A Study of the Official Correspondence System in the Song Dynasty: Using Die, Guan, and Zibao as a Starting Point.

In addition to official correspondences to either lower or higher bureaucratic levels in the Song dynasty, there were also parallel correspondences, such as die, guan, and zibao. These parallel correspondences were documents sent between administratively-unrelated governmental offices. Occasionally, different offices that were administratively related used die (such as in dieshang and gudie) to replace more common appellations that implied hierarchy, such as fu, tie, or shenzhuang. This indicates that there was an "inner" and "outer" system of command in place that differentiated between various administratively-related offices. In addition, the official correspondence system reveals that the system of command in the Song dynasty was not hierarchical or pyramidal; the central government had a dual system composed, on the one hand, of the bureaucracy of the Three Departments and Six Ministries and, on the other hand, another bureaucracy, which oversaw the first. Local governments also had a system of checks and balances among circuits, prefectures and districts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]