Chapter 8 Section 3 Transformation from the two-level system of prefectures and counties to the three-level system of roads (roads) and prefectures and counties

Undoubtedly, Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty was an important reform, and since then, the second cycle of changes in political districts has begun.This reform aims to strengthen centralization and avoid local separatism by reducing the level of administrative regions.But there is still a second reform that must be carried out, that is, after 500 years of changes, the number of prefectures and counties has become too large, and the divisions have been too small, especially prefectures. After the unification of the Sui Dynasty, the total number was more than 300, and the central government directly Management is inconvenient and has to be adjusted.

This task was completed by Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty. In the third year of Daye (607 A.D.), he merged provinces, prefectures and counties on a large scale, and changed the prefectures to counties.After the province was merged, there were only 190 counties and 1,255 counties in the country, and each county governed six or seven counties on average.Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty admired the system of the Han Dynasty. In addition to changing the prefecture to a county, in order to facilitate the control of the central government, he also imitated the practice of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, setting up the governor of the Sili and making branch inspections (Figure 4).

After reform and adjustment, the administrative division system of the Sui Dynasty should be said to be relatively complete.But history often makes fun of people, and the Sui Dynasty followed the end of Qin Dynasty II's death.The two-level system of prefectures and counties had only been implemented for more than ten years, and the cruel and innocent Emperor Sui Yang was knocked down by the peasant uprising.After the founding of the Tang Dynasty, counties were changed to states.During the Sui and Tang dynasties, all heroes rose together, and most of those who returned to the Tang Dynasty were entrusted with the post of governor, so the number of prefectures expanded again.Especially in the ethnic minority areas in Guangxi, Hunan, and Sichuan, the prefectures are set up more densely, because the local leaders who express their submission have become prefects.Later, although Tang Taizong merged provinces in the first year of Zhenguan (AD 627), there were still 358 states and 1,551 counties in the thirteenth year of Zhenguan (AD 639).

Although the two-level system of the Sui and Tang Dynasties imitated the Qin and Han systems, the administrative management situation was no longer the same.The territory of the Sui Dynasty was larger than that of the Qin Dynasty, and the rule of the Tang Dynasty was deeper than that of the Han Dynasty, and the number of counties (states) could not be reduced to about a hundred.For the scope of management of Sui and Tang counties (states), the range of six or seven counties or four or five counties is too small, but for the central government, the management of two to three hundred counties (states) is a big problem.It is said that Tang Taizong once wrote the names of more than 300 governors of the state on the screen, and often checked their achievements to decide whether to reward or punish them.At that time, some people commented on this administrative system from the perspective of the establishment of official positions, thinking that it was not easy to get 100 good Erqianshi (county prefects), let alone 300 good state governors, so it must be added on top of the secondary administrative districts. The first floor of the surveillance area is to picket the governor.Tang Chu tried his best to avoid doing this, fearing that the surveillance area might become an administrative area.However, the situation is still developing step by step towards the establishment of surveillance areas.

Although there was no need to set up a supervisory area in the early Tang Dynasty, it was imperative to dispatch supervisory officials. Once supervisory officials were dispatched, it was necessary to be responsible for each division.The divisions of supervisory officials in the Tang Dynasty were divided according to the basic transportation routes, so they were called roads.In the first year of Zhenguan (627 A.D.), the whole country was divided into 10 regions according to the shape of mountains and rivers. Although the form is geographical division, it already implies supervision. The entire early Tang Dynasty was spent in an ambiguous situation. During this period, there was a plan to divide the whole country into 24 governorate districts but failed. Opponents believed that this would be too heavy a division of powers.It was not until the Kaiyuan period of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty (713-741 A.D.) that the system of the supervision area was finally formalized, and the 10 roads in Zhenguan were divided into 15 roads. Old Book of Tang Geography").On the one hand, the official establishment of the surveillance area was a sign of Tang Xuanzong’s ambition. The prosperity of Kaiyuan made him full of confidence in the situation, and he did not take into account the prospects for changes in the surveillance area; Supervisory officials come and go between the capital and the surveillance site, and the effectiveness of surveillance is greatly reduced.

However, once the supervisory area is fixed, the possibility of supervisory officials becoming administrative districts and administrative officials once they hold a permanent post is just around the corner. As long as there is a catalyst, this transformation can be brought about.Sure enough, that catalysis happened just 20 years later. "Yuyang Nao agitated to come."In the last years of Tianbao, the An Lushan rebellion disrupted Tang Xuanzong's dream of peace and tranquility, and a new three-level administrative division appeared amidst the clash of gold and iron horses. First, Tang Xuanzong set up 10 Jiedushi jurisdictions (ie Fangzhen) in the border area for the needs of border defense.Originally, the Jiedu envoy was only concerned with military defense, or "to curb the affairs of the barbarians, not to deal with civil affairs."Later, An Lushan, who was also the envoy of Fan Yang and Pinglu (jurisdiction over today's Beijing and Northeast Hebei), was favored by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty and made him also serve as an interviewer for Hebei Road (jurisdiction over present-day Hebei, northern Henan, northwest Shandong and northeast) As an envoy, it set a precedent for integrating military and civil administration powers.It was against this favorable background that An Lushan launched the rebellion.

In order to extinguish the rebellion of An Lushan and his successor Shi Siming, the government of the Tang Dynasty had to take emergency measures during the war, setting up square towns throughout the country, and appointing a large number of Jiedu envoys who were appointed to manage the army and the people.In the one or two years since the outbreak of the rebellion, 44 square towns have been set up across the country (Figure 5).When the counter-insurgency war is over, these wartime divisions will still be preserved, and the system of Jiedu envoys and interview envoys will also be fixed, and the two envoys will become one.Although some Jiedu Envoys in the southeastern region were renamed Observing Envoys, the essence of holding military and political power is the same.As a result, a new first-level administrative district was naturally formed above the two-level system of prefectures and counties.Originally, the district under the jurisdiction of the Jiedushi was called Fangzhen, but because the interviewer was originally an official at the first level of the Tao, and since the Jiedushi also served as an interviewer, the administrative district at this level was also called Fangzhen and Dao. Therefore, in the late Tang Dynasty The political district system in the country has become a three-level system of Dao (Fang Town)-State-County.The change of the administrative division level in the past dynasties completed its second cycle.The number of square towns in the late Tang Dynasty fluctuated between 40 and 50. Each town governed three or four prefectures to ten or so prefectures, and each prefecture governed four or five counties.

The existence of Fangzhen seriously weakened the power of the central government.In particular, Fangzhen in the Heshuo area (roughly equivalent to the present-day North China area) gained a lot of power through counter-insurgency wars, resulting in a separatist situation: the position of the commander (Jiedushi) can be hereditary or supported by soldiers, the wealth is not handed over to the treasury, and the household registration is not The last version of the book seems to divide the land with the imperial court and rule, just like the ancient princes, so it is also called a vassal town.The Tang Dynasty finally died in the separatist rule of the feudal towns, and it also extended to the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, resulting in the second long-term split in Chinese history.This historical lesson undoubtedly taught the rulers of the Song Dynasty a profound lesson, making them feel that the three-tier system must never be adopted.Therefore, at the beginning of the founding of the Song Dynasty, it immediately took over all the prefectures led by the Jiedu Envoy and returned them to the central government. In fact, it became a two-level state and county system for a while. It seems that a third new cycle starting with the two-level system is about to appear.

However, the experience of the Han and Tang dynasties has shown that it is very difficult to implement a pure two-tier system in a country with a vast territory.Especially in the case of a large number of first-level administrative districts (Han County, Tang Prefecture) in Tongxian County, it is impossible not to set up supervisory districts above the second-level system, but the consequence of setting up supervisory districts is bound to move towards the third-level system. Hierarchical administrative regions, which lead to the weakening of centralization, and eventually lead to chaos and division.How to break through the vicious cycle of the endless cycle from the two-tier system to the three-tier system was one of the primary problems encountered after the establishment of the Song Dynasty.

When solving this problem, the rulers of the Song Dynasty spent a lot of effort.The first step is to "collect its branch counties, seize military power, and control its money valley" for Jiedu envoys.Zhijun refers to the states to which Fangzhen belongs, borrowing the title of the county belonging to the Kingdom of the early Han Dynasty.After Jiedushi lost his political power, military power and financial power, he became a false title. This is the story of the famous "drinking wine to release military power".Afterwards, the government appointed another central official as the magistrate to directly manage the government affairs of each state, but the original governor of the state remained.The full name of Zhizhou is Quanzhijunzhoushi, which means to temporarily take charge of the military administrative affairs of the state.In fact, Zhizhou is a fixed official position, but the name is just a sleight of hand. Later, when he was dismissed as the governor, the word "Quan" was omitted.Officials of the county-level administrative districts also did the same, sending central officials to serve as county magistrates instead of the original county magistrates.

After Fangzhen was abolished in the early Song Dynasty, there was no new administrative division to replace it for a period of time.State-level administrative districts became units directly under the Central Government.Later, the rulers of the Song Dynasty were inspired by the setting of the transfer envoy in the Tang Dynasty, and turned this temporary mission into a fixed official position, and used it to transfer and transfer local wealth.If it needs to be transferred, it must be related to the line of communication. Therefore, "the land situation in the world is used to divide the roads to rule."Therefore, the road has become a new type of administrative division above the state level. After the transshipment envoys, officials such as the procuratorial envoys responsible for supervision and judicial duties, the conciliatory envoys in charge of public security and frontier defense, and the promotion envoys in charge of food storage to stabilize prices were also set up accordingly.The yamen of these officials are commonly called the supervisors, and they are divided into Cao, Xian, Shuai, and Cang.The administrative jurisdictions of these supervisory divisions are all called roads, but the roads of each supervisory division are not the same. From the perspective of the transshipment department, there are two roads in the criminal investigation department, but four in the appeasement department. road.Even when the roads of the two divisions are the same, the administrative offices (administrative centers) of the two divisions are sometimes not in the same place (Figure 6). Therefore, the characteristics of the administrative system of the Song Dynasty are as follows: First, instead of setting up a unified high-level local administrative organization and a single administrative head above the state, the powers at this level are divided into different departments-supervisors.Second, instead of setting up a high-level single administrative division above the state, try to make the branch lines of the supervisors and divisions inconsistent, forming a double-entry system.These two characteristics show that the construction of roads in the Song Dynasty was to establish official divisions first, and then to embody the country's business, which is exactly the opposite of the traditional tradition.Third, the states still retain the right to act directly to the central government.The existence of these three characteristics prevents Lu from becoming the highest level administrative region in the strict sense, and the relationship between the central government and Luzhou and county levels as follows: In terms of the distribution of power, such a relationship can be called a two-and-a-half-tier system or a virtual three-tier system.However, purely from the point of view of divisions, roads are still the first-level divisions that actually exist above the state-level administrative districts. Therefore, from the perspective of the administrative division system, the Song Dynasty can still be called a three-level system. Due to the adoption of the road system in the Song Dynasty, the centralization of power was highly strengthened, while the localities were in a state of extreme decentralization and even powerlessness, which greatly weakened the external border defense and internal security capabilities.Although there are many pacification divisions in the northwest, they only care about soldiers and not civilians, and only care about military affairs and not finances. Their ability to resist foreign aggression is extremely poor, and their ability to suppress peasant uprisings at home is also affected.Therefore, in the Song Dynasty, internal and external troubles continued. But as far as autocratic imperial power is concerned, after weighing the pros and cons, the rulers of the Song Dynasty were willing to accept this situation where the inside was more important than the outside.Even if you are a younger brother emperor, nephew emperor, or even son emperor, you can bear it.Those who are incapable of resisting insults can accept money or donate soil; those who are unable to suppress can restrain [ji mi machine fans] and recruit peace.And once the situation becomes more important than the outside, it will cause division and separation, the country will change hands, and no emperor will be able to be established.At that time, people criticized the drawbacks of the power of state and county officials being too small and the power of road-level officials being dispersed, but none of them could be adopted because of this. However, as a result of long-term weakness, although the dynasty did not perish due to peasant uprisings and separatist regimes, it would perish due to the invasion of foreign enemies.The country of the Northern Song Dynasty lasted for more than 100 years after the humiliating alliance under the city, but it still inevitably fell into the hands of the Jinren.The remaining half of the country spent a century and a half in precarity, and was once again killed by Mongolian cavalry.One of the fundamental reasons for this death and death is that the localities have no power, just as Chen Liang in the Southern Song Dynasty said, "The counties and counties are empty, but the end and the end are weak."The national hero Wen Tianxiang sighed: "Song punished the rebellion of the five seasons, cut down the vassals and towns, and built counties and towns. Although it was enough to correct the big disadvantages for a while, the country was also weak. Therefore, when the enemy came to a state, it would be destroyed; to a county Then a county will be ruined, and the land in the Central Plains will sink, and there will be no regrets." ("Song History·Wen Tianxiang Biography") In the Liao and Jin systems, the former imitated the Tang Dynasty and was divided into five divisions, under the jurisdiction of prefectures and counties.Both Liao and Northern Song died in Jin, and both Jin and Southern Song were destroyed by Mongol and Yuan.Mongolian iron cavalry traveled south from the thousands of miles of desert, perishing Jin, pacifying Xixia, merging Western Liao, taking Dali, and destroying Southern Song Dynasty, creating an unprecedented vast Mongolian and Yuan Empire. A complex and chaotic multi-level system has revealed the third cycle of the changes in the political district level.