Qin destroyed six kingdoms and became the first unified power in Chinese history. The general center of Qin State for handling state affairs consists of three institutions: the Prime Minister’s Mansion, the Taiwei’s Mansion, and the Imperial Censor’s Dafu Temple.
In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, it was modeled on the Qin system, but since the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, although the prime minister’s status was high, his power was gradually reduced. When the Han Dynasty became the emperor, the Shangshu Office was renamed Shangshutai and developed into the emperor’s confidential secretariat. Not only was the prime minister’s powers taken away by it, but also the secretariat chief of the imperial censor no longer existed. At this time, some bureaucrats, starting from the Confucian classics, proposed to restore the ancient system and replace the prime minister, the imperial censor, and the long-no longer Taiwei with the three official titles of Da Sima, Da Situ, and Da Sikong. It is the “Three Dukes”.
Although they have a high status, they have no real power and only do some routine affairs. As for issuing orders, they belong to the Shangshutai. There are more than a dozen central administrative agencies in Qin, and there are nine important ones. Guest, the seventh is called Zongzheng, the eighth is called Zhisu Neishi, the ninth is called Shaofu, and later is collectively called “Jiuqing”. Feng Chang is the head of the nine ministers, in charge of the ancestral temple etiquette and cultural education; Lang Zhongling is in charge of the palace gate guard and the chief of the servants; Wei Wei is the official of the palace gate guard; Tai Pu is in charge of the emperor’s carriage and horses, and also in charge of the national horse administration; Tingwei is the highest judicial chief of the central government; Dianke is in charge of ethnic affairs and court appointments; Zongzheng is in charge of royal family affairs; the responsibility for managing millet is to collect salt, iron, money and grain rent and national fiscal revenue and expenditure; Manufactured by government handicrafts to supply the royal family.