The rulers of the Ming Dynasty attached high importance to supervising and restricting the supervisory power. In accordance with the principle of “he who governs others must first govern himself”, they fully applied the statutory form of supervision to the internal supervisory system and established a system of mutual supervision between the Six Administrative Sections and the Censorate, between the Censorate and the Thirteen Branches of Imperial Inspectors, between the Censorate or the censors and the Inspector Department, and between imperial itinerant inspectors and governors. This system was characterized by mutual checks and balances, a strict network, whole process supervision, clear rules, diverse forms and so on. As such, it played an important role in giving full play to the supervisory efficiency of the supervisory apparatus and preserving the centralized state power. However, as the companion of the absolute monarchical autocracy, its central aim was to maintain the monarchical autocracy centered on the imperial power, thus exposed some fatal shortcomings when the autocratic rule declined and finally became the martyrdom of the monarchical autocracy. |