Inner And Outer:a Study On Sifang Guan And The Officials Of Sifang Guan In Northern Song Dynasty

Sifang Guan was born in Sui Dynasty, as a temporary diplomatic institute for reception of foreigners. It is in Tang Dynasty Sifang Guan was regularized as a diplomatic reception institution, which paralleled to Honglusi. In the meanwhile, it also administrated some domestic affairs, such as reception of gifts and important ministers across the country. When Song Dynasty was founded, Sifangguan was kept. However, its function had changed from diplomatic reception to domestic management of officials and ministers as the diplomacy became specialized. At the early time of Song Dynasty, the high official of Sifangguan was Jianjiaoguan, which named Sifangguanshi during Chunhua years of Song Taizong. The Sifangguanshi has double identities:the official of Sifangguan and military official of Song, which were difficult to tell. In one hand, Sifangguanshi functioned as the confidential of the Emperor to manager various documents from officials and different etiquettes of the court. On the other hand, he often appeared as a general to defense the boundaries and this trend was increasingly growing. Later, these two identities were separated into two different officals:Sifangguanshi was specialized into military affair as Gongweidafu and the official of Sifangguan managed the Sifangguan.