After the establishment of the Eastern Han Empire, the world was divided into 105 counties. Each of these counties is equivalent to our current prefecture-level city, and its highest military and political commander is called the county sheriff, also known as the "Taishou". In a sense, this so-called Taishou is equivalent to our current mayor and secretary of the municipal party committee.
At the same time, because the communication medium at that time was not very developed, the central administrative orders were difficult to convey to the localities in time, and the emperor was afraid of the taishou of these counties, and gradually became the emperor of the earth with the help of the emperor of tiangao, and he was more afraid that the powerful families of these counties and states would become more and more powerful, and finally turn the relevant areas into independent kingdoms.
In this context, the emperor set up 12 working groups of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, led by 12 team leaders, each of which was responsible for managing a certain number of counties, so these 105 counties were divided into these 12 large areas. These were the twelve later prefectures, namely Yuzhou, Yanzhou, Xuzhou, Qingzhou, Liangzhou, Hezhou, Jizhou, Youzhou, Yangzhou, Jingzhou, Yizhou, and Jiaozhou.
In addition, because the area centered on Luoyang and Chang'an was of great significance and belonged to the military, economic and administrative centers of the empire, the supervision of the relevant areas was specially responsible for the boss of the 12 squad leaders, that is, the lieutenant colonel.
Of course, it is precisely because the supervision of the relevant area is responsible for the division lieutenant, so this area is also called the division. Thus, it also constituted the thirteen states of the Eastern Han Empire.
As for the job titles of these 12 team leaders, they are called Thorn History. In this sense, the thirteen states of the original Eastern Han Empire were all supervision areas, not administrative districts.
As for these 12 assassination histories, they are similar to the working group of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission sent by the central government to the localities, and the main purpose is to supervise the taishou of each county and state, and to prevent the directors of the county and the powerful clans from tossing and turning lawlessly because the Emperor of Tiangao is far away.
Although, in terms of the level of official positions, the ranks of these 12 assassins are not high, especially compared with these taishou who hold the military and political power of a county, it is equivalent to the gap between the cadres at the department level and the cadres at the department level. But the problem is that because these 12 thorn histories are directly responsible to the emperor, and the duty is to crack down on the crimes of local high-ranking officials and nobles, it is generally believed that the status of thorn history is higher than that of the county sheriff.
Later, with the passage of time, these 12 working groups of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection gradually became permanent institutions of the localities, especially as the world became turbulent at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and because they had to lead the counties to quell the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the power of these 12 assassins began to become larger and larger, gradually extending from the simple field of supervision to the military, economic and administrative fields.
In this context, the twelve prefectures of the Eastern Han Dynasty, which were originally only supervision areas, gradually transformed into administrative districts similar to the "provincial" level, and these 12 thorn histories gradually became more and more like provincial governors and provincial party secretaries. Later, the history of thorns officially became the state pastor, that is, the highest military and political chief of a state, similar to our current governor and provincial party secretary.
In this sense, the level of state pastor is equivalent to our current senior officials at the provincial and ministerial levels, and the level of Taishou is equivalent to our current senior officials at the city and department level. As for the assassin, although he was only a cadre at the department level, because he was responsible for supervising the Taishou, the position was higher than that of the Taishou, but lower than that of the state pastor.
But the problem is that by the time of the Three Kingdoms, when the imperial power of the Eastern Han Empire had already existed in name only, the history of thorns actually existed in name only, and they either became the state pastors who held the military and political power of a state, or became a vacant position with an empty name. Therefore, during the Three Kingdoms period, judging from the real power held, the position of state pastor was usually the highest, and the position of Taishou was second, and the thorn history basically became the role of playing soy sauce.