Summary
Go backMemorials from territorial generals, General Commanders, Provincial Educational Commissioners, Provincial Military Commanders, Salt Supervisors, Shuntian Prefecture Commander, and the Mukden Boards are all collected by the Commission of Transmissions, and are delivered to the Grand Secretariat after the Commission of Transmissions inspected and corrected the memorials' formats. Such memorials are called Transmission Memorials. Memorials from the six Boards, as well as from other capital departments, are all submitted directly to the Grand Secretariat. Such memorials are called Department Memorials. For Transmission Memorials, one piece of paper is attached to the end of the memorial (after the date of submission) as a summary of the whole memorial. This piece of paper is "Summary" and is made for the readers' convenience. According to old traditions, Summaries may not exceed one hundred characters; yet in 1723 (Year 1 of YongZheng), the Emperor made an Edict that said "urgent memorials need detailed summaries. The Commission of Transmissions may not reject a memorial because its summary is too long." Henceforth, urgent memorials do not have to obey the one-hundred character limit. For Department Memorials, only the memorials from the Department of Punishments have Summaries attached to the end. In addition, Summaries used to be a different piece of paper glued to the end of the memorial; later, Summaries are directly written on the original memorial.
