Rules of ancient book seal

The seal system stipulates that when the emperor is too young to be in charge personally, all imperial edicts issued in the name of the emperor must be stamped with the words "imperial reward" at the beginning, which is called "seal"; The end of the decree must be stamped with the seal of "the same clan", that is, the so-called "seal", so that the decree is effective; Without these two seals, all orders are invalid. The arrangement of eight ministers' assistant administration and printing in Xianfeng made the running of dynasty politics form a parallel system of descendants of two palaces and eight ministers' assistant administration.

In Xianfeng's idea, the eight ministers can give full play to their political experience and collective wisdom, and can also let them supervise and contain each other; On this basis, the political system of Empress Miyako allowed the Empress and Zai Chun (actually Cixi) to use the seal system to guard against the eight ministers, while Empress Miyako did not have to participate in the daily government and military decision-making. No one is always smart. In fact, the power distribution plan carefully designed by Emperor Xianfeng at his deathbed wanted to achieve the balance of power through various restraints, so as to ensure that the imperial power would not be marginalized.