MING And QING Dynasty Royal Court Administration

The royal court administrative institution played a significant role in a centralized absolute monarchy society, and the merits of royal family's management therefore raised to a political point with the doctrine known as"union of family and country". Valued internal and external order, the service institution became an officially inner court. In the context of MING and QING dynasty royal court administration, our discussion would be limited in the inner court. To management food, clothing, housing and transportation and such basic work, we are seeing them in a traditional way– servant.MING dynasty had not form a independently operated complete department in inner court. There were eunuch and female officer management worked together, mutually served the feudal rulers and the royal family. The eunuch mechanism had been developed for a long period, initiated in Qin and Han Dynasty, prospered in Han and Tang Dynasty, and matured and fully developed in Ming Dynasty. The eunuch institution had a delicate division of labor, completed mechanism. The"24-Divisions"were exclusively to cope with inner court; they can be subcategorized as 12 departments, 4 offices and 8 sectors. Though the eunuch was severely selected, the reward and punishment system was usually flexible. This mechanism, however, became too powerful as it not only did the descriptive job, but involved in political operations. And then further influenced marginal political of inner court or economy. Nevertheless, the same mechanism was never considered beyond power without limit as a whole in Ming Dynasty. There were also more than 2000 years of history, before the female officer institution had established a perfected system. There were"six sectors and one office"in HongWu Reign, Ming Dynasty, the most developed reign. The female had its own characteristic, and an influence that cannot be ignored in harem. Eunuch and female officer basically appeared to be in a corporate relationship, both emotionally and functionally. But saying that the latter can control the disorder caused by the former is overstated.The Thirteen-Eunuch in Qing Dynasty, as a mechanism, were the officially eunuch institution before the establishment of Ministry of Internal Order. And this Ministry of Internal Order had firstly united systematically all the people that served harem, which consequently ceased the existent of eunuch as a mechanism. Speaking of power, eunuch were more severely restrained in Qing Dynasty, more contained, as they were then only doing the routine work. Strictly speaking, the female officer was never even existed as department; there were just few individual groups. Administrative affairs were mostly commanded by Ministry of Internal Order, only the simple services were performed by female officer lived in the bottom of the hierarchy - palace maid. The principle of selection was slightly changed, but salary and official rank were still in low. Ministry of Internal Order acted as the first official administration in inner court, set-up"seven offices and three division", had exceeded the power scope of inner court. It could be seen as the reflect of six ministries in inner court, they were functionally corresponding, and cooperating; it also acted as a reliable agent of the rulers, shared a co-independent and ambiguous relationship.As the last two dynasties, Ming and Qing had the internal administrative institution which experienced from prosperous to deterioration. Compare to former Dynasties, the administration of inner court of Ming and Qing Dynasty had grown and developed to a more completed system. Studying of this can be more than the reference of administration of those Dynasties at that time; it also provides the sample and illustration of today's enterprise and state administration.