In our view, China's emperor has boundless power and can do whatever he wants, but in fact, the emperor can not do anything, otherwise there is no such thing as changing dynasties, but the emperor should theoretically have a lot of power, but not all the power belongs to the emperor, the emperor needs to share or authorize others to consolidate his power, but some power emperors can not share, once the emperor is lost, it is finished.
So what powers does the emperor have, what powers can be shared, what powers can be delegated, and which powers are unique to the emperor?
1: The right of sacrifice, in ancient times, primitive religion or primitive superstition occupied a very important component, the high priest of a tribe is the most prestigious and powerful person, and in Chinese history, the royal power has continuously seized the position of theocracy, merging it into one, such as the famous heaven and earth in ancient Chinese mythology, which actually represents the complete seizure of the divine power by the king, since then, the sacrifice of sacrifice, especially the sacrifice of heaven and earth, has been monopolized by the king and the emperor. This is not only the case in China, but also in other countries, such as the theocratic unity of the Arab Empire, the ancient Roman Emperor also controlled the Church, but the European medieval kind of pope independence from European countries or even above it is not normal, and in modern times this situation has also been greatly changed, several major powers have completed the unification of royal and theocracy, such as the Anglican Church is to unify the British king and the state religious leader, France, Germany and even Tsarist Russia are so.
Back to the Chinese emperor, the Chinese emperor's sacrificial power is extremely important and cannot be shared, liu Chan, the lord of the Shu Han Dynasty, gave a lot of power to Zhuge Liang during the Zhuge Liang period, but still had to retain the right to sacrifice, "the government is from Ge's family, the sacrifice is by the widow" is typical, other powers can be given to Zhuge Liang, but the power to sacrifice ancestors and heaven must be brought by the emperor, otherwise it is not the emperor.
2: Military power, in ancient times, the king's two most important attributes, military leaders and religious sacrifices, in ancient times the king was every time he went out to lead the army, which was still the case in some european countries in the Middle Ages, and the great war must be led by the king himself.
The same is true of the founding emperor of our country, and the eastern and western expeditions are all the emperors themselves who hold the overall military power and even go out on expeditions. However, China and the West have a great difference, the West since the ancient Rome barbarian kingdoms are mostly small, the big war does not need authorization, the king with the main force can control the overall situation, such as the Hundred Years' War between England and France, many battles between the kings, because so many armies, no king can not raise so many troops, no one has the prestige to act.
However, when the size of the country reaches a certain level, it is inevitable that military power will be authorized, which is inevitable, for example, Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Western Han Dynasty, can fight, but also has to authorize the northern war situation to Han Xin, while Liu Xiu of the Eastern Han Dynasty basically entrusted other generals to go out after unifying Hebei.
Even the founding emperor was like this, and the future emperors had little command experience, let alone must be authorized to the generals.
But the problem is that military power is too important, once the military power is completely lost, the Chen Qiao Mutiny is almost inevitable, so in order to control military power, the emperor must be divided and contained, such as dividing the main army into several parts, no general can control the main troops, once forced to carry out a decisive battle, it is necessary to send a supervising army to limit the power of the main general, so the inexplicable failures and infighting in many battles are essentially for a reason.
3: Financial power: Although the whole world can not be the royal land, in theory all the land and wealth are owned by the emperor, but in fact it is impossible, not to mention that the emperor can not do the wealth of the people without reason to obtain it plainly, even if the national treasury tax emperor can not be obtained for no reason, the emperor is more like the patriarch of a family, the national treasury is like the family property, the emperor can use various excuses to seize the family property, but this will inevitably cause the dissatisfaction of the family, and eventually lead to regurgitation.
However, just as the patriarch of the family also has his own private property, the emperor also has his own private property, the emperor can use his own private property to enjoy without being blamed, and even supplement the national treasury, if there is no private property of his own, not to mention that it is easy to cause dissatisfaction from top to bottom, and even control will be greatly affected. Of course, these private properties still needed to be taken care of, and in ancient times, the eunuchs who took care of the emperors were often the eunuchs.
4: Administrative power: This is basically the emperor can not fully control the power, if it is a small town, a person may, may only be able to govern, and a country can not be controlled by a person, can only be authorized layer by layer, such as the county system is the emperor authorized the county guard, the county guard authorized the county order, and in fact, the three levels of authorization can not be done, often require many layers of authorization to control the administrative power.
Although China's centralized power is not like the feudal feudal system of the ancient European period, the upper level has no jurisdiction over the lower layer. But it is not realistic to expect the emperor to be able to control millions of people, in fact, the emperor can control the hundreds of people around him is very good, the emperor's administrative power is basically shared with other bureaucrats, the emperor is only nominally owned.
5: Personnel power, which is the most important and key power controlled by the emperor, because the above four powers, in addition to the sacrificial power of the emperor can ensure control, other military financial and administrative powers are entrusted by the emperor to others to perform, so the emperor must control the key personnel power, that is, to put trusted people in a key position.
Although it is said that there are countless official positions in the imperial dynasty, even there are many officials of one pin and two products, in fact, many emperors can only remember the names of hundreds of people, and those who have impressions can only be limited to dozens of acquaintances, and from these dozens of people, a few masters of military administration, finance, and personnel can be selected.
In fact, it is difficult to put the most capable or suitable people in the most suitable position one by one, so in the end the emperor basically chooses two ways, one is to entrust a person, such as the prime minister, in fact, the deputy emperor, the whole control, the emperor only needs to control the prime minister and the three dukes. But this will find that the phase power is too large in the actual process. Another way is that the emperor controls the inner court, such as the system of the Ming Dynasty, the celebrant and the cabinet are all appointed by the emperor, the official Shangshu is appointed by the emperor, and the other appointments and removals are actually tingtu, that is, everyone discusses and does it, and even encounters the hand-throwing treasurer, the official Shangshu can be pushed.
And the middle-level bureaucrats, especially the local officials, the emperor actually did not know a lot, especially the local officials of Zhixian, who were known as the Marquis of Baili, the emperor may not remember.
6: Legislative power, although it is said that the emperor has a golden mouth and a jade word, exports into the constitution, but in fact the emperor only nominally has the legislative power, the laws of each dynasty and generation are actually not formulated by the emperor himself, but by the bureaucratic and aristocratic collegial deliberations at all levels, the emperor only has the right of veto, that is to say, the emperor feels that this is too restrictive to himself, he can veto the power.
Even after the law was formed, it was difficult for the emperor to modify it, even if in theory the emperor was not restricted by the law, but in fact there were many cases of courtiers holding the law and fighting the emperor or even more than once successfully, the main reason for this was that once the law was formed, it was the emperor's weapon for ruling from the top down of the entire ruling group, and if the emperor did not obey it, then the bureaucratic aristocracy below did not obey it at all, and the dynasty could not be maintained.
So what the emperor has at this point is the veto power of legislation and the power of extrajudicial grace. In fact, many modern leaders can do this.
7: The right of arbitration, which is the power that the emperor has always had in theory, is also a very critical power, but the emperor often gives up this power, on the one hand, there are too many things that need to be arbitrated, on the other hand, once the arbitration is done by the emperor, it cannot be changed, once there are bad consequences, it will greatly damage the prestige of the emperor and even the imperial dynasty, but the emperor can not give up this arbitration power, so the most common thing to do is to let everyone discuss, observe the public opinion and strength of the government and the opposition, and choose the side that is beneficial to themselves. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that the emperor actually saw the wind and made the rudder.