Cause & Context
Early Ming, Taizu deeply guarded against meritorious officials, and deeply worried that the traditional chancellor system held too much power that would seriously threaten centralization of his descendants' imperial power. The power-game between the Central Secretariat and the Six Ministries reached white heat.
Epochal Overview
took the case of Chancellor 's attempted treason and decisively ordered the chancellor system thoroughly abolished. He abolished the Central Secretariat, brought the Six Ministries directly under the emperor alone, and tightly set up the special-agent Embroidered-Uniform Guard.
Civilizational Impact
Abolishing the chancellor wholly broke the important balance of chancellor power against imperial power in classical bureaucratic politics, bringing absolute imperial autocracy to the apex. It put a yoke on the Ming-Qing two-dynasty political systems.
Key Figures
Ming Emperor Taizu was a timeless centralizing emperor of extremely autocratic style, beyond-others energy, and iron-blooded means. , as the last chancellor, was reduced to a sacrifice of this historic wave of imperial power destroying chancellor power.