mufu

Mufu (Chinese: 幕府; Wade–Giles: mu-fu), a secretariat, was a system for hiring able advisers, the muliao (Chinese: 幕僚), by the imperial Chinese provincial officials. It dates back to 229 BC, but was extensively used in the Qing dynasty. The system was also adopted in Japan by the shōgun. The Chinese characters (kanji) for mufu (幕府) are pronounced in Japanese as bakufu.