Chapter 29 Section 3 Taoism, Capital and General Manager’s Mansion in Tang Dynasty

After the Tang Dynasty followed the Sui Dynasty, the two-level administrative system was still implemented.However, in the first year when Li Yuan, the founder of the Tang Dynasty, proclaimed himself emperor, he announced that the county should be dismissed and become a state when the world was in chaos.In the Tang Dynasty, except for the change of prefectures to prefectures during the reign of Xuanzong Tianbao, the names of prefectures disappeared in the subsequent feudal dynasties of Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, while prefectures and counties have always been the main body of the local administrative regions of each dynasty.However, because the state was changed to a county, sometimes the state and county are called together in historical documents, such as Fanyang County, Youzhou, etc. ("New Book of Tang Geography").

In the divisions of the Tang Dynasty, the name "Tao" also appeared.Dao was a special type of county-level unit in the Han Dynasty, but Dao in the Tang Dynasty was different. It was originally a supervision area, similar to the 13th Department of History in the Han Dynasty. The 10 roads are Guanzhong, Henan, Hedong, Hebei, Shannan, Longyou, Huainan, Jiangnan, Jiannan, and Lingnan.When it came to Xuanzong, the vicinity of the capital (Chang'an) was designated as Gyeonggi Province, and the vicinity of Dongdu (Luoyang) was designated as Duji Province.In addition, Shannan Road and Jiangnan Road were divided into east and west, and Qianzhong Road was added to form 15 roads.Judging from the name, Dao Dao mostly uses natural entities such as mountains and rivers as the dividing line, which is very similar to natural divisions, but in fact it is a kind of monitoring area.The central government sent personnel to serve as inspectors, and later changed to interview envoys, to monitor illegal activities in different regions.At that time, although the 15 provinces had their own fixed reasons, the interview envoys still took inspection as their own responsibility, not the chief executive.

There are quite a few named after 10 Dao in Tang Dynasty works.Such as Liang Zaiyan's "Ten Dao Zhi", Wei Shu's "Ten Dao Lu", Li Jifu's "Yuan He Shi Dao Tu" and Jia Dan's "Zhen Yuan Ten Dao Lu" and so on.There have been some different views on whether Tao is a political area, a supervisory area, or a geographical area. It was indeed deeply rooted in the hearts of the people in the Tang Dynasty, and there were actually all three properties. This depends on the specific time. analyze. The capital city of the Tang Dynasty was the same as that of the Sui Dynasty. Gyeonggi Province was established after Chang'an, the capital, and Duji Province was established in Luoyang, the eastern capital.During Wu Zetian's reign, the capital was moved to Luoyang, which was called the capital of God, and the northern capital was established in Taiyuan, which were collectively called the three capitals at that time.After Emperor Zhongzong ascended the throne, the god capital was changed to the eastern capital, and the imperial court returned to Chang'an and Luoyang, and took the title of the northern capital, but the two capitals were still restored.When Xuanzong arrived, the northern capital was set up again, and then changed to the third capital.In the second year of Suzong Zhide (AD 757), the title of Five Capitals appeared, Chang'an was renamed Zhongjing, and the other four capitals were Luoyang (Tokyo), Fengxiang (Xijing, now Fengxiang, Shaanxi), Chengdu (Nanjing), Taiyuan (Beijing) Four Houses.Later, Nanjing moved from Chengdu to Jiangling (now Jiangling, Hubei), but the four capitals were abolished in the second year, and Chang'an was exclusively used as the capital.In the first year of Emperor Daizong Baoying (762 A.D.), five capitals (the former five capitals) were established, but the western and southern capitals were abolished soon after, and only the titles of Shangdu, Chang'an, Dongdu and Beidu remained.

At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, a two-level government district system was implemented for prefectures and counties, but the general manager's mansion or the general manager's mansion was set up in the border towns and belts to concurrently lead the military affairs. .In the seventh year of Wude (624 A.D.), the General Manager's Mansion was changed to the Metropolitan Governor's Mansion.Therefore, the first-level administrative regions in the Tang Dynasty were mainly prefectures, and there were also titles such as the General Manager's Mansion and the Metropolitan Governor's Mansion.In addition, there are upper, middle and lower divisions of Dudufu, such as Youzhou Dadufu, Yingzhou Upper Dudufu, Daizhou Zhongdudufu, Yunzhou Xiadudufu and so on.