Law and Politics in Modern China: Under the Law, the Law, and Abo ...

(shangguan), master of feasts (shangxi), master of baths (shangyu), and master of writing (shangshu). The first five of these offices were designed to oversee the daily personal life of the emperor. The last was actually the secretary of the imperial palace.

The Secretariat of the Chancellor was composed of thirteen bureaus (cao), which are similar to divisions of contemporary cabinet ministry (si). The most important divisions were the following: West and East Bureau (xicao, dongcao) were the personnel ministry, responsible for the appointment and employment of all military and civilian officers; the Bureau of Households or Revenue (hucao) managed the sources of revenue for the imperial household; the Bureau of Memorials (zoucao) constructed and maintained all governmental memorials; the Bureau of Complaints or of Litigation (cicao) was an office of adjudication of civil law; the Bureau of Regulations or of Standards (facao) controlled all standards of weights and measures, as well as the timetable for postal service; the Bureau of Commandant or of Military Transportation (weicao) arranged the transfer of military troops; and the Bureau of Bandit Suppression or Control (zeicao) and Bureau of Decisions or of Criminal Executions (juecao) had duty of suppressing insurgents and had the jurisdiction over criminal violations and punishment.

As in modern Japan and England, Chinese legal administration in Han dynasty was mainly in the hands of chancellors (prime ministers, in modern terms) rather than the hands of the imperial house or monarchy. The emperor had only one office for administrative affairs. To serve the office, he had only one library and a staff of four. The chancellor had thirteen bureaus, which supervised a much broader jurisdiction. These bureau chiefs became ministers of the state in later dynasties.

The classification and distribution of responsibility (power) between the royal family and the state institution of the chancellor and the constant shifting of the boundary between them had become an important characteristic of the entire tradition of legal and political form.¹⁸ This type of power struggle between the government and the crown did not merely involve the use of legal words (drafting the Constitution, as well