明清檔案工作室 | GRAND SECRETARIAT ARCHIVES PROJECT

As the Qing Dynasty continues the Ming traditions, routine business is communicated through Routine Memorials and private business through Secret Memorials. Provincial officials can submit a Routine Memorial about various routine businesses with their seals. Before imperial review, Routine Memorials need to be sent to the Commission of Transmission to check the format; only when the format is within convention can the Routine Memorial be sent to the Grand Secretariat to be translated into Manchurian. Capital bureaucrats' Routine Memorials have to be in both Manchurian and Chinese, and they are sent directly to the Grand Secretariat to receive Registration Slips. After they receive imperial responses, the words on the Selected Registration Slips will be copied on the cover of the Routine Memorial by both the Endorsement Copying Division and the Grand Secretariat Archives Office. This is called the Red Endorsement, and the memorials with Red Endorsement are also called Endorsed Memorials. After this, the Routine Memorials will either be sent to related departments for direct execution, or the replies will be transmitted to provincial officials for further updates and replies. The Endorsed Memorials stored in each department will be collected by the Grand Secretariat at the end of the year to be stored together in the Endorsed Memorial Archives. The Routine Memorial system was abolished in the August of 1901 (Year 27 of Guangxu); Routine Memorials were later replaced by Palace Memorials.