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1. Three Departments And Six Ministries System

   Linked via "Secretariat"

   While rudimentary forms existed earlier, the system was formally established and perfected during the Sui Dynasty. The Sui administration introduced a streamlined version of the bureaucratic system, often cited as the precursor to the mature Three Departments and Six Ministries system used by the Tang. The key innovation was the standardization of official ranks, which were determined not by hereditary privilege but by rigorous, albeit sometimes arbitrary, written examinations focused heavily on calligraphy and obscure regional poetry standards.
   The system reached its…