The Formation Of The Cabinet System In The Ming Dynasty

The cabinet of Ming Dynasty was a political organization that was continuously changing. It was established in the Yongle period, whose formal token of formation was that Hanlin House moved out of the Wenyuan Palace in Zhengtong 7th year. Ming Dynasty's cabinet system was a political regime based on its politics of cabinet and systematical and integral political institutions were set up as guarantee. The transformation of the cabinet into a perpetual establishment and rise of the Drafting System and the Premier System served as the triple milestone of its formation.The origin of the cabinet system of Ming Dynasty could be traced back to the conflicting process between the premier power and the monarchic power. Since the two Han Dynasty, the increasingly weakening premier power and enhancing counterpart had been a general historical trend. After his crowning, Zhu Yuanzhang abandoned prime minister' s system that had been developing 1,000 years and attempted to establish the Four Assisting Officials and the Palace Head Drafter in place of withering prime minister' s system, taking the bide of the Hu Weiyong Case. Such re'form fell into abortion due to its political malnutrition; however, it sowed the seed for the succeeding cabinet system in some degree.The cabinet system began with the establishment of the cabinet in Yongle period. After the Jingnan Battle, Zhu Di promoted some inferior civilian officials to form the cabinet for grouping his own bureau clan. At its beginning, the cabinet affiliated to the Wenyuan Palace, so that the ministers' taking position was called "being on duty in the Wenyuan Palace". The cabinet's interfering into core administration was so confidential that its working site was located at the Dongjiao Gate, middle-east to the Fengtian Gate, quite far from the Wenyuan Palace. After moving to Beijing, Zhu Di duplicated the Wenyuan Palace and cabinet that were continuously enhanced and impaired in the future generations with final elimination in the Chongzhen period. In the Zhengtong 7th year, the new working site of the Hanlin House opened up, so the cabinet specialized in the administration in the Wenyuan Palace, transforming from a temporary institution to a perpetual one. In the Yongle period, seven ministers took charge of the cabinet, whose duty was administrating civilian and martial affairs, combining adviser with confident, their up. and down depended on the degree on which Zhu Di recognized their political talent, moral and private affection, which led to dramatic different political experience of the seven.The establishment o'f the Drafting System and the Premier System achieved the cabinet system of Ming Dynasty. The drafting was classified as rewriting the emperor's orders and reviewing the local and central corresponding reports. The former started in the Hongxi period and thelater the Zhengtong period. The drafting escalated the cabinet's power immensely and played as the threshold of the eventual formation of the cabinet system. The Premier System came into being in the Jiajing period when serious internal revolt and foreign invasion harassed the central government and asked it more efficient. That situation required a distinguishing between the head and the assistants for swift policy-making. Zhang Gong, Xia Yan, Yan Song, Xu Jie, Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng etc. cemented and intensified the status of the Head Premier on their duty. Endowed heavy power, the Head Premier became the attacking target of the ministers. The Premier System made the cabinet official grade clear as such the cabinet system of Ming Dynasty gained full achievement.Generally, the cabinet of Ming Dynasty can be defined as sub-monarchy power group. These results from the superiority in power of the cabinet that performed as policy-making gentry over the six departments and the Inspector House that executed as the policy-conducting ones. Meanwhile, in the policy-making system controlled by emperor, the cabinet dominated in the policy-making process due to its less and short-time predomination by the...