If you have heard the Peking opera "Yulong Tavern" or "Rouge Bao fold", you will definitely have an impression of the dialogue between Bai Jian and Bai Huai's father and son, Bai Huai asked "Son, are you a guest in front of the Fuyuan Adult Stage", Bai Jian said, "The child entered the Capital mengsheng grace as the jin bao Zhuangyuan, Qin gave the Eight Provinces Patrol, and went out to tour Henan"; if you have seen Mr. Zhou Xingchi's early comedy "Nine Pin Sesame Officials", you will also remember the Eight Pin Patrol. So, how good is the "Eight Houses Patrol"? What position is equivalent to today?
To say that the "Eight Provinces Patrol", in ancient times, there was no one, its real name should be the Supervision Of the Imperial History, the sub-inspection of the provinces is called "Patrol According to the Imperial History". A bit like today's inspectors.
Generally speaking, this position was appointed by the emperor to supervise the imperial history, and under the emperor's assignment, the imperial history of the inspector went to the provinces to inspect the officials. In this way, the power to supervise the imperial history is very large. In fact, the "Hundred Officials Zhi III" records that "fifteen people supervised the imperial history, and they were under the eight pins." From this point of view, the level of supervision of imperial history is very low. The duty of supervising the imperial history is very simple, that is, he is responsible for supervising the hundred officials, inspecting the counties, correcting the prisons, and rectifying the imperial ceremonies. However, the level of inspector yushi was very low.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were also special daoist supervision of the imperial history, patrolling the imperial history, belonging to the imperial court sent to the local supervision of the officials, their main duty is to prevent local officials from infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of the people, at any time on the shortcomings of local administration to the imperial court to make statements, you can also impeach local illegal officials, in the case of bad circumstances, the imperial court can directly authorize the inspector to punish the illegal officials. Therefore, although the official position of inspecting the imperial history is not high, the responsibility on the shoulders is very important, and whether the policies of the imperial court can be implemented at the local level and how the overall political atmosphere of the imperial government is, have a lot to do with the supervision of the imperial history.
The ancient inspection system was constantly improved with the change of dynasties, and it also formed a certain deterrent to officials. The inspection essentially relies on "rule by man", so the effect of the inspection is related to the personal quality of the officials.
In today's information-rich society, such positions are no longer necessary and will no longer exist. However, in order to be able to go down to the grassroots level to truly understand the suffering of the people, the state has set up some similar positions. For example, the central inspection group, the environmental protection supervision group, etc. that have been on fire in recent years, this type of organization is almost equivalent to the past eight provinces patrol. However, unlike the previous Eight Provinces Patrol, they did not have the absolute power to kill and take, but were only responsible for supervision, not for handling.