A History of China. Wolfram Eberhard
and organized the labour service for public constructions. The court also controlled centrally the conscription for the general military service. Beside the ministries there was an extensive administration of the capital with its military guards. The various parts of the country, including the lands given as fiefs to princes, had a local administration, entirely independent of the central government and more or less elaborated according to their size. The regional administration was loosely associated with the central government through a sort of primitive ministry of the interior, and similarly the Chinese representatives in the protectorates, that is to say the foreign states which had submitted to Chinese protective overlordship, were loosely united with a sort of foreign ministry in the central government. When a rising or a local war broke out, that was the affair of the officer of the region concerned. If the regional troops were insufficient, those of the adjoining regions were drawn upon; if even these were insufficient, a real "state of war" came into being; that is to say, the emperor appointed eight generals-in-chief, mobilized the imperial troops, and intervened. This imperial army then had authority over the regional and feudal troops, the troops of the protectorates, the guards of the capital, and those of the imperial palace. At the end of the war the imperial army was demobilized and the generals-in-chief were transferred to other posts.
In all this there gradually developed a division into civil and military administration. A number of regions would make up a province with a military governor, who was in a sense the representative of the imperial army, and who was supposed to come into activity only in the event of war.
This administration of the Han period lacked the tight organization that would make precise functioning possible. On the other hand, an extremely important institution had already come into existence in a primitive form. As central statistical authority, the court secretariat had a special position within the ministries and supervised the administration of the other offices. Thus there existed alongside the executive a means of independent supervision of it, and the resulting rivalry enabled the emperor or the chancellor to detect and eliminate irregularities. Later, in the system of the T'ang period (A.D. 618–906), this institution developed into an independent censorship, and the system was given a new form as a "State and Court Secretariat", in which the whole executive was comprised and unified. Towards the end of the T'ang period the permanent state of war necessitated the permanent commissioning of the imperial generals-in-chief and of the military governors, and as a result there came into existence a "Privy Council of State", which gradually took over functions of the executive. The system of administration in the Han and in the T'ang period is shown in the following table:
Han epoch T'ang epoch
1. Emperor 1. Emperor
2. Three counsellors to the emperor 2. Three counsellors and three
(with no active functions) assistants (with no active
functions)
3. Eight supreme generals (only 3. Generals and Governors-General
appointed in time of war) (only appointed in time of
war; but in practice
continuously in office)
4. ————————————— 4. (a) State secretariat
(1) Central secretariat
(2) Secretariat of the Crown
(3) Secretariat of the Palace
and imperial historical
commission
(b) Emperor's Secretariat
(1) Private Archives
(2) Court Adjutants' Office
(3) Harem administration
5. Court administration 5. Court administration
(Ministries) (Ministries)
(1) Ministry for state (1) Ministry for state
sacrifices sacrifices
(2) Ministry for imperial (2) Ministry for imperial
coaches and horses coaches and horses
(3) Ministry for justice at (3) Ministry for justice at
court court
(4) Ministry for receptions (4) Ministry for receptions
(i.e. foreign affairs)
(5) Ministry for ancestors' (5) Ministry for ancestors'
temples temples
(6) Ministry for supplies to (6) Ministry for supplies to
the court the court
(7) Ministry for the harem (7) Economic and financial
Ministry
(8) Ministry for the palace (8) Ministry for the payment
guards of salaries
(9) Ministry for the court (9) Ministry for armament
(state secretariat) and magazines
6. Administration of the 6. Administration of the
capital: capital:
(1) Crown prince's palace (1) Crown prince's palace
(2) Security service for the (2) Palace guards and guards'
capital office
(3) Capital administration: (3) Arms production department
(a) Guards of the capital
(b) Guards of the city gates
(c) Building department
(4) Labour service department
(5) Building department
(6) Transport department
(7) Department for education
(of sons of officials!)
7. Ministry of the Interior 7. Ministry of the Interior
(Provincial administration) (Provincial administration)
8. Foreign Ministry 8. —————————————
9. Censorship (Audit council)
There is no denying that according to our standard this whole system was still elementary and "personal", that is to say, attached to the emperor's person—though it should not be overlooked that we ourselves are not yet far from a similar phase of development. To this day the titles of not a few of the highest officers of state—the Lord Privy Seal, for instance—recall that in the past their offices were conceived as concerned purely with the personal service of the monarch. In one point, however, the Han administrative set-up was quite modern: it already had a clear separation between the emperor's private treasury and the state treasury; laws determined which of the two received certain taxes and which had to make certain payments. This separation, which in Europe occurred not until the late Middle Ages, in China was abolished at the end of the Han Dynasty.
The picture changes considerably to the advantage of the Chinese as soon as we consider the provincial administration. The governor of a province, and each of his district officers or prefects, had a staff often of more than a hundred officials. These officials were drawn from the province or prefecture and from the personal friends of the administrator, and they were appointed by the governor or the prefect. The staff was made up of officials responsible for communications with the central or provincial administration (private secretary, controller, finance officer), and a group of officials who carried on the actual local administration. There were departments for transport, finance, education, justice, medicine (hygiene), economic and military affairs, market control, and presents (which had to be made to the higher officials at the New Year and on other occasions). In addition to these offices, organized in a quite modern style, there was an office for advising the governor and another for drafting official documents and letters.
The interesting feature of this system is that the provincial administration was de facto independent of the central administration, and that the governor and even his prefects could rule like kings in their