Chapter 25 Section 3 The garrison of the Northern Wei Dynasty

The Central Plains dynasty established by the Tuoba tribe of the Xianbei people in the Northern Wei Dynasty adopted different local administrative systems to rule the residents of different regions after the unification of the north. The ethnic minority areas are managed by the town and garrison system.The boundary between the two regions is roughly from Helong Town (now Chaoyang, Liaoning) to the southwest, passing through Pingcheng (now Datong, Shanxi), Taiyuan, Longmen (now Hejin, Shanxi), across Weibei, passing Shangyu (now Tianshui, Gansu) to Qiu Pond (now south of Xihe County, Gansu Province).

Originally, the town and garrison system was a military system that was generally established throughout the Northern Wei Dynasty. However, the towns and prefectures in the southeast counties and counties have the same administrative office, and the towns will only govern the army, regardless of the people. The garrison below the township replaced the role of prefectures and counties and became an administrative division in the form of a military region. The town generals and garrison masters were equivalent to the governor, prefect, and county magistrate.Therefore, the high-level administrative districts in the early Northern Wei Dynasty were called Zhouzhen.

The townspeople managed by the Northwest Army Town are mainly members of the Tuoba tribe. These people are unwilling to change their original way of life, unwilling to move with the royal family to the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, and still implement the administrative system of tribal rule.There is also a part of the townspeople who are Han or other ethnic minorities who were forced to migrate, including wealthy families and tribal leaders, and the third type of people are criminals who have been assigned.For these people, the method of military control is the most appropriate, so all the townspeople are subordinate to the military town, called Fuhu, and there is no need to set up another civil administration agency to manage them, but use the organizational form of the town as a garrison military area to govern.

The military town system prevailed during the 60 years from Emperor Taiwu of the Northern Wei Dynasty to the early period of Emperor Xiaowen (about 422-484 A.D.). Since then, Emperor Xiaowen moved his capital to Luoyang and accelerated Sinicization. Military towns were gradually abolished. For the county.Later, the uprising of the six towns in the north accelerated this process, so the late Northern Wei Dynasty had almost a pure state and county system, but there were still a small number of purely military towns and garrisons on the border.