The chancellor (Chinese: 宰相; pinyin: zǎixiàng) was a semi-formally designated office position for a number of high-level officials at one time during the Tang dynasty of China.
Ouyang Xiu, the author of the New Book of Tang, asserts that the Tang dynasty inherited its bureaucracy from its dynastic predecessor, the Sui dynasty, under which the founder Emperor Wen of Sui divided his government into five main bureaus: Under Emperor Wen, the executive bureau was regarded as the most important, and he had his most honored officials such as Gao Jiong, Yang Su, and Su Wei lead it at various points.
However, he deviated from his predecessors by creating a single head for the executive bureau, known as the Shàngshūlǐng (尚書令) and appointed the office to his second son and future emperor Lǐ Shìmín (李世民).
Emperor Taizong's reign also began to designate certain high-level officials, even though they were not heads of one of the bureaus, as chancellors, with titles such as Cānyù Cháozhèng (參豫朝政, literally "participator in the administration's governance").
[8] Throughout the early dynasty until the second reign of Emperor Ruizong in 710, variations of the Canyu Chaozheng also continued appearing, including Canzhi Jiwu (參知機務, literally "participator in important matters"), Canzhang Jimi (參掌機密, literally "participator in national secret matters"), Canzhi Zhengshi (參知政事, literally "participator in governance matters"), Canmou Zhengshi (參謀政事, similarly in meaning to Canzhi Zhengshi) also appeared, which Bo rendered as "chancellors de facto of the third class."
The chancellors periodically met together at the Zhengshi Tang (政事堂, literally "the Hall of State Matters"), originally physically located within the examination bureau.
"[9] Zhang also reorganized the Hall by creating five offices under the chancellors—in charge of civil service, state secrets, military matters, governance, and criminal law, respectively.