Conducting Government Affairs By Personal Correspondence—A Study Of Zhang Juzheng’s Administration

Conducting government affairs by personal correspondence is a remarkable political characteristic of Zhang Juzheng during the period of Emperors Longqing and Wanli of the Ming Dynasty.During the period of Emperor Longqing,Zhang gradually worked his way up to the Deputy Grand Secretary.In order to avoid conflicts with the Prime Grand Secretary,Zhang often exchanged information and opinions with subordinates through personal correspondence,influencing imperial policy in a roundabout way.When Emperor Wanli came to power,who was too young to be trusted,Zhang took control of the decision-making power alone,and continued the habit of conducting government affairs by personal correspondence as a supplement to normal official documents.Zhang Juzheng conducted government affairs by personal correspondence to supplement the conventional administrative methods,sent arrangement directly to relevant officials and promote the implementation of various measures.Therefore,Zhang Juzheng’s letters involve a lot of information on government affairs.In addition to the reform measures led by Zhang,they also include border politics,water transportation of grain,local governance and other aspects.In terms of military affairs,Zhang has been exchanging discussing letters with the border officials since his first joining the grand secretariat.During his reign,he continued to pay attention to the trend of the border situation and proposed handling principles in the form of letters for many times.In terms of local affairs,Zhang focused on piracy and the local situation,directly sent the handling principles and specific measures to the relevant officials in the form of letters,and strongly supported the practical and effective measures put forward by local officials.In terms of official administration,Zhang experienced the decline of the bureaucracy in the late Jiajing period personally,so after he took office in the early period of Emperor Wanli,he continued to keep frequent correspondence with his colleagues and subordinates,explaining his determination to rectify the bureaucracy,and even encouraging officials in the name of the emperor.In terms of economy,Zhang often often wrote to various parties to ask for opinions out of concern for the river regulating,and made policies based on the replies from relevant officials.In this way,the imperial government can issue decrees to individuals,shorten the administrative chain,and effectively improve the administrative efficiency.Especially after the period of Emperor Jiajing,with poor official atmosphere and limited prestige of the imperial edict,this method was beneficial to the improvement of the political environment and the official atmosphere.In addition,the reform led by Zhang encountered great resistance,and in order to maintain the reform results,personal correspondence became Zhang’s tool to coordinate with the parties.During the reign of Zhang Juzheng,the Dynasty bureau revitalized to some extent,but the deteriorating situation still lurked in the process of conducting government affairs by personal correspondence.This method broke away from normal administrative procedures and ignored the opinions of the court officials,which reflected Zhang’s arbitrary administrative style and was easy to accumulate rebound power.The use of personal correspondence to influence government policies and personnel arrangements became the subject of attacks by imperial censors.Moreover,when the emperor’s sense of power gradually strengthened,the inertia of such political management still continued,which had a negative impact on the relationship between the monarch and the minister and hindered the development of the grand secretariat system.Zhang’s conducting government affairs by personal correspondence not only exposed the chronic political problems since the middle of Ming Dynasty,but also foreshadowed the decadent political situation behind him.