The Yongzheng emperor in 1729 increases the…

The Yongzheng emperor in 1729 increases the administrative centralization of the government.

The Grand Secretariat is replaced as the top ministerial body by the previously informal Grand Council.

The five or six members of the Grand Council work directly with the Emperor, who confers with them every day.

Their business is handled quickly and secretly.

The Emperor thus personally scrutinizes and directs all important matters of government.

Opium, now imported into China at a rate of two hundred chests a year, has by 1729 become such a problem that the emperor, disturbed by madak smoking at court and carrying out the government's role of upholding Confucian virtue, issues an edict prohibiting the smoking of opium and its domestic sale, except under license for use as medicine.

The ban punishes sellers and opium den keepers, but not users of the drug.

This is the first edict of its kind, representing a new official awareness of the dangers, whether socioeconomic or physiological, of opium addiction.