Under the feudal system, was the highest chief executive the emperor? The answer is no, it should be the prime minister. The duty of this official position is to assist the king, to administer the affairs of the state, and to have authority under one man and above ten thousand people.
However, some people often equate the prime minister with the prime minister, what is the relationship between the two? Can it be confused?
The "Prime Minister" and the "Prime Minister" are interconnected
The understanding of the prime minister and the prime minister should start from the meaning of the words, and the connection between the two can be sorted out. The original meaning of "slaughter" is the slave who is in charge of slaughtering livestock in the sacrifice. With professional technology, it is valued by others, and thus extended to the meaning of presiding and supervising, obviously with the attributes of verbs, "Zai" first appeared in the "Zhou Li" and is synonymous with the supreme administrator.
The Shuowen Jiezi explains: "Cheng, Yiye, from the mountain from Jie. Mountain high, flattery. "In ancient times, cheng and cheng were synonymous, and the meaning of help and assistance was a verb. When used for official positions, it means that the person engaged in auxiliary work is changed from a verb to a noun, such as a county beggar or a county clerk, etc., which is used in conjunction with the official who assists the Son of Heaven.
The most interesting thing is "phase", which is commented on in the Commentary: "Phase, introspection also." "It means to look closely. That's what the ancient "facets" meant. The Zhou Dynasty made frequent sacrifices, appointments, and alliances, and had different ceremonial systems on different occasions, so the "Reciprocal Ceremony" came into being, and he guided the Heavenly Son and the princes to perform specific rituals. At this time, "phase" is out of the original meaning of introspection, and has the meaning of senior staff officer. Nowadays, when newlyweds get married, they often have "Xiang Xiang" as a companion, which is the remnant of "Xiang Li".
There is an intersection
Ministers such as the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister must have the power to discuss power and supervise, and neither of them is indispensable. The chancellor was able to visit the emperor, participate in the administration and deliberation of the government, supervise and inspect the decision-making matters, and at the same time, supervise and evaluate the implementation of the decision-making by officials according to the requirements of laws and regulations and systems. The Book of the Later Han Dynasty holds that the chancellor must "participate in the right and discuss political affairs when he enters, and supervises the right and wrong of Dong." It can be seen that zaiju ministers are the responsibility and authority of the bureaucracy.
The conditions for the selection and appointment of zaizhi ministers are particularly stringent. The Han Feizi Xianxue first put forward the term "zai chancellor", saying: "The official of the Lord, the prime minister will rise from the state department, and the fierce general will rise from the pawn." That is to say, officials must go through grassroots training in order to assume the position, which is a personal test and a responsibility to the state.
The same piece of cheese
Since Qin Shi Huang unified China, a system of local centralized central power and centralized emperors was formed, resulting in a political system that combined monarchy and bureaucracy. Monarchy is at the heart of the monarchy and dominates the form of government. The chancellor was the representative of the bureaucracy, jointly safeguarding the interests of the powers of the emperor and restraining the power of the emperor while assisting the government. In this environment, there will inevitably be a conflict between the monarchy and the bureaucracy.
The struggle for monarchy and power became the political mainstream of feudal society for more than two thousand years. Maintaining the independence and autonomy of the phase is the mission of the Minister of Zai. The late Ming Dynasty thinker Huang Zongxi pointed out to the point: "If you use one person, you doubt his selfishness, and use one person to control his selfishness; if you do a thing, you worry about what you can deceive, and you set up another thing to prevent it from being deceived." Under this chain of suspicion, the contradiction between imperial power and phase power is irreconcilable, which determines the tension between monarchs and courtiers. It is no wonder that Zhu Yuanzhang, the "Terminator of the Prime Minister", also had the thinking of "ming and liang meet, ancient and modern are difficult".
Occurrence times vary
During the Xia and Shang dynasties, there were official positions such as Wu Shi, Yin, and Taishi, with different titles and similar duties, which had the intention of assisting the king to improve administrative efficiency, forming the prototype of the prime minister. After King Wen established the Zhou Dynasty, he improved the official system and established six officials. According to the "Zhou Li", the Zhou Dynasty established six officials in the form of "Heaven and Earth Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter", of which "Tianguan Tsukazai" was the most important, mainly responsible for legislative and administrative duties. The chief officer of Tenkan Tsukasa is Daizai, the deputy is Kozai, and there are other official positions such as Zaifu, which are equivalent to the prime minister, deputy prime minister, secretary general and minister of personnel of the country.
In 309 BC, King Wu of Qin "placed the first chancellor, and Li Li and Gan Mao were left and right ministers." "In the official system of the Qin state, the chancellor and the xiang state coexist, the former assisting the latter, and the status is lower than that of the latter. The Han Dynasty inherited the Qin system, reformed the official system, and the chancellor was retained. In the thirteenth year of Hongwu (1380 AD), under the influence of Hu Weiyong's case, Zhu Yuanzhang, the grandfather of the Ming Dynasty, issued an edict that "I will now depose the chancellor of the dynasty" and stressed that "in the future, the heirs will not be allowed to establish a chancellor". The Chancellor, which lasted for nearly seventeen centuries, ceased to exist.
Prime Minister is not the same as Prime Minister
The prime minister is the central link linking the monarchy and the bureaucracy, participating in the decision-making of major matters of the state, and managing the military, political, financial and other powers, "the office of the prime minister, the son of the son, the chief official, the ruler of everything. The task is high. "In order to prevent the prime minister from sitting on the throne, the multi-phase system was used to disintegrate the power of the prime minister, which became an important means for the monarch to restrain the power of the prime minister.
The Western Han Dynasty established three dukes to jointly handle the country's military and political affairs. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, a three-province system was established with Zhongshu, Shangshu, and Menxia as the main three provinces, and their chiefs were equivalent to the prime ministers. The Five Dynasties and the Song Dynasty followed the Tang system and made Tongzhongshu Menxia Pingzhangshi the prime minister. During the Northern Song Dynasty, Shangshu left and right servants were used as prime ministers, and the Southern Song Dynasty changed the left and right servants to left and right servants. The Yuan Dynasty changed the three-province system into a provincial system, established Zhongshu Province, left and right officials such as Xiang Xiang, Pingzhang, and Participatory Political Officers, and exercised the functions and powers of the prime minister.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang maintained a one-province system, and because of the dictatorship of the right minister Hu Weiyong, he abolished the one-province system and the minister, improved the status of the six ministries, divided the power of the six ministers, and set up a cabinet to assist the emperor in handling government affairs with cabinet scholars. After the ming dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, there was still a cabinet, and the university scholar was equivalent to the prime minister. In order to prevent the leakage of secrets, the Yongzheng Emperor set up a military aircraft department in the cabinet, and the personnel was uncertain, and the military aircraft minister handled the administrative affairs and became the prime minister with real power. From the perspective of historical development, the prime minister has evolved from a single official position to a system of power decomposition.
In fact, the prime minister is only a title for the prime minister system.
At the beginning of the Qin Kingdom, the Xiang Dynasty was set up as a helper for the Xiang Kingdom. At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, "put a minister, change the name of Xiangguo in eleven years, green silk." "The position of the chancellor was straightened out and became an important position in an annunciated state. After that, Xiang Xiang survived for more than 1600 years until it was abolished by Zhu Yuanzhang. However, the Ming Dynasty replaced the chancellor with a cabinet, and the system of prime ministers still existed, which shows the fundamental difference between prime ministers and prime ministers.
In addition, although many historical figures do not have the name of prime minister, they do have the reality of prime minister. During the reign of Tang Wude, Li Shimin served as Shang Shuling in charge of government affairs. During this period, he launched the "Xuanwumen Revolution". In the third year of the Northern Song Dynasty (1070), Wang Anshi served as the Pingzhangshi of Tongzhongshu Menxia and presided over the implementation of the new law of Xining. Zhang Juzheng, Li Dongyang and others of the Ming Dynasty, and Suo Etu and Zhang Tingyu of the Qing Dynasty also shouldered the heavy responsibility of assisting the government.
Therefore, the prime minister must include the prime minister, who cannot represent the prime minister, and the two cannot simply be equated.
Zai Zhi Minister has a high position of power and participates in government affairs, which has an irreplaceable role, but the official position of Zai Zhi is not hereditary, and the power is jointly controlled by the Zai Zhi team, and its organization and name are uncertain.
And the chancellor is only a branch of the prime minister system. Chen Ping, the famous minister of the Western Han Dynasty, had an incisive summary of the zaizhi chancellor: "The prime minister, the shangzuo tianzi rational yin and yang, shun four times, the lower cultivation of all things, the outer town of the four Yi princes, the internal relatives attached to the people, so that the qing doctor can be prepared to take up his duties." In short, the chancellor occupied a very important position in the ancient political system.
Text: Count white as black
References: Zhou Li, Shuowen Jiezi, Later Han Shu, Han Feizi Xianxue
The text was created by the History University Hall team, and the picture originated from the Internet and the copyright belongs to the original author