In China's thousands of years of political history, anti-corruption and clean government construction have always been the focus of attention. As a key part of the construction of the ancient political system, the supervision system plays a vital role in strengthening the centralization of power and maintaining feudal rule.
Each dynasty inherited and developed the supervision system in order to find the most suitable development path for itself, to achieve a relative balance between the power of the monarch and the minister, and to strengthen the centralization of the monarchy as much as possible.
During the Tang Dynasty, the prosperity and development of politics, economy, culture, society and other aspects promoted the unprecedented progress of the supervision system. The author of this article will ** the historical changes of the Tang Dynasty imperial history platform system, and its influence on subsequent dynasties.
The supervision system in ancient China can be traced back to the period of the Yellow Emperor, and began to sprout and develop in the Qin and Han dynasties.
And the name "Imperial History" has been recorded as early as in Yinxu's divination.
Since Qin Shi Huang unified the six countries, a person named "Imperial Historian" was set up in **, who was responsible for handling documents and supervising work. At the local level, a person named "Supervisor Yu Shi" was set up to supervise and manage the affairs of the counties under his jurisdiction.
Over time, the title of Inspector has changed, but its responsibilities have not changed. With the development of society, the functions of the imperial history are constantly changing, from the original administrative affairs to the nature of supervision.
Since the beginning of the Western Han Dynasty, the imperial historian has become the supreme supervisor, whose main responsibilities are to be in charge of the law, audit the work of **, oversee hundreds of officials and supervise between the upper and lower levels.
In the imperial history, the person who assists the work, and the subordinate servant or supervisor is the person who is specifically responsible for supervising the work. At that time, there was a parallel system of counties and states, so the actual scope of supervision was relatively small, and most of them were carried out at the level of direct management.
In the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, the ruling class revised and strengthened the supervision mechanism, canceled the general effect of the supervision history, and replaced it with the inspection of the assassination history directly led by the upper level.
During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, a Sili school captain was set up to supervise Gyeonggi**, including the Three Dukes. The establishment of the superintendent of postal services has improved the supervision of the county from county to county, and the county magistrate and the county magistrate have regular or irregular inspections and supervision.
During the reign of Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty, the Imperial Historian changed his name to Da Sikong and became one of the "Three Princes", participated in the administrative system, and was no longer specifically responsible for supervision tasks. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the imperial history became a full-time supervisor of the first institution, marking the establishment of the ancient imperial history supervision system in China, and also meant that the function of the imperial history post was completely shifted to supervision.
The history of the Han Dynasty is mainly divided into several types:
In ancient times, the imperial history platform system reached maturity and perfection in the Sui and Tang dynasties. During the Sui Dynasty, the Imperial Historical Observatory, the Sili Tai and the Gongshi Tai Gong Department were set up to supervise the affairs. The Imperial Historical Observatory is responsible for the supervision of the hundred officials in Beijing, the Si Litai is responsible for the picketing of the local ** in the national capital and its nearby areas and counties, and the Confessor is responsible for sending envoys to the counties and counties to carry out inspections.
However, Si Litai was soon deposed. In the Tang Dynasty, Taizong attached great importance to the imperial officials, so he paid special attention to the adjustment of the supervision system, and added two people in the palace to serve the imperial history and supervise the imperial history.
In the last years of Zhenguan, in order to combine the supervision power with the judicial power, the Yushitai had the right to "prohibit the case". In the second year of Longshuo, in order to eliminate redundant officials and strengthen the governance of officials, Tang Gaozong carried out a drastic reform of the official system, renamed the imperial history platform as Xiantai, the imperial history doctor was renamed as the great Si Xian, and the imperial history Zhongcheng was renamed the Si Xian doctor.
In the Wu Zhou period, in order to further consolidate the political power, strengthen the supervision of the first and the centralized rule of the army, and change the imperial history platform to the left Su political platform, and at the same time set up the right Su political platform with the same responsibilities, so as to supervise the division of labor and cooperation between the ** and the local **.
In 705 AD, Emperor Zhongzong changed the Suzheng Platform to the Imperial History Observatory, which led to the parallel rights of the two Tai in the supervision of the capital division and the state and county, and the overlap of powers and responsibilities was serious, resulting in the imperial history of the conflict.
Despite the political turmoil during this period, the Tang rulers still attached great importance to the supervisory institutions, which they used to counterbalance political opponents and safeguard their ruling interests.
In 712 AD, Tang Xuanzong succeeded to the throne, taking the Taoist idea of pure and quiet inaction as the way to govern the country, reforming official positions and rectifying the rule of officials. He thought that the two imperial histories competed with the hundred officials in Beijing, and they were unbearable, so according to the system of Zhenguan, the right station was abolished and the supervisor of the right station was moved to the left platform, and the left station was changed to the imperial history platform.
In this way, the political situation in the DPRK began to stabilize, and the institutional setup was relatively fixed. In March of the seventh year of Tang Gaozu Wude, the Tang Dynasty created a national institution such as six provinces and nine temples.
During the Taizong period, the imperial historian was the main way to be promoted to prime minister. Since then, the supervision system of the Tang Dynasty has been gradually improved, and the supervision function has been steadily implemented. The development process of the imperial history supervision system fully reflects the historical evolution of China's feudal supervision system, and the supervision system of the Tang Dynasty's imperial history platform is to absorb and inherit the essence of the previous dynasty's supervision system.
The three-court system established by the Tang Dynasty was followed by successive rulers until the Ming Dynasty, when it was replaced by the Imperial Procuratorate. Over the past few hundred years, although the specific system and official positions have changed, the Yushitai system has been inherited as the basic framework of the supervision system, and has had a far-reaching impact on later generations, especially in the inheritance of the supervision system of the Song and Yuan dynasties to the Tang Dynasty.
The Song Dynasty established the Tidian Criminal Prison Department and the Imperial Historical Observatory as the main supervisory bodies, among which the Imperial Historical Observatory had a wider range of responsibilities and greater powers, and its status and authority were comparable to those of today's Supreme Procuratorate.
The Goshidai is responsible for supervising the morality and behavior of the nation's **, and imposes severe penalties for violations of the regulations. In terms of institutional setting, there are three departments under the Imperial History Observatory, with a total of nine Imperial Historians, one of whom is in charge of the Taiwan Academy, two are in charge of the Palace, and the remaining six are in charge of the Imperial Palace.
In terms of functional division of labor, Yuanfeng restructuring is the dividing line. Before the restructuring, the Imperial History assisted the Imperial History Zhongcheng in handling Taiwan affairs as the deputy head of the Imperial History Stage, and was also responsible for miscellaneous affairs.
After the reform of Yuanfeng, the Supervision Imperial History Inspectorate was in charge of the Imperial Inspectorate and was responsible for supervising the six departments, which reflected the importance that the Song Dynasty attached to the supervision system. Unlike during the Tang Dynasty, the Song Dynasty supervised the imperial history by the emperor directly, rather than by the prime minister or on the recommendation of the prime minister.
This method of appointment showed that the status and authority of the superintendent of the imperial history in the Song Dynasty was extremely high, and he could report directly to the emperor and correct the mistakes of the prime minister. Therefore, the supervision of imperial history enjoyed extremely high authority and power in the Song Dynasty, and played a vital role in maintaining social justice and official integrity.
The supervision system of the Yuan Dynasty was perfect, and the two-level supervision mechanism of the **-local government was implemented in the early stage, and the Yushitai, Zhongshu Province and the Privy Council constituted the three major official offices in the center of the Yuan Dynasty, forming an overall political pattern of the separation of administrative power, military power and supervision power.
The Imperial History Observatory follows the Tang Dynasty system to set up three courts, but implements the tricameral system of the Taiwan Academy, the Procuratorate and the Imperial Division, and has positions such as the Imperial History Doctor from the first grade, the Zhongcheng from the Second Rank Imperial History and the Imperial History from the Second Grade, and also has the Supervision Imperial History responsible for picketing the corruption and misconduct of hundreds of officials to ensure that they are supervised in accordance with the law.
In the long history of the supervision system, innovation is the eternal theme. For example, in the Yuan Dynasty, in order to better supervise the locality, they set up the Xingyu Shitai, which was listed as the three major dispatched agencies along with the Xing Privy Council and the Xingzhong Shu Province.
Xingyu Shitai is divided into South and North Platforms, which are responsible for the supervision of the southeast and northwest regions respectively. In order to further improve the supervision system, the Yuan Dynasty introduced a sub-patrol system, allowing the ** of the Imperial Historical Observatory to conduct inspections in designated places and areas according to the emperor's orders, so as to perform the duty of correcting impeachment.
In the "Inscription of the Zhejiang West Procuratorate", there is a document that Xiao Taideng Dade went to Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces to inspect in six years, and Xu Youren went to Guangdong to rectify violations in the second year of Zhizhi. Under the institutional framework of Zhongtai and Xingtai, the Yuan Dynasty divided the country into 22 supervision districts, which served as the basic network of local supervision networks.
Each province has set up a clean and honest visit department, also known as the "constitutional department", which is stationed in various places, forming a nationwide vertical monitoring system. The functions of the Department of Suppression and Integrity are similar to those of the Department of Prosecution and Prosecution, but its main responsibilities are to supervise local civil affairs, rectify corrupt officials, and also accept cases of dissatisfaction with judgments by grassroots officials and citizens.
Therefore, the Yuan Dynasty's imperial history of the supervision and judicial power has been expanded and strengthened, because the abolition of the Dali Temple made the supervision and restraint power that originally belonged to the Dali Temple and the criminal department all belong to the Yushi Terrace.