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==Administration==
==Administration==
===The Role of the Court Bureaucracy===
In the 1580s, the civil service (not including military officers) boasted around 20,000 members, of whom roughly 2,000 served in the imperial capital.<ref>Huang, 53.</ref>
In the 1580s, the civil service (not including military officers) boasted around 20,000 members, of whom roughly 2,000 served in the imperial capital.<ref>Huang, 53.</ref>
Reviews were conducted once every three years for local officials, and once every six years for those serving in the capital. Members of the censorate and of the Ministry of Personnel carefully examined each official's record, and either reassigned him to a new post (with or without a promotion or demotion), or in cases of the official being judged "cruel," "unstable," "indiscreet," or the like, he might be dismissed from service, thus making room in officialdom for other degree-holders vying for official posts. Many junior officials, as a result, fearing losing their position within officialdom, garnered connections with more senior officials, who might look out for them, or exercise influence on their behalf.<ref>Huang, 58.</ref>
Reviews were conducted once every three years for local officials, and once every six years for those serving in the capital. Members of the censorate and of the Ministry of Personnel carefully examined each official's record, and either reassigned him to a new post (with or without a promotion or demotion), or in cases of the official being judged "cruel," "unstable," "indiscreet," or the like, he might be dismissed from service, thus making room in officialdom for other degree-holders vying for official posts. Many junior officials, as a result, fearing losing their position within officialdom, garnered connections with more senior officials, who might look out for them, or exercise influence on their behalf.<ref>Huang, 58.</ref>
===The Role of the Emperor===
The mid-to-late 16th century saw a significant shift in the role of the Emperor within the Court. Whereas the Emperor had previously had considerable power as a leader, initiating and guiding policy - and the Hongwu Emperor, the founder of the dynasty, would certainly seem to fit that mold - by the time of the [[Wanli Emperor]] (r. [[1573]]-[[1620]]), the person of the Emperor had grown to be a far more symbolic role, restrained by the obligations and expectations of his role, and largely lacking in power to determine policy.<ref name=huang103>Huang, 93-103.</ref>
This shift came gradually, and due to shifts in the functioning of government, and attitudes about how it had to be handled. An avenue of thought emerged and became dominant in which it was essential that the emperor be impartial and aloof from petty politicking, factionalism, and favoritism, in order to cultivate and safeguard the image of the emperor as the Son of Heaven, as imbued with the [[Mandate of Heaven]], being eminently just and wise, and thus bearing the authority to make the final decision on matters brought before him - a final decision that would disallow any further quibbling or debate on the issue. Thus, a system emerged in which the scholar-bureaucrats, after carefully considering the merits of a matter, based on precedents and especially as based on the teachings of the [[Confucian classics|Four Books]] of [[Neo-Confucianism]], could reach, if not quite a conclusion, then at least a strong recommendation for the emperor. Ultimately, there remained numerous areas in which the emperor's approval or decision was required, but for the most part, it was ideal within this system that the emperor show favoritism, involve himself in factional politics, initiate policy, or otherwise employ his own creativity or political acumen. An Emperor who was merely human lost the mystic authority of the more removed, aloof, character of the Son of Heaven, which would only invite discord.<ref name=huang103/>
This came about gradually, for the most part, but the process was sped along by the actions of the [[Zhengde Emperor]] (r. [[1505]]-[[1521]]), who made repeated and extensive efforts to not only skirt regulation and neglect his duties, but went so far as to make a mockery of the bureaucratic process, and of court ritual, in various ways, boldly asserting his individual authority as monarch even as efforts were made to restrain him within this increasingly codified system. Zhengde lived just outside of the Forbidden City proper, in a residence within the Imperial City he dubbed the Leopard Palace. There, he cavorted in various ways, watching military maneuvers, hosting banquets and parties, and so forth. He granted himself a variety of titles, some of them newly invented by him, and led military expeditions against the [[Mongols]], and to the south, on several occasions, working his way past bureaucratic efforts to stop him, either by forcing the resignation or re-assignment of those officials who aimed to block him, or in other ways. During these expeditions, he sent few orders or imperial rescripts (responses to petitions or memorials) back from the front, leaving governance in the hands of the bureaucracy, albeit with the knowledge that there were a variety of final decisions which could not be carried out without his explicit approval. On a number of occasions, including his triumphant return from his first military excursion, Zhengde commanded the performance of entirely new ritual forms, turning the established hierarchies topsy-turvy and requiring the officials to, figuratively, bend over backwards to accede to his arbitrary demands (e.g. constructing a new style of court costume overnight; flying banners welcoming him back but without providing for what the respectful, appropriate forms of address for his newly invented titles and hierarchies should be); on at least the one occasion of this triumphal return, if not on others, Zhengde made a further mockery of officials' efforts to strictly adhere to complex systems of imperial ritual by requiring them to assemble this entire complex welcome ceremony, and then simply blowing past all of the officials on his horse, leaving them to trudge back into the palace in snow and mud.<ref name=huang103/>
The Zhengde Emperor's military expeditions, his branding of himself as the General of the Army of Greater Valor, and his taking a military leader as one of his closest companions and advisors, presented a threat to the system of the court bureaucracy in another way. Civil officials' dominance over the military had been the rule for roughly one hundred years, following the end of the Hongwu reign; as the civil bureaucracy and its functioning grew more established, its authority over the military allowed it to function as it desired, giving civil officials time and space to consider and debate any given matter based on Confucian teachings, reason & rationality, and precedent. By augmenting the power or prominence of the military, Zhengde's actions could have led to greater potential for military rebellions or even a coup (Hongwu, after all, had been a rebel to begin with, and violently overthrew the previous dynasty); further, military officials were seen as demanding swifter decisions based more closely on practicality, not on virtue, and civil officials feared a demeaning or debasement of the virtuous basis for decision-making should the military gain more power.<ref name=huang103/>
While Western Orientalist commentators historically saw much of Chinese court ritual as frivolous and meaningless at best, and as a blind adherence to superstition at worst, holding China back, frozen in an un-progressing traditional / pre-modern state, scholars of ritual and performance studies today recognize, as the Chinese scholar-bureaucrats of that time did, the importance of these rituals in cultivating very real impressions of hierarchy, authority, and propriety. Zhengde's precise thoughts or intentions in this matter are unclear, but the end result was that by the time of the Wanli Emperor, roughly sixty years later, the bureaucracy worked all the more devotedly to restrict the emperor from exercising his will in individual or creative ways, let alone to depart from the palace in order to engage in whatever other pursuits. Rather, they sought to restrict him to performing to the utmost the role of the symbolic leader, the just, wise, and Heavenly ruler, whose voice bore Heavenly authority and was untainted by personal, individual, whims or desires.<ref name=huang103/>
Wanli reacted to this, famously, by simply removing himself from the political process almost entirely in the last decades of his reign. In essence, he went on "strike," refusing to respond to memorials and petitions, refusing to authorize the appointment or promotion of officials, refusing to accept officials' resignations, and refusing to participate in imperial rituals. In some respects, the latter was perhaps the most frightening for many officials. Many of these rituals were essential to enacting the hierarchical order within the court - with no emperor to bow to, who stood at the head of the imperial state? Whose Heavenly will were the officials serving? Further, many of these rituals were seen as essential for maintaining the cosmic order; the Emperor was seen since ancient times in China as a fulcrum between Heaven and Earth, and it was his profound responsibility to set the weights & measures, the musical tones, and language in order, all of which were simply metaphors or microcosms of the greater Imperial task of keeping the cosmos itself from falling into disorder. These were serious concerns, with real political impacts, not limited to superstition. On a more practical level, too, though officials executed a number of work-arounds, finding ways, for example, to appoint new officials even without the emperor's approval, Wanli's refusal to approve decisions created chaos for the administration, and ultimately weakened it enough that many historians cite this as among the factors which contributed to the fall of the Ming in [[1644]].<ref name=huang103/>
==Policies==
==Policies==