Cabinet Before And After The Ming Dynasty, "grand Ceremony" Body Potential Changes

The Great Ritual Controversy at the beginning of Jiajing period is an important political affair in the middle Ming Dynasty. It seemed that it was only the debate about the ritual in the emperor's family between the newly throned Emperor Jiajing and the staff of the Cabinet; however, it deeply concerned the change of the power structure among the emperor, the Cabinet and the administrative system. This thesis attempts to research on the evolution of the Cabinet from the point of the Great Ritual Controversy and analyze how this very affair affected the political situation of the Ming Dynasty by examining the change of the Cabinet Authority.In the beginning, the Cabinet of the Ming Dynasty functioned as a secretary body to the Emperor. Its power appeared to be increasing gradually before the Great Ritual Controversy. In the turning point of Zhengde and Jiajing, there emerged a temporary imperial power vacancy. In this situation, the Cabinet led a structural change toward a powerful bureaucratic administrative system. The Cabinet reached the summit of power.Hold this power in hand, Yang Tinghe and his staff of the Cabinet led the bureaucratic administrative system to debate on the ritual with the Emperor. In the course of it, Yang Tinghe left his post, which formed a turning point. From then on, the authority of the Cabinet became weaker compared with the increasing of imperial power.Hence, the Cabinet dominated central power structure formed during the period between Zhengde and Jiajing was not institutionalized due to the failure of Yang Tinghe and his staff in the Great Ritual Controversy. After that, the development tendencies of the Cabinet's authority varied concerning different governmental branches. The staff of the Cabinet fell into constant quarrel among themselves and failed to reach consensus in administrative practice. Compared with imperial power, the Cabinet's authority became much weaker than before, and this tendency continued tothe end of the Ming Dynasty. On the other hand, compared with the administrative system, the authority of the Cabinet continued to increase just like before. Because the Cabinet's position as the highest-ranked office of the administrative system was never legalized, its trespass on the power of the Six Ministries led to the protest of them. From the middle period of Wanli, the Ministry of Personnel demanded that its power should be given back, which caused conflicts between the Ministry and the Cabinet. The partisan struggle was intensified from them on. The Cabinet became a crippled leader of the bureaucracy in the late period of Wanli, and the whole bureautic system was further disabled in decision-making. In this sense, the Great Ritual Controversy was a turning point of the middle Ming Dynasty, after which the internal consumption intensified, the partisan struggle got more severe, and the efficiency of the central administrative system became worse and worse.