In ancient history, there would not be as many government personnel in a county as there are now, because the affairs of administrative personnel at that time would not be as complicated as they are now, but it was not what everyone imagined, and a dozen officials in a county would handle all the big and small things in the county.
According to the actual situation of each county, the number of small officials will be somewhat different, because the development level of each county is different, some counties have a relatively good geographical location, the economic development is very good, and there will be many small officials in the county when they are relatively rich. Some county towns do not have economic development, and they will not be equipped with so many small officials, because small officials also need government expenditures, and the economy will not have spare money to support so many small officials. In the eyes of many people, officials may refer to the same kind of people, who are also government appointed by the imperial court.
But in fact, there is a difference, and the difference between officials and officials is still very large. They are two completely different kinds of people, if the official is a regular staff, then the official can only be regarded as a temporary worker, they are officials in order to alleviate their work pressure, recruited to help some people, their work is also a daily deal with small specific details of the problem, the main big things are still up to the officials to decide, some small problems that appear in the county town, are the officials to be responsible for solving.
According to the official system of the Ming Dynasty, the local official of an ordinary county town should be the official of Qipin County, and the higher level is also the official of liupin county. The officials in the capital are usually held by some imperial relatives, so as to ensure the safety of the imperial city, and there will be many small positions in a county, such as county servants, training, etc., these officials are the corresponding officials of the eight pins and nine pins.
If we use today's words, these official positions should be county chiefs and deputy county chiefs, section chiefs and other official positions, these people are registered in the official register of the imperial court, this concept should be equivalent to our current establishment, they enjoy some of the benefits and rights issued by the imperial court, these people are the court officials often mentioned in the book, they are the personnel in the state political organs. Although the population in ancient times was not as large as it is now, there would be at least tens of thousands of people in a county, and the number of ordinary county towns would reach hundreds of thousands.
If it is a county with a particularly prosperous economy, the number of people can reach hundreds of thousands, so it is impossible to effectively manage so many people by relying on only a dozen officials, so these officials want to manage a county town safely, they also need to ask some small officials to help themselves, and small officials are not just looking for someone to do, they are generally from local powerful families, and these officials are appointed by the imperial court, and they may not be familiar with the place where they are appointed, so if they do not have a good relationship with the local squires. It will be difficult to carry out the work in the future.
Therefore, these petty officials are from powerful families, so that when they encounter some trouble at work, they can also rely on their own power to deal with it. Although the rank of the small official is lower than that of the official, and they are temporary workers, but because they are the direct managers of the people, in the usual work, there is always a chance to make a profit through some small means, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, although the position of the small official looks very low-level, but it is indeed a big fat difference.
Moreover, the reason why relying on small officials to manage a county town is not entirely due to the large number of small officials, and another point is that the ancient historical environment was affected, because the main work of each county government at that time was to collect taxes and judge cases for public security, and before that there would be a system of chiefs of armor, every ten households was one A, everyone supervised each other, if one family committed a crime, other families would be implicated if they concealed it. Through this method of mutual supervision, the public security situation in society has been greatly improved.
Conclusion: If there are bandits to harass themselves, the chief will also lead everyone to work together to fight against the bandits, if there are some very small things among the people, it is generally handled by the prestigious chief, if the chief is not satisfied with the handling of the chief, the two sides will go to the county to file a complaint and settle the case. Under normal circumstances, everyone is a villager, and the chief of the first can solve these small things.