Chapter 12 Section 2 The Relative Stability of "County of a Hundred Miles"

The changes in the size of county-level administrative districts are not specifically recorded in historical documents, but within a certain geographical range, the size of administrative districts is inversely proportional to the number. Therefore, the changes in the number of counties in the past dynasties can be seen from the side. Changes in size.An increase in the number of county-level administrative districts generally indicates a decrease in their size, and vice versa.The following table is a summary of the changes in the number of county-level administrative districts in the past dynasties:

It can be seen from the table that the number of county-level administrative districts has not changed much. From the Qin Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, the number of county-level administrative districts only increased by 50%, but 2000 years have passed, and the territory has been greatly expanded. There are many reasons for the increase in the number of counties, two of which have nothing to do with changes in the size of counties, that is, the expansion of the external territory and the disappearance of the gap in internal governance.The former is self-evident, the latter must be exemplified.For example, the three counties of Changting, Longyan, and Ninghua in Fujian were all formed by "opening caves" in the 24th year of Kaiyuan (736 A.D.) in the Tang Dynasty.The so-called caves refer to remote mountainous areas that were previously beyond the reach of the government. When these places are opened up as county governments, it will naturally not affect the reduction of the size of other counties.

In addition to the above two reasons, the establishment of new counties is mostly separated from the old counties, which will inevitably reduce the size of the old counties.Conversely, the abolition of the original county will inevitably merge into the neighboring counties, which will expand the territory of the latter.In the above table, the number of counties in several dynasties increased significantly, and the number of counties in several dynasties decreased significantly compared with the previous dynasties, all of which reflected changes in the size of counties to a certain extent. The "Historical Records" did not specify the total number of counties in the Qin Dynasty, but it is estimated to be around a thousand.The number of counties in the Western Han Dynasty soared to 1587. On the one hand, it was naturally added by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to expand the territory, and on the other hand, it was due to the enfeoffment of a large number of princes.Most of these marquis states were established by dividing a township or hundreds of households from a certain county. The territory is very small, but they have the same political status as the county.Among the 1587 counties, there are more than 200 such Hou states.In the Eastern Han Dynasty, all these Hou states were omitted, and a large number of counties were saved due to the decrease in population, so the total number of counties was significantly reduced, but it also shows that the size of the counties at this time was relatively larger than that of the Western Han Dynasty.

During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the number of counties increased most abnormally. It was entirely because of the need to set up officials and divisions, and the size of counties was continuously reduced to add more counties.For example, Dongping County (now Huai'an area, Jiangsu Province) in the Qi Dynasty in the Southern Dynasties had two counties. One hundred households in the lower reaches of Huaiyin Township in Donghuai".The size of the county is small, which can be seen here (the above-mentioned Shouzhang, Shanyang, Huai'an, etc. are all in the present-day Huai'an area).

Due to overcorrection in the Sui Dynasty, a large number of provinces, prefectures and counties were merged, so the number of counties decreased significantly, and the territory increased relatively.After the Tang Dynasty, the degree of development in the south deepened, the economy developed significantly, and new counties were separated from the old counties.The new and old Tang books "Geography" have quite detailed records on this, such as: Yushan (now the county) in Jiangxi is "subdivided into Changshan (now Changshan, Zhejiang) and Xujiang (now Zhejiang Jiangshan)".Mengyang County in Sichuan is "divided into Jiulong (now Peng County, Sichuan), Luo (now Guanghan), and Shifang (now County)".The divided old county will naturally shrink in size.The substantial increase in the number of counties in the Tang Dynasty was due, on the one hand, to the recovery of some counties merged by the Sui Dynasty;

The territory of the Song Dynasty was much smaller than that of the Tang Dynasty. The sixteen prefectures of Yanyun (now Shanxi, northern Hebei and Beijing) were lost to Liao, the northwest of Longyou belonged to Xixia, the area of ​​Yunnan became independent as Dali, and northern Vietnam became the territory of Annan Kingdom. Naturally significantly reduced.Given the vastness of the territory of the Yuan Dynasty, it is hard to understand that there are only 1127 counties.In addition to the more obvious reason that a large number of counties were saved due to the large loss of population due to long-term wars, there is another more hidden reason, that is, a considerable part of the state should be regarded as county-level administrative districts rather than unified counties. steer.

Before the Song Dynasty, the state was a unified county administrative district, and the state government must be located in a certain county, which was called Fuguo County.In the Yuan Dynasty, many prefectures did not have Fuguo County, so a county-level administrative district equivalent to the subordinate county was formed around the prefectural government. At the same time, in the Yuan Dynasty, many prefectures did not have counties, and these prefectures were actually county-level administrative districts.Finally, due to the large number of household registrations in the Jiangnan area, a number of counties have been upgraded to prefectures. These prefectures do not have counties under their jurisdiction. From the perspective of division, they are naturally county-level administrative districts.In the Ming and Qing dynasties, all prefectures did not have Fuguo County, as did the Zhili Office in the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, the three dynasties in the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties were relatively low in terms of pure counties, and in terms of county-level administrative districts. Normal.

Although the number of counties in the past dynasties has fluctuated to a certain extent, reflecting the changes in the size of county-level administrative districts, in general, the number and size of counties have not changed much. State districts are much smaller.This shows that the size of a county as a grassroots administrative region is determined by the effectiveness of administrative management.Regardless of the dynasty, normal agricultural production must be maintained in order to ensure the long-term stability of the dynasty.The county-level government is the grassroots organization that directly "herders", and its administrative scope of persuading farming and mulberry and collecting rent and taxes should not be changed frequently, otherwise it will affect the normal functioning of the state.This is the basic reason why the number and size of county-level administrative districts are relatively stable.

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