The Relationship Between The Civil Official Groups And The Imperial Power In The Early Ming Dynasty

Civil official system was not only an important system carrying about life and death of a nation in ancient society, but also is tightly related to the contemporary society. The historical research on traditional civil official institution helps clear up how the civil official system forms in ancient times, and triggers rational consideration about characteristics of contemporary social structure. It has profound academic and practical significances for historically inspecting the interaction between the civil official groups and imperial power, and the establishment of its relation in the early Ming Dynasty, since the civil official groups of Ming Dynasty is recognized as the most mature, comprehensive civil official system in the traditional Chinese feudal society, and also highly affects the modern Chinese society.This paper studies the interaction between the civil official groups and the imperial power in Hongwu, Jianwen and Yongle times of the early Ming Dynasty. It follows the emergence, formation and establishment of civil official groups in Hongwu, Jianwen and Yongle times of the early Ming Dynasty with the guide of historical materialism. According to the time-phased historical development, this paper uses the methods of literature, historical description, historical analysis and other research methods, comprehensively and meticulously clears up the formation and development of history process in the interaction between the civil official groups and the imperial power in the early Ming Dynasty. On the basis of analysis on the civil official groups'duality feature in Ming Dynasty, seeing through the complicated relation and historical causes of their interdependence and mutual complex fights for power between the civil official groups and the imperial power, the overall history of the Ming and the history clues associated with its development can be concluded.By research, firstly, this paper sorts out the emergence of the early Ming civil official groups and the historical process of final establishment. British historian Arnold Toynbee in his historical masterpiece "Historical Research", had comparatively studied the Greek history in west, Jewish history in Middle East and Chinese history in east, to build a research on a universal "model" of the human history, including China, that is "challenge-response" model. It focused on analyzing the fate of the Empire played a vital role in the "civil official system". And following the historical development clue of interaction and establishment of civil official groups and imperial power in Ming Taizu, Jianwen and Yongle in the early Ming Dynasty, has just composed a case analysis of a complete "Challenge-Response-Balance" model of historical development. Secondly, it analyzes the influence on the historical development of the whole Ming Dynasty by the civil official groups'duality feature and interaction between the civil official groups and imperial power. Chinese-American historian Ray Huang in the book of "A Year of No Significance", analyzes the interaction between civil official groups and imperial power in the middle of Ming Dynasty, which is from the civil official groups' duality feature of "Yin"and"Yang" in Ming Dynasty. It is noteworthy that Ray Huang' investigation on civil official groups of the Ming Dynasty, in terms of the time, focused more on the late-mid period of Ming Dynasty, but when analyzed the sharp contradictions and internal roots of mutual balance between civil official groups and imperial power in the late-mid period of Ming Dynasty, in particular, demonstrated the historical causes of civil official groups'institutional structure in the late-mid period of Ming Dynasty Ming Dynasty, it shall be traced back to initial time when the Ming Dynasty was founded. In fact, the civil official groups did not emerge in the late-mid period of Ming Dynasty, but in the early Ming Dynasty. The groups had finally formed and established after experiencing Jianwen and Yongle times. Therefore, it is notably important to do pointed historical research on the interaction and final establishment of civil official groups and imperial power in early Ming Dynasty.This paper makes a historical study of the interactive relation between the civil official groups and the imperial power in Hongwu, Jianwen and Yongle times in the early Ming Dynasty. In addition to clarify the clues of historical development of civil official groups in the early Ming Dynasty, through historical analysis of the institutional features of civil official groups, this paper offers historical reference and rational thinking to the contemporary Chinese society.