| The concept of public opinion has been around for a long time,but in the Tang dynasty it mainly referred to public sentiment and opinion,people’s hardships and their views and attitudes towards politics and society,and the resulting social events had a significant impact on political rule and social governance.Therefore,the ruling class of the Tang dynasty,drawing on the experience of the previous dynasties and accunulating experience in governance,also formed a governance mechanism with typical and relatively limited public opinion.During the Tang dynasty,the central government collected information on public opinion mainly through the monarch and the central government officials,including the emperor’s visits to the provinces,the petitions for advice,and the emperor’s visits to the elderly,while the central government officials collected information on public opinion from the people by means of their missions and inspections.The central government officials collected information on public opinion by sending out envoys to collect information from the people.Information on central public opinion was mainly sent to the emperor in a number of ways,such as through the Privy Counsellor and the Yan Ying zheng pair.The prevention and handling of public opinion by the central government also revolved around the emperor and the central officials,with the emperor generally preventing and handling public opinion by issuing legal edicts and edicts,issuing edicts of guilt,avoiding calamities,and putting on targeted political performances,while the central officials prevented and handled public opinion mainly through the "Three Departments" and the imperial guards’ inspection and arrest.The central government officials prevented and dealt with public opinion in the capital mainly by means of the "three divisions" and the imperial guards.At the local level,the local government officials and the local grassroots jointly formed the local public opinion governance mechanism,with the local county magistrates and county officials having the basic responsibility of monitoring and reporting public opinion information and dealing with public opinion incidents,and the governance of public opinion was also an important manifestation of the performance of local officials.In addition to the postal system,local public opinion information was also transmitted to the central government,and institutions such as the court of the incoming and the court of inspection also played an important role in the transmission of public opinion information in the middle and late Tang dynasty.In the capital,the officials of the capital’s magistrates and counties were responsible for collecting and reporting public opinion information and dealing with public opinion incidents,and sometimes the emperor was directly involved in the process of dealing with public opinion incidents in the capital.Public opinion in the Tang dynasty had a pivotal impact on government decisions,the governance of the state and the fate of officials,and in some cases it even became a decisive factor in the promotion,demotion and death of officials.Public opinion information was not only transmitted to and from the administrative system,but also had its own space to spread and ferment among the people.The basic channels of its dissemination mainly included non-physical channels such as songs and proverbs,street talk,and physical channels such as wall inscriptions,cloth and flag books.On the whole,the public opinion governance mechanism of the Tang dynasty had its unique aspects,and its governance mechanism and practices were always permeated by the Tang dynasty’s governance idea of "ritual and law together",and the awareness of taking measures to prevent the occurrence of public opinion incidents was also initially revealed,but the stability of the public opinion governance mechanism was poor and showed obvious stage differences.The Tang dynasty’s public opinion governance mechanism played a positive role in social stability and political clarity,but the Tang dynasty’s public opinion governance always had limitations that could not be ignored:the governance of public opinion was actually a derivative and subsidiary of the Ming emperor’s ideology,and the generalization of the functions of officials who governed public opinion led to a lack of clear responsibility for public opinion governance. |
