Wang Wenching kung chi (Works of Wang Hsi) (n.p., 1707, 24 chüan, with Nien-p'u appended in 1 chüan, 10 vols.), Nien-p'u, 30b. For his English biography, see Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing period, 819.Google Scholar

39 See Shih-chia, Chi, ‘Ch'ing-tai t'i-tsou chih-tu', 86Google Scholar, and , Bartlett, Monarchs and ministers: the Grand Council in mid-Ch'ing China, 1723–1820 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 4 and 49.Google Scholar

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42 For the emperor's revelation, see Ta-Ch'ing li-ch'ao shih-lu, K'ang-hsi reign, ch. 113, 2a, K H 22/11/1; for his request for small-character memorials on local weather, see ibid., ch. 125, 3b, K H 25/3/3; for his interview of the two provincial governors, see ibid., ch. 133, 13a, K H 27/1/23.

43 See , Chao-lien, Hsiao-t'ing tsa-lu, I, ch. 2, 4bGoogle Scholar; Shih-hsi, Teng, ‘Ch'ing-tai pen-chang chih-tu’, 322Google Scholar. As mentioned earlier, the Chu-p'i yü-chih is a collection of select memorials submitted by officials during the Yung-cheng reign.

44 See my Autocracy at work, 120–1.

45 For number of the memorialists during the K'ang-hsi reign, see Yung-cheng ch'ao Han-wen chu-p'i tsou-che, I, 1. For other descriptions about the K'ang-hsi confidential memorials, see K'anghsi ch'ao Han-wen chu-p'i tsou-che, I, 5.

46 Yung-cheng ch'ao Han-wen chu-p'i tsou-che, I, 1–2.

47 For a concise biography of , Ho-shen, see Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing period, 288–90Google Scholar. For his demand for copies of the confidential memorials, see Kuo-shih lieh-chuan (Biographical series of Ch'ing history), (Taipei: Hsin Wen-feng ch'u-pan kung-ssu 1975, reprint of the Tung-fang, hsüeh-hui ed.), ch. 34, 1166.Google Scholar