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The Five Efficient Ministries

Formed by Shogun Takezo at the dawn of the Shogunate, the Five Efficient Ministries were designed to be one of the two branches of the Shogunate's government, which would include all of the Dragon-Blooded of the Age as well as however many mortals were needed to manage the branches efficiently. Originally, the Ministries were designed as a check and balance to the power of the daimyos; the Militaries would be organized under the auspices of the provinces, while the Ministries would be self-contained. In this manner, even if the daimyos started to fracture, half of the Dragon-Blooded in Creation would remain loyal to the Shogunate as a whole, and would have the power to keep things organized and to cut off support to rogue daimyos.

This system did not, however, survive. It barely lasted out Takezo's life; from the beginning, the daimyos began to cultivate relationships with the Ministry agents within their provinces, and as time went on, they cultivated the idea of provincial loyalty within those who Exalted in their lands, and their Exalts carried those patriotic ideals with them into the Ministries. By the time the first Takezo dynasty failed, the Ministries were united in name only; they were in practice a collection of provincial supporters who jockeyed endlessly to shift payments and benefits to their own lands, and away from others.

During the Years of Weeping Blood, the Ministries as a unified force collapsed completely, just as the Militaries did. Every daimyo was dedicated entirely to his or her own advancement, and with no organizing Shogun, daimyo after daimyo simply declared that they did not need to obey the strictures of the Ministries as a whole. Instead, every daimyo divorced their own Ministries from those of the rest of Creation, modifying their purviews as needed for their own designs. By the time that Shogun Jukari came to power, the Ministries were collapsed into forty organizations, and she could see no way to fix them. Instead, she merely added an interprovincial layer to the Ministries, leaving them effectively under the control of the daimyos, but subject to a certain amount of Creation-wide oversight.

Jukari's reforms remain in practice to the present day. While the Ministries have many similarities between them, and are generally considered to be equivalent, each daimyo still has complete authority to replace, promote, or demote members of their province's Ministries whenever they feel it is appropriate, and can alter their Ministerial duties. In addition, each Ministry answers to the Shogun's Ministries, which serve as a co-ordinating factor and govern a few special cases that bridge every Ministry. Jukari gradually shifted power towards the Shogun's Ministries over her reign; Taron has not done the same yet, although he may have further erosion of the daimyo Ministries as one of his long-term goals.

Like the Five Militaries, the Ministries are named for the Five Elemental Dragons; this was done as a sign of respect to the founders and progenitors of the Terrestrial Exalted.

Organization

The Five Ministries within a given province report to their daimyo (Backing 6); they are also under the auspices of the Shogun's Own Ministries, although this oversight is usually minimal in nature. Each Ministry is run by a council, made up of anywhere from four to eight Chairmen (Backing 5), with an average of five chairmen per Ministry. The exact number varies; the Arbiters almost always have only four, for their four branches, while the Censors will often have seven or eight. Each chairman is in command of a Department, which covers all of the areas that are considered to be important. Each department has from four to eight Divisions, led by a Minister (Backing 4); wrangling over which divisions should belong to which department can be the root of much political manipulations.

At this point, things get messy. In order to ensure that citizens have as much access as possible to governmental services, a given department is divided a second way - into two hundred and fifty regional Branches, roughly fifty per department. Each branch is run by a Manager (Backing 3), who oversees three to seven Directors (Backing 2) and thirty to fifty Officials (Backing 1). Each of these directors is from a different division with their department; in general, one director appears from each division. There are also general work staff, who perform simple or low-education labour for the Ministries, in varying amounts. Directors report both to their branch managers and to their ministers; branch managers report both to their ministers and directly to the councils on matters of local import. In this manner, it can be assured that there is at least a branch of the Ministry active near everyone.

The Most Sagacious Scholars Of Mela

The Scholarly Ministry is the Ministry dedicated to the concept of knowledge and magic. The Scholars are responsible for deciding on levels and course manuals for all forms of accepted education in the Shogunate, from the simple public schools to the expensive secondary schools. The scholars also manage the Shogunate's libraries, determining what clearances are needed to gain access to certain rare tomes of the Anathema, and handle general dissemination of information.

More importantly from the point of view of the Exalted, the Scholars govern the spread and use of thaumaturgy and sorcery. All licensed thaumaturges must gain their licenses from the Scholars, and the Scholars determine whether a new thaumaturgical ritual is safe and allowed, and help manage any mortals who learn sorcery, as well as enlisting the majority of Exalted sorcerers who do not join the Militaries into their ranks. Such sorcerers use their spells for their own benefit and for the benefit of the province in which they reside, and are appropriately compensated by the Ministry.

The Shogun's Scholars limit themselves to regulation; they make sure that education levels remain consistant between provinces, and ensure that no province is developing any magics that have been forbidden. There were discussions of having them take full control of the Shogunate's libraries, but these currently remain under the control of their respective daimyos.

The Most Innovative Crafstmen Of Pasiap

The Crafting Ministry devotes itself to public works and artifice. Its members govern the proper placement and construction of roads, public buildings, sanitation systems, airship docks, and all forms of interprovincial travel. The Craftsmen handle all major public works projects, from the planners who design architecture that will resonate with the world's geomancy to the crews that carry out the work.

Exalted Craftsmen who are not simply bureaucrats are usually artificers or Manse architects. All forms of artifice are controlled under the auspicies of the Crafstmen, and those Dragon-Blooded who are dedicated artificers use their talents to craft the objects that help the Shogunate survive. Manse architects mostly work at modifying or repairing damaged manses, as most of the Shogunate's manses have been dedicated some time earlier. The Craftsmen also construct the artifacts used by the Militaries, making them a popular branch with their daimyos. In addition, the Craftsmen are responsible for agricultural and biotech engineering, and their advances help to feed the Shogunate.

The Shogun's Craftsmen manage the production and harmonization of civic projects that cross over provincial borders, such as interprovincial road networks or the Creation Airship Fleet. They also manage the regulation of newly-designed artifacts, especially those that are designed for mass production (as rare as new mass-produced artifacts are in the Shogunate era), and restrict the production of artifacts that rely on Magical Materials other than jade (although they do not entirely disallow it).

The Most Steadfast Arbiters Of Hesiesh

The Arbitration Ministry is in charge of the course of justice in the Shogunate, and covers all branches of the judiciary. Arbiters handle general law enforcement, maintaining peace and tranquility in Shogunate territories. They investigate crimes, tracking down criminals and making arrests as necessary. They pass judgement over such criminals, and determine appropriate punishments, and they determine what should or should not be legal within the guidelines laid down by the Shogun and their local daimyos.

This is not to say that a single arbiter does all of this; the police, investigation teams, lawmakers and magistrates are four seperate branches of the Steadfast Arbiters, each of which is specifically designed to operate independently of the others. Exalts frequently take the lead in whatever branch they are a member of, managing police forces, tracking down dangerous criminals, or passing judgement over significant crimes. In general, Exalted arbiters have more freedom to handle multiple facets of a case than mere mortals, but they are still expected to follow the rule of law.

The Shogun's Arbiters manage which laws and punishments stretch across all of Creation, regardless of province, and handle trials of daimyos, their immediate staff, or the provincial leaders of any of the Ministries or Militaries. Shogun's Arbiter investigation teams handle crimes that stretch across provincial boundaries, such as far-reaching Wyld Cults or the like. The Shogun's Arbiters are also responsible for the Wyld Hunt, although they draw most of the actual power for a given Hunt from the militaries near their target sites.

A special note needs to be made of Arbiter divisions. Arbiters oversee law enforcement, and the guard force is arranged slightly differently from other groups. Instead of having divisions based on purpose, law enforcement has two layers of regional division, usually paralleling the divisions of territories and districts. Each district covers one million people, and has a single Backing 3 Arbiter, ten Precinct chiefs (Backing 2) running police forces in each ward, managed by five to ten seargents (Backing 1) each, who between them control two hundred police officers (Backing 0).

The Most Artful Assessors Of Danaa'd

The smallest of the five Ministries, the Assessors handle all details of finance and human resources across the Shogunate. They determine taxes, and collect them; they decide how to divide funding for the Ministries and for the Militaries, and they help manage all of that funding as it works its way across. The Assessors also handle investigations into graft and general corruption, acting as a form of Ministerial police (although it is up to the Arbiters to actually pass judgement on such criminals).

Exalts can be canny members of the Assessors, using their abilities to find alternate funding strategies, unravel tangled schemes of corruption, and help to make the money flow in ways that others cannot. They are not a glamourous position, but no one notices the money until it stops flowing. On the other hand, daimyos are always happy to have an Assessor who can make money disappear. Less apparent tax revenue means less money passed on to the Shogun, and more power to the province against its neighbours.

Ideally, the Shogun's Assessors keep in close touch with their regional counterparts, managing the tithes that the daimyos pass on to their shoguns, ensuring that no daimyo is levying a particularly unfair tax, and helping pass funds from temporarily affluent provinces to those that are suffering from droughts or other disasters. In practice, they have an extremely adversarial relationship most of the time, with the provincial assessors struggling to tilt the numbers in their favour, while the Shogun's Assessors try to unravel their obfuscations.

The Most Refined Censors Of Sextes Jylis

The task of managing the social fabric of the Shogunate falls to the Census Ministry. The censors are the Exalted artists and performers of the Shogunate, as well as the bureaucrats who review new arts to ensure that they are not blasphemous or dangerous to public morale. They are those who work tirelessly to keep the public in full support of the Shogunate with patriotic messages and subtle works, and those who manage the holidays and rest times of Creation. Finally, the Censors are responsible for the ambassadorial duties of the Shogunate; some of these are mere sinecures (or even punishments), such as the ambassadors to Dragon King cities or the envoys to the Mountain Folk, while others are respectable or valued positions, such as the ambassadors to the Elemental Courts or the overseers of the Relic Races. What little congress the Shogunate has with the gods is managed through the Censors, and those Dragon-Bloods who are priests of gods do so only through their auspices as Censors.

The Census is a popular destination among the Ministries; it is the largest of the Five Ministries due to its relatively easy-going nature compared to the other Ministries and due to its large and widespread social focus. At the same time, it is often the least respected of the Five Ministries by the other Ministries, for much the same reason. Still, canny daimyos recognize the value of the Censors to create allies and help their vassals live in peace and comfort.

The Shogun's Censors are responsible for official ambassadorial positions towards given groups, as well as for having ultimate authority over what does or does not constitute blasphemy. They generally provide the least amount of oversight towards their Ministry; Jukashi was much more focused on forming links for the Arbiters and Assessors, and the Censors have been allowed to mostly forge their own paths.