There is no such thing as the Kangxi and Qianlong eras

Chapter 385 Female Officials of the Inner Court
The outer court institutions have largely finished their discussions, and there's really not much left to discuss.

Because it was all a new beginning, the emperor and his ministers present were all emperors for the first time and founding ministers for the first time. None of them had any experience, so they could only learn from the Ming Dynasty and the pseudo-Qing Dynasty and explore their way forward.

Gu Jing also presented a memorial: "Your Majesty, this is a draft of regulations by the Ministry of Rites regarding the division of the inner court and the selection of female officials, as well as related prohibitions and systems within the inner court."

Since the decision had already been made to abandon eunuchs and adopt a system of female officials, the Ministry of Rites had no choice but to reluctantly accept it and then try to find ways to patch up the system of female officials.

Nie Yu flipped through a few pages and found that the new dynasty's inner court, as proposed by the Ministry of Rites, was quite similar to that of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The Ming Dynasty's inner court was divided into twelve directorates, and the sheer number of directorates alone demonstrates the sheer size and bloated nature of the organization.

The Qing dynasty implemented reforms, abandoning the twelve directorates of the Ming dynasty's inner court and instead dividing them into the Imperial Ministers, the Grand Councilors, the Imperial Study, the Southern Study, and the Imperial Household Department.

While it appears to have been streamlined considerably, the organization is actually more bloated than before.

This has nothing to do with who the ruler is; it is purely a struggle between imperial power and the power of the prime minister, which triggered a series of chain reactions.

Regardless of whether it was the inner court of the Ming or Qing dynasties, both sides actually held a portion of imperial power and also had the power to interfere in the decision-making of the outer court.

The Directorate of Ceremonial, the head of the twelve directorates of the Ming Dynasty, had major responsibilities including managing imperial edicts, approving memorials on behalf of the emperor, managing court etiquette, supervising the compilation of official records, managing imperial documents, and overseeing the Eastern Depot. Its power was considerable.

The inner court of the puppet Qing dynasty was even more outrageous. The four major institutions—the Grand Councilors, the Imperial Study, and the Southern Study—overlapped and divided among themselves, effectively turning the outer court's cabinet into a mere formality.

All matters, big and small, were decided by the inner court. The only function of the cabinet was to review the memorials submitted by the six ministries and then forward them to the inner court.

In the early years of the Qianlong reign, the puppet Qing cabinet attempted a counterattack after the death of Emperor Yongzheng, successfully defeating the Grand Council and regaining some of the power of the prime minister.

But just like the outcome of the power struggle between the emperor and the prime minister in previous dynasties, once the cabinet regained the power of the prime minister, it would demand more of the prime minister's power, and even covet the emperor's power.

Then, the Grand Council was re-established, and the cabinet was reduced to its original state, remaining half-dead to this day.

When the new Han Dynasty was established, the inner court used female officials for the first time, abolishing the eunuch system. This was a groundbreaking move in the history of the founding of a new dynasty, and no one knew what kind of things female officials would do.

Therefore, the Ministry of Rites did not completely copy the Ming and Qing dynasties' inner court plans when planning the new dynasty's inner court, but instead took parts of both.

First of all, the Grand Councilors and Imperial Ministers, who were used by the Qing court to seize power from the outer court, certainly cannot be included in the inner court.

Secondly, the Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs of the former Ming Dynasty's inner court does not need to be re-established. The Xin Dynasty of the Great Han already had the Secretariat, which had a high degree of overlap with the Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs in some aspects. It was equivalent to a castrated version of the Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs, and re-establishing it would be superfluous and would also make the inner court of female officials uncontrollable.

The fact that female officials have the ability to bear children is the biggest disadvantage of the inner court and a danger that civil officials must be wary of, so as not to give the inner court of the new dynasty any opportunity to reach out to the outer court.

After removing several officials with power in the outer court, the Ministry of Rites also made reasonable personnel reductions in the remaining inner court institutions.

The inner courts of the Ming and Qing dynasties were overly bloated with bureaucratic structures. Of the twelve directorates of the Ming inner court and the seven departments and three institutes under the Qing Imperial Household Department, at least one-third were unnecessary.

The responsibilities of the Imperial Household Department, the Imperial Furnishings Department, and the Imperial Clothing Department of the Ming Dynasty were highly overlapping. The Imperial Household Department was in charge of imperial items, including clothing, precious objects, and utensils; the Imperial Furnishings Department was in charge of imperial supplies for court ceremonies and banquets; and the Imperial Clothing Department was in charge of clothing and accessories made for the emperor and his consorts.

There were also the Imperial Seal Bureau and the Imperial Seal Bureau. The former was in charge of the emperor's seals and documents, while the latter was in charge of the court's seals and documents. Both were used by the emperor, so they could be merged.

There's also the Imperial Shrine Office, which is in charge of royal sacrifices; this can also be omitted.

Royal sacrifices are definitely a matter of state, and the money for them should come from the national treasury. So what is the point of having an inner court shrine?
The Imperial Palace Administration could be completely abolished, and related sacrificial affairs could be handed over to the Ministry of Rites of the Outer Court. This would further streamline the personnel in the Inner Court and allow officials from both the Outer and Inner Courts to be involved.

As for the Qing Dynasty's Imperial Household Department, it was of no merit. Aside from lacking a replacement for the Directorate of Ceremonial, it essentially consisted of seven departments and three offices, just a renamed version of the Ming Dynasty's twelve directorates. Nie Yu carefully reviewed the Ministry of Rites' plan to streamline the new inner court. The original twelve directorates of the Ming Dynasty had been reduced to only seven, none of which were as large as the Qing Dynasty's Imperial Household Department.

However, there were also advantages. The inner court of the new Han Dynasty would become a completely service agency of the imperial palace, no longer holding power over the outer court like in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, which ultimately made them caught in the middle.

Furthermore, tasks that could be done by one person in the inner court should not be done by two or three people, thus clearly defining the responsibilities and weights of each department within the inner court.

This not only facilitates accountability for mistakes, preventing finger-pointing, but also reduces the inner court's financial expenditures and avoids unnecessary waste.

"I think the division of the inner court as determined by the Ministry of Rites is acceptable." Nie Yu had no objection to the Ministry of Rites' streamlining of the inner court.

Continue flipping through the pages to see the selection system for female officials and the detailed rules and regulations of the inner court.

The selection and appointment of female officials were clearly stipulated; to become a female official, one had to pass an examination first.

The assessment was of the same level as the imperial examination, except that the content of the assessment was different, and officials of the outer court had to be held accountable. Moreover, the collective approval of all ministries and departments of the outer court was required to prevent favoritism and corruption.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, most of the inner court was staffed by eunuchs. Those who were not eunuchs only managed the power of the outer court and did not concern themselves with other inner court affairs.

Now that female officials are in use, civil officials cannot afford to be careless, for fear that the emperor might accidentally select a large number of female officials in the inner court who could bring disaster to the country and bewitch the monarch, which would be disastrous.

Moreover, the joint selection of officials by all the outer court departments could dispel the emperor's suspicions about the outer court.

With so many civil officials in the outer court, it's impossible for them all to plant spies in the inner court to plot against and depose the emperor.

If everyone were to join forces to do this, it would mean either the emperor has a serious problem or the civil service system is completely corrupt.

There's no need to worry about the inner court being infiltrated. The civil officials are all corrupt. No matter how well the inner court is protected, if eunuchs are used, the civil officials will still bribe and infiltrate it.

The regulations governing the inner court were basically the same as those of the Ming and Qing dynasties, except that the eunuchs were replaced by palace maids and palace servants.

Gu Jing strongly suggested adding another clause: "Your Majesty, if an inner court is established in the future, an imperial decree shall be issued that the children born to female officials of the inner court shall not be included in the imperial genealogy. If they are to be included in the imperial genealogy, they must first be relieved of their official duties and live in the inner palace for more than a year before their children can be considered princes and grandsons of the emperor."

Good heavens, this single requirement and prohibition has severely restricted the possibility of female officials in the inner court being promoted to imperial concubines.

There's nothing we can do about it. Female officials are different from palace maids. As officials with some real power in the palace, they can have contact with male guards. What if they have an affair and have an illegitimate child, thus defiling the royal bloodline?
The Ministry of Rites clearly considered that future emperors might not be able to resist taking female officials into the harem as concubines.

After all, we're all men, and with so many temptations every day, who can truly remain unmoved?

The female officials were also given an inner court official title, which was like an ancient version of role-playing, and it brought a different kind of excitement to the emperor.

This is also the reason why officials were so concerned about the eunuch system. Eunuchs had no roots, and even though civil officials disliked them, at least they did not pose a risk of defiling the royal bloodline.

However, the emperor then implemented a reform that forbade the inner court from interfering in politics. Even in the pseudo-Qing dynasty, there was a power struggle between the inner court and the outer court. This made it difficult for the civil officials to decide, so they could only acquiesce and see how it went.

However, many civil officials, including Gu Jing, felt that the system of female officials could not last long and that eunuchs would eventually return.

Nie Yu looked at the Ministry of Rites' painstaking efforts in issuing the ban to ensure the imperial bloodline and nodded, saying, "Minister Gu is very thoughtful. Then let's follow the memorial. Under no circumstances should the children born to female officials be recorded in the imperial genealogy. Let this be an ancestral rule that future generations must not violate."

(End of this chapter)