Abstract: Taking an official of the Ministry of Punishments as an example，this paper sketches the outline of the duties，vacation，duties and other official activities of officials in the Six Ministries in the specific time and space of the late Qing Dynasty using insights drawn from their working schedules．From these schedules the article combs out the different responsibilities of the various officials in the Ministry of Punishments and reveals that the amount of time and the intensity of the work varied greatly．For example，“seal-holders”and“drafters”who were responsible for the specific affairs of the Division had relatively heavy workloads，while other ordinary officials had more leisure，and some，were not at the office most of the time．Some officers were on duty outside the normal working hours and others had early morning duty．Within the same ministry，official duties varied widely with some officials holding decision-making responsibilities rarely at the posts，while the clerks responsible for the bulk of the copying and logistical work，were the busiest．Among the Six Ministries，the officials of the ministries of Personnel，Revenue，and Punishments were under the greatest pressure，while the officials Ministries of Public Works and Rites were under less pressure．