official communications in

imperial China The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the '' Book of Documents'' (early chapt ...

, the era which lasted from the 221 BC until AD 1912, required predictable forms and means. Documents flowed down from the

Emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother ( ...

to officials, from officials to the Emperor, from one part of the bureaucracy to others, and from the Emperor or his officials to the people. These documents, especially

memorials to the throne A memorial to the throne () was an official communication to the Emperor of China. They were generally careful essays in Classical Chinese and their presentation was a formal affair directed by government officials. Submission of a memorial was a ...

, were preserved in collections which became more voluminous with each passing dynasty and make the Chinese historical record extraordinarily rich. This article briefly describes the major forms and types of communication going up to and down from the emperor.

Edicts, orders, and proclamations to the people

Under

Chinese law Chinese law is one of the oldest legal traditions in the world. The core of modern Chinese law is based on Germanic-style civil law, socialist law, and traditional Chinese approaches. For most of the history of China, its legal syste ...

, the emperor's edicts had the force of law. By the time the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...

established the basic patterns of bureaucracy, edicts or commands could be issued either by the emperor or in the emperor's name by the proper official or unit of the government. Important edicts were carved on stone tablets for public inspection. One modern scholar counted more than 175 different terms for top down commands, orders, edicts, and such. Edicts formed a recognized category of prose writing. The

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

scholar

Yao Nai Yao Nai (姚鼐, pinyin: Yáo Nài; 1731–1815) was a scholar of the Qing Dynasty. Born in Tongcheng (), Anhui Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China regio ...

ranked "Edicts and orders" (Zhao-ling) as one of the thirteen categories of prose writing, citing prototypes which went back to the

Zhou dynasty The Zhou dynasty ( ; Old Chinese ( B&S): *''tiw'') was a royal dynasty of China that followed the Shang dynasty. Having lasted 789 years, the Zhou dynasty was the longest dynastic regime in Chinese history. The military control of China by th ...

and the '' Book of History''. Han dynasty edicts, sometimes actually written by high officials in the name of the emperor, were known for their literary quality. In later dynasties, both emperors and officials who wrote in the emperor's name published collections of edicts. The history of China features a range of famous edicts and instructions. Here are examples in chronological order: * An edict issued in 213 BC by

Qin Shi Huang Qin Shi Huang (, ; 259–210 BC) was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of a unified China. Rather than maintain the title of " king" ( ''wáng'') borne by the previous Shang and Zhou rulers, he ruled as the First Empero ...

of the

Qin dynasty The Qin dynasty ( ; zh, c=秦朝, p=Qín cháo, w=), or Ch'in dynasty in Wade–Giles romanization ( zh, c=, p=, w=Ch'in ch'ao), was the first dynasty of Imperial China. Named for its heartland in Qin state (modern Gansu and Shaanxi), ...

ordered the

burning of books and burying of scholars The burning of books and burying of scholars (), also known as burning the books and executing the ru scholars, refers to the purported burning of texts in 213 BCE and live burial of 460 Confucian scholars in 212 BCE by the Chinese emperor ...

. * The Edict on the Proclamation of the Dynastic Name (建國號詔) issued in 1271 by Emperor Shizu of the

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fif ...

promulgated the official dynastic name of "Great Yuan", officially established the Yuan dynasty as a Chinese dynasty, and explicitly claimed political succession from the

Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors The Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors were two groups of mythological rulers in ancient north China. The Three Sovereigns supposedly lived long before The Five Emperors, who have been assigned dates in a period from 3162 BC to 2070 BC. Today t ...

to the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

. * The

Hongwu Emperor The Hongwu Emperor (21 October 1328 – 24 June 1398), personal name Zhu Yuanzhang (), courtesy name Guorui (), was the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty of China, reigning from 1368 to 1398. As famine, plagues and peasant revolts i ...

of the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

issued a series of Great Warnings (御製大誥) which informed his people and his bureaucracy of their failings and his instructions to correct them. * Also issued by the Hongwu Emperor, the Instructions of the Ancestor was effectively an edict directed at his descendants. * The Hongwu Emperor also issued the Six Maxims (聖諭六言) which instructed his subjects:

Treat your parents with piety; respect your elders and superiors; live at peace in your villages; instruct your children and grandchildren; make your living peacefully; commit no wrong.

* The

Kangxi Emperor The Kangxi Emperor (4 May 1654– 20 December 1722), also known by his temple name Emperor Shengzu of Qing, born Xuanye, was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1661 to ...

of the Qing dynasty issued the

Sacred Edict In 1670, when the Kangxi Emperor of China's Qing dynasty was sixteen years old, he issued the Sacred Edict (), consisting of sixteen maxims, each seven characters long, to instruct the average citizen in the basic principles of Confucian orthodox ...

in 1670 to educate his subjects on

Confucian Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or ...

principles. This was to be posted in every village and read periodically to the assembled population. The edict was later expanded upon by the

Yongzheng Emperor The Yongzheng Emperor (13 December 1678 – 8 October 1735), also known by his temple name Emperor Shizong of Qing, born Yinzhen, was the fourth Emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the third Qing emperor to rule over China proper. He reigned from ...

in 1724 and distributed in Chinese,

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) an ...

and Mongolian languages. * The

Qianlong Emperor The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, born Hongli, was the fifth Emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1735 ...

issued an edict to

George III of the United Kingdom George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

in 1793 instructing him that England had nothing of value to offer.

Memorials

A memorial, most commonly ''zouyi'', was the most important form of document sent by an official to the Emperor. In the early dynasties, the terms and formats of the memorial were fluid, but by the

, codes and statutes specified what terminology could be used by what level of official in what particular type of document dealing with what particular type of problem. Criminal codes specified punishments for mistranscriptions or using a character that was forbidden because it was used in one of the emperor's names. The Emperor might reply at length, perhaps dictating a rescript in response. More often he made a notation in the margin in vermilion ink (which only the emperor could use) stating his wishes. Or he might simply write "forward to the proper ministry," "noted," or use his brush to make a circle, the equivalent of a checkmark, to indicate that he had read the document. In 1370, the

Hongwu emperor The Hongwu Emperor (21 October 1328 – 24 June 1398), personal name Zhu Yuanzhang (), courtesy name Guorui (), was the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty of China, reigning from 1368 to 1398. As famine, plagues and peasant revolts i ...

established an office to organize the flow of memorials, which could come from both officials and commoners, and this became the Office of Transmission ''(Tongzheng si)''. The staff copied each memorial received, and forwarded the original to the emperor. The emperor once severely scolded a director of the office for failing to report several memorials: “Stability depends on superior and inferior communicating; there is none when they do not. From ancient times, many a state has fallen because a ruler did not know the affairs of the people.” By the height of the

in the 18th century, memorials from bureaucrats at the central, provincial, and county level supplied the emperors (and modern historians) with personnel evaluations, crop reports, prices in local markets, weather predictions, intelligence on social affairs, and any other matter of possible interest. Memorials were transported by government couriers and then copied and summarized by the

Grand Secretariat The Grand Secretariat (; Manchu: ''dorgi yamun'') was nominally a coordinating agency but ''de facto'' the highest institution in the imperial government of the Chinese Ming dynasty. It first took shape after the Hongwu Emperor abolished the o ...

, which itself had been perfected in the preceding Ming dynasty. They would be copied by clerks and entered into official registers. This bureaucracy saved the emperor from being swamped with tedious detail but might also shield him from information which he needed to know. The

(r. 1672-1720), the Yongzheng Emperor (r. 1720-1736), and the

(r. 1736-1793) therefore developed a supplementary system of "Palace Memorials" (''zouzhe'') which they instructed local officials to send directly, without passing through bureaucratic filters. One type, the "Folding Memorial," was written on a page small enough for the Emperor to hold in his hand and read without being observed. The Yongzheng Emperor, who preferred the written system over audiences, increased the use of these palace memorials by more than ten times over his father. He found he could get quick responses to emergency requests instead of waiting for the formal report, or give frank instructions: Of one official he said, “he is good-hearted, hard-working old hand. I think he’s very good. But he’s a bit coarse... just like Zhao Xiangkui, except that Zhao is intelligent.” Likewise a provincial governor could frankly report that a subordinate was “scatter brained.” The emperor could then instruct the official to also submit a routine memorial. Most important, bypassing the regular bureaucracy made it easier for the emperor to have his own way without being restricted by the regulations of the administrative code. The system of memorials and rescripts, even more than personal audiences, was the emperor's way to shape and cement relations with his officials. Memorials could be quite specific and even personal, since the emperor knew many of his officials quite well. The Kangxi Emperor, for instance, wrote one of his generals: :"I am fine. It is cool now outside the passes. There has been enough rain so the food now is very good... You're an old man -- are grandfather and grandmother both well?" But sometimes impatience broke through: "Stop the incessant sending of these greetings!" or "I hear tell you've been drinking. If after receiving my edict you are not able to refrain, and so turn your back on my generosity, I will no longer value you or your services." The historian

Jonathan Spence Jonathan Dermot Spence (11 August 1936 – 25 December 2021) was an English-born American historian, Sinology, sinologist, and writer who specialized in History of China, Chinese history. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale Universit ...

translated and joined together memorials of the Kangxi Emperor to form an autobiographical "self-portrait" which gives an feel for the emperor's place in the flow of government.Jonathan D. Spence. ''Emperor of China: Self Portrait of K'ang Hsi'' (New York: Vintage Books, 1975). .

References

Citations

Sources

* Beatrice S. Bartlett. ''Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in Mid-Ch'ing China, 1723-1820.'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). . * * Philip A. Kuhn,

John King Fairbank John King Fairbank (May 24, 1907 – September 14, 1991) was an American historian of China and United States–China relations. He taught at Harvard University from 1936 until his retirement in 1977. He is credited with building the field of C ...

, with the assistance of Beatrice S. Bartlett and Chiang Yung-chen, ''Introduction to Ch`ing Documents'' (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard-Yenching Institute, 1993). A syllabus for the study of Qing documents. * Ch. 20 "Official Communications," in Endymion Wilkinson. '' Chinese History: A New Manual.'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series. New Edition; Second, Revised printing March 2013; , pp. 280–285. * Silas H. L. Wu. ''Communication and Imperial Control in China: Evolution of the Palace Memorial System, 1693-1735.'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; Harvard East Asian Series, 1970). . {{refend Imperial China Qing dynasty Imperial Decrees Bureaucratic organization