The origin of the envoys and inspectors
If you look at Chinese history from a certain height, you will find that between the Zhou Dynasty and the Qin Dynasty, between the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty, and between the Yuan Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, there was a watershed of epoch-making significance -- the fall of the Zhou Dynasty meant the basic disintegration of the feudal system, and the Qin meant the full advent of the era of counties and counties; the demise of the Tang Meant the End of the Aristocratic Society; the Establishment of the Song Meant the Arrival of the Common people's Society; the Yuan Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, followed by a brand-new political system.
Zhu Yuanzhang's Ming Dynasty did several things that had never been done before: abolishing the prime minister, and the monarch pooling all power into one; at the local level, the authority of the provincial governor was divided into three, and the three posts of commander, envoy, and envoy were set up to administer a province. Among them, the commanders are responsible for the command of the local armed forces; the envoys are responsible for the local civil affairs and finances; and the envoys are responsible for local criminal prosecution and justice. Zhu Yuanzhang did this in order to prevent the emergence of centralized power in the localities. Therefore, traditional historians believe that the Ming Dynasty was the beginning of the peak of China's absolute monarchy, and it was by no means the beginning of a constitutional monarchy.
In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, peasant uprisings broke out in many provinces, and in order to effectively suppress the uprisings of the peasant army, the Ming court temporarily set up local posts such as governors and inspectors, responsible for mediating the human resources of one province or more provinces to suppress the uprising.
After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the Ming Dynasty system was fully accepted, and the governor and inspector were set up as permanent local officials, thus creating a long-term coexistence of inspectors and envoys.
The status of the envoy changes
In the Ming Dynasty, when it came to the rank of local officials, it was the highest command of all. However, because the commanders and envoys are only in charge of the military and have no right to meddle in the administration and justice, although the rank is high, there is no place to use power.
The rank of envoys is slightly lower than that of the envoys, but since the power of the envoys is mainly in the administrative and financial aspects, which means that they have the most abundant political resources, the envoys are regarded as "fat shortages" among local officials compared with the envoys and envoys.
In the Qing Dynasty, as the inspectors became permanent officials at the local level, the envoys were almost the same in rank as the inspectors (and even in cases of equal ranks), but in terms of specific work, the envoys and envoys were reduced to assistants and deputies of the inspectors in terms of functions—the inspectors were responsible for the overall work of a province, while the envoys and envoys continued to be in charge of their respective business scopes on the basis of assisting the inspectors.
Delicate relationships
However, although the power of the inspector is greater than that of the envoy, this does not mean that in terms of power, the inspector can completely suppress the envoy. Because the original intention of setting up governors and envoys at the local level was that the imperial court did not want the concentration of power at the local level. If the power of the inspector is too great, this is not what the emperor wants to see.
Therefore, the emperor gave the envoys the right to specifically check whether local officials were qualified. This means that it is very difficult for the inspector to organize his own team at the local level. In addition, many things that are directly managed by the envoys (such as local finances and taxes), the patrol is also more difficult to intervene.
Therefore, it can be summed up like this: the authority of the inspector is large and wide, and the authority of the envoy is relatively precise and specific, and both sides have their own strengths and contain each other.