Description Later Said Officer, Study Portal

The speaking officials were made up of censors and supervising secretaries in Ming Dynasty, who were responsible for controlling the avenues of criticism and supervising all personnel and operations of the entire governmental mechanism. Their agencies were chief surveillance office and the six offices of scrutiny. However, they had participated in the factional conflict of the Jialongwan dynasties of the Mid and Late Ming.There were several important political events forming the speaking officials’ factional conflict. In the Jiajing dynasty, they became divided into two factions because of the disparate attitudes to the etiquette. In the longqing dynasty, their strife was centre on the grand secretaries. In the period of Wanli dynasty, the speaking officials’behavior had based on Zhang Juzheng and dong lin. Their extreme behaviors made the political situation worse.Meanwhile, the emperors, grand secretaries and eunuchs had intricate relationships with the speaking officials. The emperors sometimes supported the speaking officials, but sometimes suppressed them, all according to their own needs. Similarly, the grand secretaries also liked to use or fight with the speaking officials. Furthermore, the speaking officials’attitudes to the eunuchs were always dual. They would impeach the evil eunuchs or depend on the powerful ones.Finally, there were three important reasons leading to the speaking officials’ factional conflict. First reason was the institutional factors. The particularity and destruction of the censorial system in Ming Dynasty became the significant cause of the factional conflict. Secondary, the cultural factor, especially the giving lectures and debate in academes, always laid the foundation for the factional conflict. Thirdly, the changes of social ideology and values also impacted on the speaking officials’ behavior. The speaking officials’factional conflict created an enormous influence to the politics and society of the mid and late Ming Dynasty.In a word, the speaking officials’factional conflict reflected the contradiction between the rule by man and rule by law in the traditional society, so it was valuable for us to thinking more.