THE HANLIN ACADEMY
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functions of a temporary nature. In executing such functions, they gained administrative experience of which they could make full use when they were later transferred to posts in other government departments.
From 1726 onwards, two Hanlins with good translation ability together with two officials from the Grand Secretariat were despatched to the Colonial Office (Li-fan yuan) to assist the President of the Office with Chinese official documents concerning Mongolian affairs. Their term of service was two years, after which they were replaced by two other members from the Academy.
Another special function of the Hanlins was to serve as acting secretaries at the Grand Secretariat. The main function of the secretaries (Hsüeh-shih) in the Grand Secretariat was to handle edicts and memorials. They were, however, sometimes sent on special missions to the provinces. To take their place, members of the Academy in addition to Central Government officials of third or fourth rank, who had once been admitted to the Academy, were eligible to be selected to hold the vacant posts concurrently until the return of the absent officials.49
In the event of the conferral of honours or titles to princes and princesses, the chancellors of the Academy were enlisted as deputy representatives of the delegations. When missions were sent to Korea, the Manchu Chancellor of the Academy headed the expedition, while both Manchu and Chinese Hanlins could be called on to lead missions to Vietnam and the Liu-chiu Islands.50 It may be conjectured that for cultural and geographical reasons these were the tributary states maintaining the closest relationship with Peking and were therefore specially honoured by the visits of these distinguished officials.
Other functions of a temporary nature of the Hanlins were the supervision of repairs of city public works, the inspection of food distribution and ideological indoctrination in the provinces.
In 1725, for example, the Emperor Yung-cheng ordered high dignitaries to select four junior members of the Academy for supervising repairs in cities of Chihli province.51 In 1726 the same emperor ordered several Hanlins to help provincial officials of the same province check the distribution of food.52 Five years