Chapter 14 Section 4 The Ups and Downs of "The State of Thousand Miles"

The "state of thousands of miles" here is used as a metaphor for all forms of high-level political regions in history.High-level administrative districts refer to administrative districts that do not directly govern counties. They were prefectures in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, roads (fangzhen) in the Tang Dynasty, roads in the Song Dynasty, and provinces in the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties.Due to the largest size of the administrative region at this level, if the chief executive of the administrative region has both financial and military powers, it will form the situation of "the land, the people, the wealth, and the armored soldiers" of the Tang Dynasty. , the situation of division and separatism will inevitably appear.Therefore, this level of administrative district is the emperor's extreme unwillingness to set up a political district, and often has to be established.The existence, size, and delineation of administrative regions at this level have become the most important and most concerned issues of the supreme rulers of all dynasties.In terms of size, whether it is a state, a road, a road, or a province, they have all gone through the process of changing from large to small.

Zhou originally means highland in the water.During the Warring States period, people borrowed the legend of Dayu's flood control to divide the world into Kyushu, and wrote "Shangshu · Yu Gong", the earliest regional geography work in my country.Later, "Zhou Li Zhi Fang", "Er Ya Shi Di", "Lu Shi Chun Qiu You Shi Lan" also proposed their respective divisions of Kyushu.However, these divisions are only on paper, and it was not until Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty that the state was really regarded as the name of the supervisory area.At that time, there were 13 Cishi Departments and one Sili Xiaowei Department in the whole country, and 11 of them were named after the state, such as Jizhou Cishi Department (now most of southwest Hebei, northeast corner of Henan), Yuzhou Cishi Department (now Henan Southeast, Huaibei, Anhui) and so on, so it is commonly known as the 13 states.The name of the state comes from "Shangshu·Yugong" and "Zhouli·Zhifang", because these two articles are Confucian classics.Most of the state names in the two works are the same but slightly different, exactly 11 state names are provided, of which two states in "Yugong", namely Yongzhou and Liangzhou, were respectively changed to Liangzhou (now Gansu, eastern Qinghai, Ningxia, Shaanxi, adjacent areas of Inner Mongolia) and Yizhou (now most of Sichuan, southern Shaanxi, Yunnan, Guizhou).

During the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the 13 prefectures had a very vast area. In the north, there were half a province and one province today, and in the south, there were two, three, and three or four provinces.Such a territory was roughly inherited by the Eastern Han Dynasty, and became a formal administrative division at the end of the Han Dynasty. During the Three Kingdoms period, the size and number of states did not change substantially.There is only one special thing, Wei and Wu both set up Jingzhou and Yangzhou (the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the area north of Nanling), but Wei Zhijing and Yangzhou are only symbolic and only occupy a small part of Yuanzhou. .Until the unification of the Western Jin Dynasty, the number of states gradually increased to 19 states, and the territory began to shrink significantly.Especially Liangzhou in the northwest, Youzhou in the northeast (now northern Hebei, western Liaoning, Liaodong Peninsula, and northern Korea), Yizhou in the southwest, and Jiaozhou in the south of the Lingnan (now Guangdong, Guangxi, and northern and central Vietnam) are all too vast to survive. Divided into two or three states.At the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, the Jingzhou and Yangzhou prefectures with the largest area were also divided into Hunan and Jiangzhou prefectures, forming a situation of 21 prefectures with a relatively balanced size.

During the Three Kingdoms period, people called the prefecture "a state of thousands of miles". Although it was based on the number of counties under its jurisdiction, there were indeed some prefectures with an area of ​​thousands of miles, such as Jing, Yang, Yi, and Jiaozhou in the south.The territory of Western Jinzhou has been greatly reduced. After the Sixteen Kingdoms in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the number of states has increased greatly, and the area has decreased sharply. The reasons for this situation are very complicated. To set up administrative districts for refugees who migrated to the south) to set up the state, and to consolidate the centralization of power and make the state in a state of segregation and instability.For example, "Song Shu·He Shangzhi Biography" contains: "Jingyang and Yangzhou have registered permanent residence for half of the world. Since Jiangzuo, Yangzhou has been rooted, and Jing has been appointed outside. It is even divided (referring to the two prefectures, each of which is divided into Yingzhou) In order to reduce the power of the ministers, Jing and Yang were wasted because of this. Shangzhi suggested that the two prefectures be reunited, and the superiors will not allow it." The reason for not allowing it is to consolidate the imperial power, and whether the economies of Jing and Yang are affected depends on Secondly.

In the late Southern and Northern Dynasties, the number of prefectures expanded to as many as two or three hundred, and the size of the prefectures was only a small area of ​​several hundred miles square.The changes in the high-level administrative districts in the past dynasties were the most dramatic, so in the Sui Dynasty, it had to be reduced to the unified county administrative district, and in the Yuan Dynasty, it was further reduced to the level of the county-level administrative district. After the state was reduced to unified county administrative districts, new geographical divisions appeared again.In the Tang Dynasty, Dao replaced the status of the state and gradually became a new high-level administrative region.In the first year of Emperor Taizong's Zhenguan (627 A.D.), the whole country was divided into 10 regions, which appeared purely in the form of geographical divisions, but actually contained the shadow of supervision areas.

The territory of the Han and Tang Dynasties was similar. There were 14 divisions in the Western Han Dynasty, but only 10 divisions in the early Tang Dynasty.In the north, the Tanghe River is as big as the Henan, Yan, Qing, and Xu states in the Han Dynasty, and the Hebei Road can also cover the two states of Hebei and You.In the south, Jiangnan Road is wider than Jingzhou or Yangzhou.Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty divided the 10 into 15 and became the formal supervision area. Gyeonggi-do and Dugi-do are small in size, with only five or six prefectures, which are set up for the special needs of the capital and accompanying capitals.Only Jiangnan and Shannan are really divided because of the vastness of the territory.Since the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the southern economy has been quite developed.According to statistics in the first year of Tang Tianbao, the ratio of northern and southern household registrations has reached 4:5.Therefore, Jiangnan Road has three points, and Shannan Road has two points, in order to meet the heavy demands of supervisory affairs (Figure 10).

In the late Tang Dynasty, Dao, also known as Fangzhen, became a first-level administrative region above the prefecture. The number fluctuated between forty and fifty, and each Dao governed three or four states or ten states.In other words, a small Fangzhen is only equivalent to a dozen counties today, while a large Fangzhen is equivalent to a province. For example, Fujian Road, Jiangnan West Road, and Lingnan East Road are exactly equivalent to today's Fujian Province, Jiangxi Province, and Weiwei Province. Guangdong Province, formerly Hainan Province.The 47 square towns in the Yuanhe period can be regarded as the representative of Taoism (Fangzhen) in the late Tang Dynasty.

Accepting the lesson that the Tang Dynasty and the vassals died together, the Fangzhen (Tao) in the late Tang Dynasty was not directly inherited by the Song Dynasty.Instead, another set of roads with a new concept was designed as a new high-level administrative division.The roads in the Song Dynasty were smaller than the roads in the early Tang Dynasty.In terms of transit route, it was divided into 13 routes in the early Song Dynasty, and then gradually increased to 15, 18, 23, 24 and even 26 routes that were short-lived before the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty. The 18th road is the longest road system in the Song Dynasty, and the 23rd road in Yuanfeng is a more representative road system. The book "Yuanfeng Jiuyu Zhi" is compiled based on these 23 roads. The 24th road is to separate the capital Kaifeng Prefecture into Gyeonggi Road. The 26th road was formed by adding Yanyun sixteen prefectures at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty after the fall of the Liao Dynasty, and transformed them into Yanshanfu Road and Yunzhongfu Road.

Except for Shaanxi Road, which is slightly larger (compared with today's Shaanxi Province), and Xichuan Road and Xia Road, which are slightly smaller (compared with today's Sichuan Province), the size of the 18th Road is similar to that of today's province.Among them, Fujian Road is exactly the same as Fujian Province; Jingdong Road is slightly different from Shandong Province; Guangnan East Road is equivalent to Guangdong Province, but lacks Leizhou Peninsula; Guangnan West Road is roughly the sum of Guangxi Province, Hainan Province and Leizhou Peninsula.The area of ​​Yuanfeng 23 Road is generally smaller than today's province.

After the Jurchens destroyed the Northern Song Dynasty, they established the Jin Dynasty in northern China.The Jin Dynasty inherited the road system of the Northern Song Dynasty, but the size of the roads was much smaller, and some of the original roads were divided into two or three roads.Therefore, the 9th road in the north during the Yuanfeng period of the Northern Song Dynasty became the 13th road during the Dading period of the Jin Dynasty. The Southern Song Dynasty, which was in the south, also reduced the size of individual roads. For example, Liangzhe Road and Lizhou Road were divided into east and west roads.The total number of roads in the Southern Song Dynasty was between sixteen and seventeen, two or three more than those in the South in the Northern Song Dynasty.It must also be pointed out that the roads of the Jin and Southern Song were different from those of the Northern Song Dynasty. The General Administration Mansion (equivalent to the Appeasement Department) and the Appeasement Department replaced the Transit Department and became the main governing institutions along the way.

After the establishment of the Mongol and Yuan Empires, the Song and Jin roads were reduced to unified county administrative districts, and the unprecedentedly vast Zhongshu Province and Xingzhongshu Province were built above the roads as new high-level administrative districts.The territory of the Yuan Empire was originally extremely vast, and the number of provinces was small, so its magnificence was beyond the reach of any dynasty. In the early Yuan Dynasty, except for the areas directly under the Central Secretariat, the whole territory was only divided into six Xingzhong Secretariats.Among them, Shaanxi and Sichuan Province once included the vast areas of present-day Shaanxi, Sichuan, Gansu, Ningxia, and western Inner Mongolia. It is conceivably large in size, but in terms of area, it is still pale in comparison to Zhongshu Province.The area under the direct jurisdiction of Zhongshu Province is a vast land from the east of the Yellow River between Shanshan and Shaanxi, north of the Huaihe River to the North Sea (now the Arctic Ocean). The size of the provinces in the Yuan Dynasty was so large that its main role was not in administrative management, but in military colonization.Since the Mongolian nation merged several major regimes by means of military conquest, in order to prevent the resistance of the conquered nation, it had to disperse the central power in various places and establish a military and political area with a soothing effect.However, the central power should not be too dispersed, so the number of provinces should not be large, and the territory should be relatively large.There is another important reason for the large size of the province, which is caused by ethnic habits and geographical environment.For the nomadic horsemen galloping on the vast and vast grasslands in the sky, the expedition of thousands of miles seems to be an easy move, and it is not surprising that the provinces are very vast. With the deepening of the rule and the complexity of administrative affairs, the large and useless provinces were gradually transformed, reduced in size, and changed in nature to become real administrative divisions.In the mid-Yuan Dynasty, the system of one Zhongshu Province and ten lines of Zhongshu Province was formed. However, the size of the 11 provinces is still too large. Judging from the number of unified county administrative districts under its jurisdiction, each province has an average jurisdiction of about 30 units. Excluding provinces, the remaining nine provinces have an average of 35 unified county administrative districts, and the scope of management is obviously too large.Therefore, several roads are set up under each province as supervision areas to assist in administrative affairs, setting a precedent for setting up supervision areas under administrative districts. Due to the large size of the province and the large scope of management, it is very inflexible to deal with local government affairs. Therefore, at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, when there were many local affairs and the peasant army swarmed, many sub-provinces were separated from the provinces.This situation is just the opposite of the previous dynasties. In the past, when local troubles occurred, large administrative districts were often established instead of small administrative districts.The emergence of sub-provinces at the end of the Yuan Dynasty proved that overly large provinces were not conducive to centralized rule, so appropriate reforms were carried out on this point in the Ming Dynasty. In addition to being large and inappropriate, the provinces of the Yuan Dynasty had another problem, that is, the disparity in size between the provinces was too large, which was already the case from a geographical point of view.For example, the province of Fujian in the early Yuan Dynasty was equivalent to Fujian Province today, while the province of Shaanxi and Sichuan once included Shaanxi, Gansu, Sichuan, Ningxia and western Inner Mongolia.As far as the administrative units and household registrations under the jurisdiction of each province are concerned, it is even more "dry": for example, the nominal area of ​​Liaoyang Province is almost half the size of Europe, but its household registration is only equivalent to a high-grade road in the southern provinces. .At that time, people expressed concern about this extremely unbalanced state, thinking that the provinces were "so dry that it would be difficult to control them forever." This phenomenon is caused by the extreme imbalance of economic development between regions.In the grasslands, deserts, and forests of the north, people engage in nomadic gathering and hunting, and the land is sparsely populated; the central plains and the south are labor-intensive farming areas with dense populations.As long as all regions establish provinces, the phenomenon of "dryness" cannot be avoided. Therefore, Lingbei Province only governs one road, completely losing the meaning of establishing a province.The later Qing Dynasty also ruled the majority of ethnic groups by ethnic minorities, and also established a vast empire, but the administrative system adopted was changed. 18 provinces were established in areas dominated by Han people, and special provinces were established in ethnic minority areas. The border region system overcomes the extreme disparity between the provinces in the Yuan Dynasty. The Yuan Dynasty did not last long and was replaced by the Ming Dynasty.Xingzhongshusheng was renamed the chief envoy, but it is still called the province by custom.The provinces in the Ming Dynasty were much smaller than those in the Yuan Dynasty. In the territory equivalent to the nine provinces in the Yuan Dynasty, they were divided into 15 provinces, that is, two capitals and 13 chief envoys.Some provinces in the Yuan Dynasty were divided into two or three. For example, Zhongshu Province was divided into the capital and Shandong and Shanxi provinces, and Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces were divided into Zhejiang and Fujian provinces.There are also some provinces that cut off parts to form new provinces, such as cutting off parts of Huguang, Yunnan, and Sichuan to set up Guizhou Province. The provinces in the Ming Dynasty were relatively balanced in size, but the northern and southern capitals were relatively large.In particular, Nanjing is centered on Yingtianfu, the capital of the early Ming Dynasty, and Fengyangfu, the hometown of Zhu Yuanzhang. It includes 16 prefectures and four Zhili prefectures, including all of present-day Jiangsu, Anhui, and northern Zhejiang.Later, because Zhejiang was too small in comparison, the two prefectures of Jiaxing and Huzhou were ceded to Zhejiang.In addition to the two capitals, there are provinces with larger areas such as Shaanxi and Huguang. Therefore, in the Qing Dynasty, the size of some provinces was reduced again. After the rise of the Qing Dynasty, it almost completely inherited the original administrative division system of the Ming Dynasty, with only a slight simplification in terms of levels and a slight reduction in size.Historically, the change of dynasties has almost always changed the administrative divisions. Only the Qing Dynasty succeeded the Ming Dynasty, and almost no reforms were made, which is the most special.The measures to reduce the size of the Qing Dynasty were only to divide the three provinces of Nanjing, Huguang, and Shaanxi into two, and the other 12 provinces remained basically unchanged. The division of the 18 provinces has been maintained from the Kangxi period to the Guangxu period, and has not changed for 200 years. It is the longest stable high-level administrative system in the history of our country.Due to the long duration, the concept of the so-called "Eighteen Provinces in the Headquarters" of China was formed.Although Taiwan, Xinjiang and the three northeastern provinces were added at the end of the Qing Dynasty, during the Revolution of 1911, the flag of righteousness raised in Wuchang for the first time was still the 18-star flag symbolizing 18 provinces.Of course, it is inaccurate to use 18 provinces to represent the whole of China, but this shows the profound psychological impact of long-term administrative regions on people.The size of the 18 provinces in the Qing Dynasty was not much different from that of the corresponding provinces today. Except for the separation of Taiwan, Hainan, and Ningxia, and the four municipalities of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing, there was no fundamental change.

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