598 REFORM OF GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONbecause Emperor Hstian-tsung was indiscriminate in his recruitment of these
supposed scholars, and allowed Buddhist monks, Taoist adepts, experts in
painting and chess, lute players, and diviners into their ranks. Then he began to
use them as imperial secretaries, and as such they were referred to as his Inner
Prime Ministers (Nei-hsiang), or as the emperor's private men (T'ien-tzu ssu-
jen). All were appointed to the Han-lin Academy, and after a year's stint in that
office were given the task of drafting edicts for him. Despite their relative youth,
at state banquets they were seated above the first rank officials, second only to
the chief ministers of state. The exegete, Hu An-kuo, criticized these practices
severely because a true king of virtue was not supposed to operate on the basis
of private consideration or consult with his own "private people." Only the prime
minister was qualified to perform this function for the ruler.3s
Yu's sources on the Sung dynasty revealed that there were several councilors
of state (Tsai-hsiang) instead of a single prime minister, and they were not cho-
sen exclusively from the heads of the Three Departments (San-sheng), but pre-
sumably included a number of other officials as well who may have been less
qualified or experienced.^36
Major deliberation and decision-making was not the exclusive preserve of the
so-called outer court or regular bureaucracy where it belonged. Even though the
supreme bureaucratic agencies of the T'ang dynasty outer court, like the Depart-
ment of State Affairs (Shang-shu sheng) and Chancellery (Men-hsia sheng) were
retained in the Sung administration, the Secretariat (Chung-shu sheng), which
functioned as a deliberative body in the T'ang outer court, had been relegated
to paper-shuffling clerical duties, and the Chancellery was also put in charge of
rather minor matters as well, such as palanquins, imperial treasures, rank tablets,
review of official performance, and other duties.
The most important policy decisions had been usurped by officials in the inner
court near the emperor, such as the secretaries (Chung -shu) and members of the
Bureau of Military Affairs (Shu-mi-ytian) who met in the inner court in the Hall
of State Affairs (Cheng-shih-t'ang) in the emperor's Forbidden Quarters. Finan-
cial affairs were run by the Finance Commission (San-ssu) rather than the Min-
istry of TaxationY The implication of this analysis was that the humiliation of
China during the Sung by the Khitan, Jurchen, and Mongol barbarians was
undoubtedly the product, in part, of this misallocation of authority.
Ma Tuan-lin argued that in Chou times all officials were chosen because of
their superior ability and assembled in the palace to provide advice or rectify
mistakes, but after the fall of the Chou dynasty the distinction between "inner"
and "outer" officials began in the mid-Former Han dynasty when only eunuchs
or imperial favorites were allowed this kind of close access while the "silk-clad"
scholar-officials were given posts as clerks in the regular or "outer" bureaucracy.3^8
Finally, in the Ming dynasty when the post of prime minister (Ch'eng-hsiang)
was abolished under the reforms of Hu Wei-yung, giving the emperor direct access
to the Six Boards, the check on the arbitrary exercise of power by the emperor
was eliminated.^39 Ch'iu Chtin also pointed out that the abandonment of the