When King Chulalongkorn surveyed his realm on his second coronation in 1873 to mark the termination of the five-year regency at his coming of age, he saw much that was in need of reform. The king's assessment was that the monarch was but a figurehead; the existing framework of government was actually run by the leading nobility, foremost of whom were the regent and his family who wielded power based on their long dominance over the key administrative posts and the economic benefits that accrued from their official positions. From Chulalongkorn's viewpoint, the regent's family, which reached the pinnacle of its power during the regency of Chuang Bunnag (1868–73), dominated the bureaucracy, in effect controlled the administration of the country, and enriched itself with great facility at the expense of the king and the country. Through the political patronage that they extended to the tax farmers, the officials had assumed control of the tax farming system, the most pervasive method of revenue collection that was employed in the kingdom since the Third Reign. The germ of King Chulalongkorn's historic reform of the administrative system, restructured along rational, functional lines, thus lay in his desire to regain control over the government and economy, which had been gradually slipping out of the Crown's grip since the reign of his father, King Mongkut. The king was determined not to allow the situation to persist where substantial revenue from the tax farms was being channelled into the coffers of the leading noble families and the tax farmers themselves, to the detriment of the state.
On the Nature of Cao Cao’s Appointments of the Provincial Officials
