User:Sol Pacificus/Notes – Tang government

The following are my notes on the government system of the Tang dynasty. Countless references are made to it and its offices throughout Assassin's Creed: Dynasty, but there is often next to no background information offered as to the duties and powers of each position. The political system of China evolved constantly throughout the millennia and even within the Tang dynasty itself, there were a confusing and complex array of changes from ruler to ruler. Sometimes, these changes were as minor as the renaming of an office, but if the renaming did not last for more than several generations, it would be a highly technical detail in the grand scheme of things and only exacerbate the confusion.

I intend this space first and foremost to be my own personal notes to keep better track of the Tang's political system and reforms as I learn more about it. Because of this, this is not necessarily meant to be a rigorously researched and exhaustive article on Tang politics. It may turn out that errors have appeared in this document, I may chance upon other interpretations that I find more convincing later, or I may look back on this years later and find that it does not quite fit the narrative I had once believed. In any case, I am keeping the notes here in case it would also prove useful for fellow editors as a guide for understanding terms and titles that appear in Dynasty. That is the secondary purpose of this page, which is why I will also be expounding on some concepts that might be more helpful to a non-Chinese audience instead. But one should also bear in mind that I am not an expert in Chinese history.

Philosophy on translations

Of particular aid here may be my translation notes since I find that many scholars tend to be inconsistent with the translation of historical Chinese titles. Take a glance at Wikipedia's article on "Translation of Han dynasty titles for an example. Often times, the most literal translation of a Chinese title may be misleading or sound awkward in English, and so scholars translate using original names that offer better clarity as to the position.

One of the Nine Ministers of the Han was 太僕 (Cantonese: taai³buk⁶), which is a name that literally means 'grand servant'. This is quite vague, so Australian sinologist Rafe de Crespigny translated it to "Minister Coachman" because it was actually the official in charge of the Emperor's stables. However, I have found that this practice has produced a wide range of varying translations. Different authors may prefer different translations that they think indicates the office's duties better, and this inconsistency has always been grating to me. Being a bilingual speaker of Chinese and English, it is far more convenient for me to memorize one name in Chinese and have the English be the closest translation. While I understand this may not be true for non-Chinese speakers, I also think that it is an additional merit that translations which are more faithful to the original name better preserves the quirks in the native form. If a name is a misnomer in the original language, I would like it to still be a misnomer when translated. This preserves and more accurately translates the nature of the name. Likewise, I cannot say that the title 'grand servant' in Chinese is any less vague or misleading than it would be in English.

We have the example of 太守 (Cantonese: taai³sau²), the title of the office in charge of a commandery during both the Han and the Tang. 太 (tai) is frequently translated into English as 'grand' while 守 (sau) means 'protect', etymologically derived from a sense of shelter. In this light, I believe that it would best literally be translated into something like 'grand protector', but I have never encountered this translation elsewhere. I surmise that it is because the title sounds a bit too fantastical and heroic in English, especially when it is only an office for a secondary-tier of administration. It can be confusing for English speakers because it ranks below the title for the provincial governor, 刺史 (Cantonese ci³si²), which is typically translated as "Inspector" but sounds higher in station than that. Hence, I almost always encounter 太守 (taisau) translated into the generic and vague word "Administrator". For my part, I prefer to keep the character of the name as it was rather than distorting it for a title that might seem to be clearer.

For this reason as well as for the sake of consistency, I opt for my own translations of the titles into English. There are also certain cases where it would be better to use the native name as a loanword rather than translating it at all, but in other cases, I do not believe this is not conducive to alleviating confusion.

Finally, I shall also note here that I will be using Cantonese as the default.

Core structure

The Tang was a monarchy, but it was neither a constitutional monarchy nor an absolute monarchy. This is in contrast to the Qin dynasty, which was perhaps the only pre-industrial example of a concerted effort to create a totalitarian regime, and the later Ming and Qing dynasties, when absolutism was institutionalized with the dissolution of the three departments. Despite a division of powers, the Tang also lacked true constitutionalism due to imperfect checks and balances.

Translating the imperial title

The sovereign of the Tang bore the title of 皇帝 (Cantonese: wong⁴dai⁶, Mandarin: huángdì).
The consort of the sovereign bore the title 皇后 (Cantonese: wong⁴hau⁶, Mandarin: huánghòu).
This was the case throughout the entire imperial era of China.

Wongdai is almost always translated as emperor while wonghau is almost always translated as empress. In virtually all cases, this is unproblematic because with one sole exception, the wongdai was always a male while the wonghau was always a female.

This one sole exception was, of course, Wu Zetian. She took on the title of wongdai, so it is often said that she was the only "female Emperor" in Chinese history. When I first read about her in my preteens, the text even told me that she made a conscious decision to take the masculine title to emphasize and reinforce her sovereignty. This is erroneous.

Wongdai semantically is not a gendered term. It is only "gendered male" via connotation due to the history of all wongdai in history being male save one, but the title itself is semantically gender-neutral. Likewise, wonghau might also be semantically gender-neutral, but even more-so than wongdai, it came to be seen as gendered (in this case feminine) due to all wonghau in history being women. But 后 (hau), in fact, was the title borne by the Kings of the Xia, the first dynasty of China, before evolving to refer to female leaders and then finally to royal consorts, making its status as a gendered or gender-neutral word admittedly more complicated.

Regardless, wongdai cannot refer to a consort, male or female, and wonghau cannot refer to a sovereign ruler, male or female. The terms are not defined by their genders but by their status.

In contrast, the English word emperor is masculine while empress is feminine. Unlike wonghau, empress does not necessarily have to refer to a consort; it can refer to a sovereign in her own right. In English, the distinction between a monarch being the sovereign or being the spouse of the sovereign is denoted by the terms regnant and consort respectively. A sovereign queen would be a queen regnant and her king would be the king consort.

Hence, it is erroneous to describe Wu Zetian as the first "female Emperor of China", and this is a forced and clumsy way of trying to translate the Chinese imperial titles. A female emperor is an empress, regardless of whether she is the head of state or the spouse of the head of state. Neither was Wu Zetian the only female ruler in Chinese history. In particular, empress dowagers and empress consorts during the Han dynasty frequently wielded power that eclipsed that of the actual emperors. What made Wu Zetian unique was that she was the only female ruler in Chinese history to have put herself on the throne as the formal head of state, rather than ruling by seniority as the emperor's mother or from behind the throne as the emperor's consort.

In that position as head of state, it would not have made sense for her to retain the title of wonghau. It was not a matter of consciously taking on a "masculine"' title to downplay her womanhood. It was the simple matter that wongdai denoted the sovereign while wonghau meant consort. Although in Chinese, a female wongdai may be called 女皇 (neoi⁵wong⁴), adding 女 (neoi⁵, 'female') as a prefix, this is only for the sake of clarity and disambiguation as a result of the popular misconception that the term 皇帝 must refer to a man. Properly translated, Wu Zetian was the first Empress Regnant of China, not its first "female emperor", which is just an equivalent way of saying "first empress" in English.

Branches of government

The Tang government was divided into three departments and six ministries. These three departments were:

• The Department of the Central Secretariat (中書省)
  • Responsible for drafting policy and legislation
  • Headed by the Director of the Central Secretariat (中書令), which I like to shorten to Central Secretary
    • Lieutenant was the Central Secretariat Attendant-Courtier (侍郎)
• The Department of the Undersecretaries (門下省)
  • Responsible for reviewing draft policies and acting as a censorate against corruption or non-compliance with protocol
  • Headed by the Attendant-at-Centre (侍中)
    • Lieutenant was the Undersecretary Attendant-Courtier (侍郎)
• The Department of State Affairs (尚書省)
  • Responsible for enacting policies and managing the six ministries
  • Headed by the Director of State Affairs (尚書令), which can also be translated as Secretary of State Affairs
    • Lieutenants were the Left and Right Deputies to the Secretary of State Affairs (左、右僕射)

The standard procedure for policy-making was:

1. The Central Secretariat introduce draft legislation
2. It is passed to the Emperor for either approval or veto
3. It is passed to to the Undersecretaries for review
4. It is then passed to the Department of State Affairs to be carried out through the relevant ministries.

Alternatively, the Emperor could be the one to initiate a decree, but theoretically, it still had to pass through the Central Secretariat and Undersecretaries before the Department of State Affairs could execute it.

Six ministries

The six ministries of the Tang were essentially equivalent to modern ministries of most governments today, albeit organized in a slightly different structure. All six ministries fell under the oversight of the Secretary of State Affairs while the heads of each ministry did not necessarily form a cabinet (or royal council). Instead, they were technically ranked lower than the heads of the three departments. Hence, whereas department today is synonymous with ministry, department referred to a higher division, a branch of government, under the Tang and Song dynasties.

The six ministries were:

1. Ministry of Personnel (吏部)
2. Ministry of Households (戶部), i.e. the Ministry of Finance
3. Ministry of Rites (禮部)
4. Ministry of Troops (兵部), i.e. the Ministry of War
5. Ministry of Punishment (刑部), i.e. the Ministry of Justice
6. Ministry of Works (工部)