On The Monitoring System In The Qing Dynasty To Build And Monitor Function Shrinking

The supervisory system was one of the most essential systems in the Chinese feudal social and political institution. As the last feudal empire in the long Chinese history, Qing Dynasty assimilated the essence of various supervisory systems developed by previous dynasties and integrated them into a unified entity. By implementing some innovation and new developments in response to the current social and political environment, Qing established a unique set of closely-intertwined supervisory systems, which is generally regarded as a dominant one in the Chinese supervisory system history. Supervisory institution in Qing dynasty adopted the integration of advisory and impeachment with a highly complete organization structure and seemingly unlimited capability in monitoring officials' behaviors. The rules to guide the censorship process were well conceived, and the administration of the supervisory remonstrators tended to be more institutionalized. As a national administrative system, censorship performed remarkably well at the beginning of Qing's governance: it effectively strengthened the emperor's control and centralization of powers, and also played a significant role in curbing the corruption of officials and balancing and mitigating the internal conflict within the ruling group.However, as the feudal society came to an end in Qing, supervisory system could not exclude itself from the general decaying trend of the whole system: It followed only existing norms without pursuing any improvement, and became more and more outdated. The continuing exposure of these drawbacks gradually deterred the functionalities of the supervisory system, whereby undermining its censorship capability. Under high pressure of the unlimited imperial power, corruptive social environment, and Manchu-first policy, some censorial officials chose to shut up and give up their privileges or survived by flattering. Some others tried to earn reputation by challenging long-established customs orintimidating other officials with unsubstantiated charges. Still some strived to join alliances with eunuchs and powerful officials and worked for their use in usurping powers from rivals. While others committed in corruptions ranging from bribery, ransoming, practicing favoritism and perverting the laws. This general trend of raising the devils and adding fuel to the flame in the political system contributed to the break-up of the ruling groups and accelerated the deterioration of the social environment, which demonstrated the unconquerable deficiency in the feudal society system.