In ancient China, how to effectively govern the border minority areas has always been a difficult problem, so in the pre-Qin period, a system of bondage gradually sprouted to deal with these ethnic minority settlements with different languages and cultures.
The so-called system of bondage is to implement a completely different administrative management system from the Central Plains Dynasty in the border ethnic minority areas, and the core of the system of bondage lies in the autonomy of customs, the clamping down and enveloping of minority areas, and the combination of grace and power.
The customs and habits of various ethnic minorities are different, and they directly lead to the submission of the frontier and do not have different intentions.
If it is directly managed by the officials of the Central Plains, it will inevitably cause a lot of collisions, which will lead to a lot of unnecessary fighting.
During the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, the concept of great unification in the Central Plains had gradually taken shape, and this concept played an important role in the central government's handling of its relationship with the Four Yi of the Frontier Regions.
For example, the "Chinese" records: "Bang Nei Dian Fu, Bang Wai Hou Fu, Hou Wei Bin Fu, Barbarian Yi To Serve, Rong Di Desert Suit." ”
It can be seen from this sentence that at that time, the central government's control of each service has begun to be different according to the distance and proximity of relatives, and the ethnic minorities in the wasteland only need to respect Zhou Tianzi as the king, which is actually the embryonic state of the system of bondage in later generations, but at this time, this system lacks the guarantee of systematic institutions and systems, so it cannot be called a policy.
In the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang swept away the Six Kingdoms, unified the world, abolished the division of seals, and carried out counties and counties, and made a neat and uniform change to the administrative division system nationwide, dividing the world into 36 counties, with counties under it, and county guards, lieutenants, and supervisors.
However, the administrative management model of the county system is only applicable to the inland areas, and the county system is obviously not feasible for the frontier areas where politics, economy, and culture are backward.
In this regard, the Qin Dynasty's governance model for border areas was still based on the traditional way of enveloping and clamping down on the border areas, and implemented the special local administrative system of "Tao". For example, the Book of the Later Han Dynasty records: "The lord of Fan County, the Barbarian Yi Dao... All are Qin system. ”
There are other ethnic minority areas that have adopted support for the original barbarian king to rule as the ruler.
In the Han Dynasty, the policy of bondage was formally established. Just as the so-called Han Chengqin system, in dealing with the affairs of ethnic minorities, the Han Dynasty did learn from the experience of many Qin Dynasties. With a total of four hundred years of history, the territory of the empire was constantly expanding with the conquest of the army, and the ethnic minority problems that needed to be dealt with were much more complex than those of the Qin Dynasty.
According to the "Geographical Records of the Book of Han", during the Pingdi period of the Western Han Dynasty, there were 32 provinces throughout the country to control ethnic minority settlements. Although the "Dao" of the Han Dynasty would give certain preferential policies to ethnic minorities, its specific administrative functions were no longer fundamentally different from the "counties" in Han ethnic areas.
In addition to the "Dao", during the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty also established a subordinate state lieutenant who was basically of the same level as the "county", and was also mainly responsible for the bondage rule of the ethnic minorities in the border areas.
Although the responsibilities and obligations of the central and border areas have not been thoroughly demarcated at this time, the name of the bondage has been formally proposed, and the later Tang Dynasty's policy of the state of bondage and the toast system of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties are all derived from this.
By the time of the Three Kingdoms and the Two Jin Dynasties, civil strife in the Central Plains was incessant, and ethnic minorities in the north rose one after another and merged into the Central Plains, and ethnic relations became unprecedentedly complicated.
During this period, some of the prefectures that had a supervisory role in the Han Dynasty began to evolve with the rise of ethnic minorities into administrative divisions that were one level higher than the counties, and the original two-level administration of counties and counties gradually evolved into three levels of prefectures, counties and counties.
Due to the incessant civil strife in the Central Plains, the major forces were very keen to win over the ethnic minorities and give them various names and seal letters to envelop them, such as Zhuge Liang of the Shu State, who had first encircled meng yu in the south before the Northern Expedition; the State of Wu was also trying to attract the Shanyue people in the south.
During the Southern Dynasty, the imperial court inherited the "Dao" of the Qin and Han dynasties, and established a large number of Zuo County, Zuo County, and Junjun Slang County, which would retain the inherent rule of the barbarians, and the imperial court would not interfere with the specific administration. Later, these things gradually evolved into The County of Qizhou in the Tang and Song Dynasties, and then evolved into Tufu, Tuzhou and Tuxian in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
During the Tang and Song dynasties, the system of bondage was developed and improved on a large scale. In terms of the local administrative system, he changed the county to a state, mainly implementing the two-level system of prefectures and counties. However, the territory of the Tang Dynasty was very vast, and the two-level system of prefectures and counties was obviously not enough, so on the basis of the prefecture, a "Dao" was set up, dividing the whole country into several provinces, forming a three-level system of Daozhou and county. During the Song Dynasty, the "road" was changed to "road", so the Tang and Song dynasties were also jokingly called the "road era".
In dealing with areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, the Sui Dynasty's method of bondage mainly granted these ethnic minorities titles such as "slang marshal" and "canal marshal", and those who had merit could be awarded separately.
The territory of the Tang Dynasty was expanded unprecedentedly, so he developed a system of Qiang prefectures on the basis of the Southern Dynasty Zuo County, Guan County, etc., which was formally established during the Zhenguan period, and according to the New Book of Tang, the number of Qiang Prefectures once reached 856.
The governors of the prefectures were headed by the leaders of the ethnic minorities, were autonomous in internal affairs, but had certain tribute responsibilities, and their chiefs could be hereditary, but needed to be approved and approved by the Central Dynasty.
In the Song Dynasty, due to the lack of martial arts, the forces of ethnic minorities in the border areas rose up, and the ethnic minorities in the Central Plains and the border areas were constantly at war, and they became enemies of each other, and ethnic relations became more complicated.
In dealing with ethnic minority areas, the Song Dynasty also adopted the form of a state to manage, the large one is a state, the middle one is a county, and the small one is a cave, and the content is basically similar to that of the Tang Dynasty, but it is more strict in the selection of some inheritors.
In the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, the policy of bondage was concentrated in the formation, development and collapse of the toast system. In the Ming Dynasty, in some areas inhabited by ethnic minorities with important military geographical locations, a large number of detention centers were implemented, with local leaders as governors, commanders, commanders, thousands of households, commanders, envoys, and townspeople, who were responsible for taking charge of the local military and political and civil affairs.
The Ming Dynasty set up the Nuer Gandu Division and its GuardHouse in the northeast, the Chijin Mongol, Handong, Anding, Arui, Hami and other six guards in the northwest, and the Wusizang and Duoganwei Commandery Divisions, Longdawei Commanding Envoy Divisions, and Solicitation Divisions in Tibet.
However, in the Ming Dynasty, in addition to the Detention GuardHouse, there were also han military guards and Tuliu Sanzhi Guards. Among them, the Weizhi Wei was in the center of the empire, and the imperial court ruled it weakly, while the Tuliu Sanzhi Weishou was in the buffer zone between the frontier and the interior, and its chiefs were mainly the exile officials appointed by the imperial court, while the local tuguans were the mainstay. The imperial court's control over it was also exactly between the Detention Guard and the Han Army Guard.
Whether it was the Detention Guardhouse or the Tuliu Samadhi Guardhouse, they needed to pay regular tribute to the Ming Dynasty, obey the dispatches of the imperial court, and if delayed, they would be punished for it. Because of this, the Ming Dynasty's control over the border ethnic minority areas has far exceeded that of the previous generation.
By the Qing Dynasty, the system of bondage had become very weak, and the Manchu rulers had disintegrated the original system of local officials through large-scale land reform and return, and then greatly strengthened the management and control of the frontier ethnic minority areas through the alliance flag system, the Burke system, and the Manchu-Mongolian marriage. Later, with the demise of the Qing Dynasty, the bondage system was completely withdrawn, and The stage of China's history was completely withdrawn.