generals-in-chief were transferred to other posts.

In all this there gradually developed a division into civil and military
administration. A number of regions would make up a province with a
military governor, who was in a sense the representative of the imperial
army, and who was supposed to come into activity only in the event of
war.

This administration of the Han period lacked the tight organization that
would make precise functioning possible. On the other hand, an
extremely important institution had already come into existence in a
primitive form. As central statistical authority, the court secretariat
had a special position within the ministries and supervised the
administration of the other offices. Thus there existed alongside the
executive a means of independent supervision of it, and the resulting
rivalry enabled the emperor or the chancellor to detect and eliminate
irregularities. Later, in the system of the T'ang period (A.D. 618-906),
this institution developed into an independent censorship, and the
system was given a new form as a "State and Court Secretariat", in which
the whole executive was comprised and unified. Towards the end of the
T'ang period the permanent state of war necessitated the permanent
commissioning of the imperial generals-in-chief and of the military
governors, and as a result there came into existence a "Privy Council of
State", which gradually took over functions of the executive. The system
of administration in the Han and in the T'ang period is shown in the
following table:

_Han epoch_ _T'ang epoch_

1. Emperor 1. Emperor