Zhongshu Ling

The chancellor (Chinese: ; pinyin: ) was a semi-formally designated office position for a number of high-level officials at one time during the Tang dynasty (this list includes chancellors of the reign of Wu Zetian, which she referred to as the "Zhou dynasty" (周), rather than "Tang" (唐)).

Ouyang Xiu, the author of the New Book of Tang, asserts that the Tang dynasty inherited its bureaucracy from its dynastic predecessor, the Sui Dynasty, under which the founder Emperor Wen of Sui divided his government into five main bureaus:

Under Emperor Wen, the executive bureau was regarded as the most important, and he had his most honored officials such as Gao Jiong, Yang Su, and Su Wei lead it at various points. Its heads were generally regarded as chancellors (as it always had two heads, known as the Shàngshūpúshè (尚書僕射)). Ouyang asserts, however, that the heads of the examination and legislative bureaus were also considered chancellors.

The Tang dynasty founder Emperor Gaozu initially followed the Sui's system of governance, including the five-bureau organization. However, he deviated from his predecessors by creating a single head for the executive bureau, known as the Shàngshūlǐng (尚書令) and appointed the office to his second son and future emperor Lǐ Shìmín (李世民). After Li Shimin became emperor in 626, the office was left vacant because none of his officials dared to occupy it. Thus from the year 626 the executive bureau was headed by its two vice-directors, the Shàngshūpúshè. Around this time, probably by Emperor Taizong's orders, the institution of multiple chancellors was formalized, with the heads of the executive, examination, and legislative (which was renamed the Zhōngshūshěng (中書省)) bureaus regarded as the chancellors. As there were often, but not always, more than one head for the examination and legislative bureaus, there were not necessarily only four chancellors. Emperor Taizong's reign also began to designate certain high-level officials, even though they were not heads of one of the bureaus, as chancellors, with titles such as Cānyù Cháozhèng (參豫朝政, literally "participator in the administration's governance"). Yet later in 643, he revised the designation and formalized it as the Tóngzhōngshūménxiàsānpǐn (同中書門下三品, literally meaning "equivalent to the officials with the third rank from the Zhōngshū and the Ménxià") — because the heads of the legislative bureau, the Zhōngshūlǐng (中書令), and the examination bureau, the Shìzhōng (侍中), were of the third rank. These officials were rendered as "chancellors de facto'" Shízhìzǎixiàng (實質宰相) by the Chinese historian Bo Yang in his modern Chinese edition of the Zizhi Tongjian.

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