Before Tang Taizong ascended to the pole, he had made a Shangshu order, and Taizong ascended the throne, and the courtiers did not dare to take the post of Shangshu Ling, so Shangshu Ling, the governor of Shangshu Province, was often vacant. There were only two lieutenants, namely Shangshu's left servant and the right servant.
If the left and right servants of Shangshu have the same titles, such as "Tongzhongshu Menxia Pingzhangshi", and "Consult the Machine", etc., they can attend the meeting of the political hall and obtain the status of the real prime minister.
First of all, Shang Shu and servants were all attached to this title, so the three provinces were all real prime ministers. But after the Kaiyuan Dynasty, that is, the Shangshu servant shot no longer had the title of attending the political hall.
If so, they only have the power to execute the order, but not to issue the order and participate in the decision-making of the order. What they hold is not the highest authority of **, so they must not be considered the real prime minister.
Excerpted from the second lecture of Qian Mu's "Political Gains and Losses in China in the Past Dynasties" "The ** Organization of the Tang Dynasty".
Before Tang Taizong Li Shimin ascended to the pole, he not only served as Shang Shuling, but also served as a general of Tiance, and these titles, such as General Tiance, were no longer there. As for Shang Shuling, because there are still appointments in later generations, his name still exists.
Li Shimin did not set up the Shangshu Order because Shangshu Province was too important, and the power was too big and heavy. The position of Shang Shuling cannot be as low as Zhongshu Ling and his subordinates, and he must be in a high position. The reason is that Shangshu Province is in charge of administration, and if it does not have the power of a high position, it cannot be implemented downward.
For example, in the Han Dynasty, the prime minister, the Taiwei, the imperial historian and even the Jiuqing were all 2,000 stones. The county guard is also 2,000 stones, so there is a question of who leads whom. 2,000 stones lead 2,000 stones, or the second grade leads the first product or even the third grade leads the second grade, which lacks logic.
On the surface, the prime minister is ranked among the three princes, and his position authority is higher than that of Jiuqing and the county guard, but the salary standard is the same as the county guard, which is really not smooth.
In the Tang Dynasty, among the local officials, Jingzhao, Henan, and Taiyuan were the most prominent, so they set up a government, similar to today's municipalities directly under the central government, and their administrative officials were pastors, from the second grade. The monk is on the right and left servants to shoot at the same level.
If you don't set it up this way, the official rank is low, and you can't show its importance. Moreover, the ** that was sent, if it was not **, could not reflect its importance in the imperial court.
Under the state pastor, Jingzhao and other seven prefectures are Yin, just from the three products.
Originally, Yin was the administrative supervisor, and Mu was the supervisor. At present, the head of administration is a full level lower than the Ombudsman, in fact, two levels. Therefore, the governor has no right to manage the state pastor. Mu, the ombudsman, actually became the magistrate.
There are states under the seven prefectures, and the history of the Zhongzhou thorn is the fourth product, and the history of the lower state thorn is from the four products.
The Tang Dynasty had 358 prefectures and more than 1,500 counties. In so many prefectures and counties, the administrative power is not in Zhongshu Province, not in Menxia Province, but in Shangshu Province and in Liubu.
Therefore, in this Shangshu Province, the grade is too low, and he can't manage these states and counties, the grade is too high, and the emperor is worried that the tail will not fall off and he will not be able to sleep.
What's more, the government can't go out of many ways, Shangshu Province is in charge of more than 300 prefectures, and the scope of jurisdiction is too large, if they are given decision-making power in addition to the executive power, this power will be even greater.
Ordinary people who read history feel very strange that Shangshu Province does not have a Shangshu order, and the left and right servants have no right to attend the political affairs hall meeting of the small imperial front meeting, especially the position of the left and right servants is higher than that of Zhongshu Ling and Menxia Langzhong, and thinks that this is too unreasonable.
People who can have this kind of thinking are actually full of today's democratic ideas, and even if they knew that the ancient emperors could not have democratic ideas, they would definitely put the ruler of democracy on the emperor's head.
It is not surprising that we understand ancient emperors, not from history, but from ** TV series. Among the writers, the most famous one who wrote about the emperors of the Qing Dynasty was Februaryhe, the most famous one who wrote about the Qin Dynasty was Sun Haohui, and those TV series, Qin Emperor Han Wu, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, which dynasty, there were so many so-called Ming monarchs, all of which were written all over.
The emperors seen from these literary and artistic works are full of their own people and people. Last year, there was a "Great Qin Fu", which wrote Qin Shi Huang as a national hero who saved all the people from fire and water, and was full of feelings of saving the country and saving the people.
We never thought that the so-called Ming Jun is actually just a long-lived king, and the administrative means cannot be described as not violent, and the rule of the people cannot be cruel.
Why does the scourge of witches, such a thing, most often appear in the so-called Ming Jun era? There is only one reason, the emperor does everything for the stability of power, thinking about it day and night, and there is only this one problem. Anyone or anything that is deemed likely to endanger the regime will be cut down to the roots.
Those so-called faint or mediocre kings, they don't want to think about the same problem, but it's useless to think about it.
For example, the Langyu Wang family I talked about before, Wang Dun rebelled, and the minister urged Sima Rui to punish the three clans of Wang Dun, Sima Rui did not dare to expand it, and even reused Wang Dao.
Judging from Sima Rui's original intention, didn't he want to destroy the Wang family? It's not that I don't want to, but I can't. The Wang family is too large, and if it is ordered to be destroyed, not only will it not be extinguished, but it will also force the entire Wang family to rebel together.
For the Wang family, they can only take dividing measures and break each one.
Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was wise and martial, he could do whatever he wanted, and what could he do? Without the stability of his grandfather and father, especially the foundation laid by the weakening of the power of his subjects, he probably would not have been able to accomplish anything.
People have a habit of playing games, in fact, the biggest gamer in the world is the emperor, and the emperor plays the game of balance of power, and this game is also the most difficult IQ game in the world.
In my personal opinion, the three-province system in the Tang Dynasty was a change in the rules of the previous political game, which was a very creative change and an inevitable change in the history of the development of the power game.
Just as the bourgeois revolution in the West in modern times did not change in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it would become the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and history would inevitably move towards this step.
This time, the topic is a bit far, detached from Mr. Qian Mu's real and false prime minister. It's really because I think that the so-called true and false prime ministers, there is nothing to say, so it is better to talk about why the emperor wants to reduce the power of the prime minister.
The emperor cut not the prime minister's power, but the administrative power, because he decided that the administrative power of Shangshu Province was too great for him to rest assured.
And the checks and balances of power is a university question, not a matter of increasing whose power and reducing whose power.
The defeat of these dynasties in ancient times was due to the problem of the balance of power.
Metaphysically, it is right, or in other words, the starting point is correct, and the deviation of metaphysics or square ** eventually becomes a mosquito nest.