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How did Taizong reduce the size and cost of the Tang bureaucracy?

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Taizong The Taizong emperor, detail of a portrait; in the National Palace Museum, Taipei.

To reduce the size and cost of the Tang bureaucracy, Emperor Taizong implemented a policy of streamlining the government establishment at the capital and drastically reducing the number of local government divisions.1

By consolidating these administrative units, he maintained a comparatively simple and inexpensive government structure. Furthermore, Taizong opted for a centralized form of government through prefectures and counties, rejecting the reintroduction of a feudal system that would have delegated authority to hereditary territorial jurisdictions. These efforts were part of his broader goal to ensure the effective functioning of the institutions inherited from his father, the Gaozu emperor.12