Nowadays, many novels and film and television dramas frequently mention an official position "Nine Gate Admiral", as if this official is very powerful, although there may be some exaggerations in the novel, but this official position does have certain resources in its hands, which is not much worse than the "Shandong Inspector" as a major member of the party.
The inspector given in the title is the Inspector of Shandong, which in the Qing Dynasty had a strict system of official ranks, which is what we often call the Nine Pins and Eighteenth Grade. In this system, the local inspectors are from the second product, one level lower than the governor, and this place in Shandong is very special.
Because at that time, Shandong and Henan were sandwiched between Zhili and the two rivers, the location was more important, and it was close to the capital and other reasons. The inspectors of these two places were Zheng Erpin, and the governor of the more remote area was on the same level.
We often say that the Nine Gate Admirals, at that time, the grade was also positive two products, and it was not raised to one product until the Jiaqing period.
The Commander of the Nine Gates Infantry Army was originally named the Commander of the Five Battalions of the Nine Gate Infantry Army, and during the Shunzhi Period, an infantry commander was established to manage the Eight Banners Infantry Battalion of the Manchurian, Mongolian, and Han Armies. In order to strengthen the defense of the capital, Kangxi handed over the gates of the capital to the infantry commander, and the Nine Gate Admiral was born. At that time, in addition to the Zhengyang Gate, the remaining eight city gates of the inner city were exactly eight banner soldiers and one banner was responsible for one gate.
Because the emperor paid attention to the safety of his own doorstep, the authority of the Nine Gate Admiral was later expanded.
In addition to being responsible for the access control of the nine doors, night patrols, fire fighting, the compilation of armor, prohibitions, arrests, and prison breaks were all entrusted to the nine-door admiral. Sitting in this position must also be the emperor's most trusted minister, and his soldiers have long controlled about 30,000 people. During the Jiaqing period, a rebel army infiltrated the capital in disguise and even entered the imperial palace, which forced Jiaqing to pay more attention to the defense of the capital, and directly raised the official rank of the Nine Gate Admiral to congregate yipin.
In the 26th year of Guangxu (1900), the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing, and the Nine-Door Admiral at that time was Rong Lu, a close confidant of Empress Dowager Cixi, and the Eight-Nation Alliance established the An Min Gong Office to replace the functions of the Nine-Door Admiral. After the Eight-Power Alliance withdrew from Beijing, the security in Beijing was returned to the Qing government, which followed the example of the Eight-Nation Alliance and established a "Aftercare Patrol Battalion" to replace the patrol camp of the former infantry commander Yamen. In the thirty-second year of Guangxu (1906), a special police agency was established, the Inner and Outer City Patrol Police General Department, which divided the functions of the Nine Gate Admirals.
Finally, there are some other noteworthy points, the Nine Gate Admiral and the Inspector of Shandong, two people, one civilian official and one military general, without any affiliation. But in essence, they were all local officials in charge, the Nine Gate Admiral was in charge of the defense of the Beijing Division, and the Inspector of Shandong was in charge of almost all the specific matters of Shandong, directly responsible to the central government.
Outside the capital of the Qing Dynasty, there was no position of a civilian official of Yipin, although there were many inspectors with the title of Yipin, but this was not the custom, and the addition was also an empty title. Since the Nine Gate Admiral was a military general, there was little difference between being at the foot of Tianzi and at the border pass, so there was no advantage of "Jingguan".
In summary, when the Nine Gate Admiral and the Inspector of Shandong were both ZhengErpin, according to the tradition of civilian officials restraining military attaches, although the two were of the same rank, they should have a higher status as the Inspector of Shandong. Later, the Nine Gate Governor became bigger and bigger, becoming a second product, and suppressed the Inspector of Shandong from the official rank, plus the people were close associates of the emperor, and both the rank and status were higher than the Inspector of Shandong.