If you love to watch costume TV dramas, then you may not be unfamiliar with a plot, that is, the people beat drums and sound injustices. If you travel back in time to ancient times, where would you, as a commoner, beat the drums and beat your grievances? yamen.
NO.1 "Yamen" or "Yamen"?
Yamen" or "Tooth Gate"? Yamen is the title of the ancient official office, and there are three theories about the origin of Yamen.
The first theory is that in ancient times, the nickname of Yamen was "Six Doors". There are six gates of the ancient official office, and these six doors have the pattern of the sharp teeth of the beast, and the sharp teeth of the beast were often used in ancient times to symbolize force, so the six doors of the official office were originally called "tooth gates".
The second theory is that yamen is an ancient military term that refers to the camp gate of a military brigade. Especially in the last years of the Han Dynasty, there were frequent wars, and the fight against the world and the defense of the country and mountains were completely dependent on force, so it was particularly important to military generals. Those military generals often put the claws and teeth of the beast in the office to show their glory and might. Later, in order to save trouble, the outside of the barracks was decorated with large animal teeth carved into wood, and there were also tooth flags decorated with animal teeth at the top of the flagpole and cut into the shape of teeth at the edges. As a result, the camp gate is also figuratively called the "tooth gate". Later, the six gates of the official office also had the pattern of the sharp teeth of the beast, and the official office was also called the "tooth gate".
Shandong Binzhou Huimin Wuding Office Photography 丨 Ning Zhihao
In the third way, the generals in the army obey the orders and the officials in the official office obey the orders, so the tooth gate of the army is used in the official office. When the generals in the army obey the order, they must go under the yamen, which is the same as the officials of the official government obeying the order, so the gongfu is called "gongya" and the fumen is called "yamen". The pronunciation of "衙" as "ya" began in Wei and Jin, and the evolution of "yamen" into "yamen" should also begin at this time. After the Northern Song Dynasty, the term "tooth gate" disappeared, and people almost only knew "yamen" but did not know that there was a "tooth gate".
NO.2 What officials are there in the yamen?
The personnel inside the yamen are divided into four categories, namely officials, officials, soaps, and subordinates. In the words of the common people, "The Emperor of Heaven is far away, and the Little King of Ya is more than eight."
Among them, officials are naturally officials with grades, and they have files in the official department, and only some of them are officials in a yamen, such as prefects, counties, etc., also known as imperial court officials. There is an old saying, "The county that breaks the family, the prefect who destroys the door." The prefect is in charge of the orders of a province, the governor is under the jurisdiction of the county, and all the affairs of the government are under its jurisdiction. The county ordinance is in charge of the affairs of a county. Although these two official positions are not large, they are all officials in charge of real power in the local area, and taxes, lawsuits, decrees, and evaluations are all managed by them, and if the local people offend them, they can find a reason to destroy the people's homes.
Nanyang Neixiang County, Henan
Officials are a group of people that exist between officials and ordinary people, and they are often filled by talents selected by the government from the local level, of course, not all crooked melons and dates can be done, first of all, they can write and calculate. At the same time, there is also a very high moral character. Because the duties of officials are to assist officials in handling government affairs and managing local government affairs. In fact, officials can be said to exercise the duties of officials, but they are not organized, and their identity is still ordinary people.
Soap is the pawn of the government, and it is divided into soap class, fast class, and shape class. The so-called three classes of servants refer to these three classes. At the same time, they are still the people who carry the black pot in the government, because they do the things that oppress the common people, so of course, the black pot is still their back.
Li is the most inferior person in the yamen, that is, the sedan in the yamen, the groom, the coachman, the brother-in-law, the more husband, and so on. These people are generally divided into two categories, one is full-time and the other is part-time. In addition, the "followers" around some county masters also played a very key role in the Qing Dynasty's yamen at all levels, and even controlled one side. Some county orders to go to a certain place to become an official, you can take more than 20 followers, then also called "long follow". Most of these people control all the resources of the officials, and there are door officials, "The king of Yama is good to see, and the little devil is difficult", which is what they say.
NO.3 What did the ancient yamen manage?
The routine affairs in the yamen are nothing more than household registration, dispatch of servitude, tax collection, grain collection, arrest and theft, disaster relief, litigation, and adjudication of cases, which are managed by different departments, namely, officials, ceremonies, households, soldiers, workers, and criminals.
Officials are in charge of the promotion of officials in the county court, the appointment of letters, and the registration of the county's jinshi, people, etc. in the field of officials. Naturally, this is a powerful yamen who carries out its work under the direct leadership of Zhi County. The ceremonial room is in charge of the worship of gods, holes, celebrations, etc., and assists the examiners of Zhixian and Jiaoshu in organizing candidates to take the examination, supervising the field, issuing and collecting examination papers, etc., and also supervises the ceremonial ceremonies such as ceremonial guards and drum music when Zhixian goes out on tour. The local household registration, land endowment, finance and taxation are all undertaken by the household. The barracks are in charge of recruiting soldiers, horses, and training zhuang throughout the county. In addition, matters such as post stations, laying troops, city defense, and suppression of bandits are also under the jurisdiction of the military house. The duties of the execution chamber are to supervise the civil and criminal cases of the whole county. The workshop is in charge of the county's sericulture, weaving, building the temple of the bureau, building water conservancy, minting silver and silver, destroying money, etc.
Hohhot Suiyuancheng General Office
Many officials were often not officials of the imperial court, so they did not have a salary, and they made a living on meager paper and pencil fees, copy fees, meal expenses, etc., so they could only rely on various private interests to make up for the low income. For example, when peasants paid taxes in ancient times, they often had to pile the buckets very high and pointed, and then there were officials who kicked them, so that the crops on it fell, which fell down called fire consumption, which was often the income of these officials. Of course, their income is not only this, but also some gray income, such as when investigating and handling cases, they often have to collect errand money, shoes and feet money, wine and food money, grace money and so on. Therefore, it can be seen that although Yamen is only an office, it is also a microcosm of ancient state and social life.
NO.4 Why does the gate open to the south?
Architecturally, China is located in the middle and low latitudes of the northern hemisphere of the earth, and all year round, the sun shines in from the south, and the houses facing south are naturally conducive to lighting. From a cultural point of view, Chinese culture also attaches great importance to the south, and the capitals, imperial palaces and government offices of China's dynasties are all southbound.
And from the feng shui, it is said that it is not facing west because of fear of running to the capital city. Chinese feng shui takes the issue of the gate opening to the west very seriously, and in addition to allowing the temple gate to open to the west, almost all gates are forbidden to open to the west, because folklore believes that only the dead will go west. Not facing east because the east is sunny, it is easy to spawn wood gas. Otherwise, the green dragon that is easy to crash into the east will make the fire more vigorous, and it will easily cause the yamen to be uneasy. If you don't face north, you are a thief because those who face north are thieves.
Yunnan Jianshui Tusi Yamen
In the court culture, those who sit north and south should be emperors and his venerables, while those who face north and south are courtiers and people, even the defeated, and the folk even have the saying that "facing south is the emperor, facing the north is a thief". Only some old theaters opened their doors to the north, because there were both "emperors" and "thieves" there. Facing east, north, and west is not good, and can only be opened to the south.
A door to history, push open to see the prosperity of the millennium.
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The above excerpt is from the December 2021 issue of Travel World
Wen 丨 Wen Yu
Figure 丨 Ning Zhihao Photo Network