The system of supervision occupies an important position in the history of China's ancient political system. Governor is the combined name of governor and inspector. The supervision system is a political system with local officials characteristics that has gradually evolved from the central government to send special officials to local governments. In the history of china's ancient local supervision system, the Ming and Qing supervision system has an extremely important position. The standardization of the exercise of the supervision power and the strict supervision and restraint of the supervision and supervision power have played an important role in maintaining local stability and maintaining the centralized power system. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, each viceroy's jurisdiction was much larger than that of the Tang Dynasty's Jiedushi, and both were imperial court officials who needed to be appointed by the central government to take office. But in fact, the less powerful Tang Dynasty made repeated mistakes, while the more powerful Qing Dynasty governors rarely committed crimes. This article will analyze the reasons why the Ming and Qing governors did not form a separatist force from the aspects of economy, military, system, and geography.
The system of supervision originated in the Ming Dynasty and was formed in the Qing Dynasty. The establishment of the viceroy and inspector of the Ming Dynasty was initially only temporarily dispatched by the imperial court, and the jurisdiction was uncertain due to the establishment of the matter, and the transformation gradually became localized and institutionalized after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, but it was not completed in the final Ming Dynasty. In the early years of the Kangxi Dynasty, the governor and inspector became the official local supreme administrator, and the governor and inspector became the official local supreme administrator from the temporary dispatch officer of the imperial court, and the boundary between the governor's jurisdiction and the province roughly coincided with that of the "quasi-administrative district" to the official local highest administrative division, and then adjusted and changed, until the middle of Qianlong finally completed its institutionalization process and basically fixed, becoming an important local administrative system.
The Nine Admirals of the Qing Dynasty
Since the Sui and Tang dynasties, the autocratic imperial power has been continuously strengthened, the centralization of power has been strengthened as never before, and the local power has been weakened. However, after the "division of feudal towns" at the end of the Tang Dynasty and the decomposition of central power by the Yuan Dynasty, a situation of "external emphasis and internal lightness" was created. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, in view of this, abolished the Xingzhongshu Province, replaced it with the Department of Political Envoys, and divided the power of the former provincial ministers into three, that is, the envoys were in charge of civil affairs; Finance; Administer the judiciary and prisons according to the inspectors; All command the military of the guan wei station, and the three are not subordinate to each other. The central government strengthened its control over the localities, and from this point of view, Zhu Yuanzhang's purpose of strengthening the centralization of power was achieved. However, local power is scattered and weakened, and there is a lack of strong leadership, so many local political affairs, especially some urgent matters, are often unable to deal with them in a timely manner because of mutual ridicule, mutual blame, or inadequacy of the relevant parties, which has become a very prominent problem in the local political system of the Ming Dynasty after Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the province, which Was unexpected by Zhu Yuanzhang. The system of supervision was created to compensate for this shortcoming.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the governor was mainly from the perspective of supervising the localities by the central government to make up for the deficiencies of the "three divisions", and did not deliberately let him infringe on the rights of the "three divisions" and became a high official on the side of the general leader. However, when exercising the power of supervision, the governor inevitably interfered in local government affairs, and became increasingly normalized and institutionalized, becoming in fact the superior of the local "three divisions" and finally completing its local officialization. In the relationship between the Governor and the Governor, the Governor is under the governor's control but not subordinate to the governor. The governor not only belongs to the local supervision system, but also controls local military and political affairs, "ruling over the soldiers and the people, stabbing the priests, controlling chaos on one side, and covering the affairs of the people." It had an important impact on the politics of the Ming Dynasty.
In the early Qing Dynasty, local supervision basically followed the Ming Dynasty system, and the governor had become the highest local military and political chief in the Qing Dynasty. The governor and the governor, because they also have the constitutional title, are part of the central supervision system, have the power to supervise and evaluate local officials at all levels, "take it as their duty to rectify the officials, and when there is a bad record of unscrupulous subordinates, they should participate in impeachment at any time" when they visit and hear about it."
However, as the governor of the local Yuan, why did the Ming and Qing dynasties not form a local separatist force, this article will compare with the late Tang Dynasty feudal town division from the four aspects of economy, military, system, and geography, and briefly analyze the reasons why the Ming and Qing governors did not form a separatist force.
One. Economic aspects
According to Marx's materialist view of history, the economic base determines the superstructure, and the economic reasons must be analyzed first. First of all, we know that in the Kaiyuan Tianbao period before the Anshi Rebellion, it was the Juntian system that was violently damaged, the manor economy was developing rapidly, and after the Anshi Rebellion, the manor economy was further developed, and the private ownership of large land was further developed. For example, the so-called Famous General Guo Ziyi of the Tang Dynasty occupied a lot of land in southern Shaanxi. In order to protect and enjoy the interests of their own large landowners for a long time, in order to maintain and consolidate the power of the town, these commanders did not let the town and the feudal court get involved, and it was easy to become a feudal division situation that dominated the side.
Map of the town of Fan in the late Tang Dynasty
Secondly, the feudal town festival marshals are mostly self-reliant on the town's financial endowment, household royalties, not subordinate to the feudal central government, forming a state of financial independence. During the Tianbao years, An Lushan had already put "zhibing jigu" in Fanyang and "sneaked Jia Hu to go all the way, and lost millions of dollars in years" as a traitor. After the Anshi Rebellion, the situation of Fanzhen's specialization of wealth became more and more serious, led by Wei Bo, Chengde, and Lu Long, the three towns in Hebei, and he followed suit. Because the clan commander was good at the town's wealth and had a strong financial force, he was able to maintain and develop this situation.
The fundamental reason for the formation of the feudal town division at the end of the Tang Dynasty was the economy at that time, first of all, the feudal town jiedu in order to maintain and consolidate the interests of the town's large landowners or large estate owners, secondly, the feudal commander monopolized the financial taxes of the town, coupled with the increasing power of the pre-anshi chaos, and after anshi, he could not compete for strong troops, so that after the situation of division was completed, it was still getting worse and worse.
In the Qing Dynasty, most of the financial income of the provinces had to be paid to the household department, leaving only a very small part as local public funds. In fact, this part of the local retention is far from enough to spend, resulting in a very tight local finance. The Qing Dynasty had a strict control over local fiscal revenue and expenditure, and there was very little money and grain in the local area, which was because the financial constraints were repeatedly reduced in the early Qing Dynasty, and later became customized. There were not many localities in the Ming Dynasty, and the Qing Dynasty was even less than the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, the central government strictly controls the use of money and grain prepared by the provincial treasurers at the local level, and if the governor reports on his private use without asking for instructions, he will be judged and cut off. In the Qing Dynasty, the system of playing and selling was very strict, which stipulated that in addition to the usual practice, the use of 300 taels should be approved by the supervision and reporting department, and more than 500 taels should be reported to the emperor for approval. The income of the overseer was not enough to support him in forming a divided force.
Before Xianfeng, the local financial power was very limited, and most of the land endowments, land taxes, salt taxes, and miscellaneous taxes of each year had to be released to the national treasury, and the local use needed to submit a report to the household department and then allocate funds. This system is officially called "starting and shipping", and the imperial court controls absolute financial power. In terms of grain and wages, the governor also has jurisdiction, but it is not actually owned, and must be handed over to the national treasury, and then the military department of the central imperial court presides over the distribution of grain and wages.
Local governors can do nothing without money, and even provinces will have different degrees of deficits, which are local debts in modern terms.
After all, the governor is an official sent by the central government, subordinate to the feudal central government, and local taxes must be handed over to the central government, and it is difficult to form a state of financial independence, so the governor does not have enough economic strength to support the formation of local divisions.
Two. Military aspects
In addition to the fundamental economic reasons for the division of the feudal towns, there was also an important military factor. After the destruction of the prefectural military system, the commanders of the Jiedushi envoys were all recruited professional soldiers, and they would be able to make special troops, and after the Anshi Rebellion, the Jiedushi envoys had more powerful troops, with the tooth soldiers as the most important. The tooth soldiers are the ya soldiers, which are the personal soldiers and main soldiers of the clan commander, guarding the yacheng and fuzhong. After the Anshi Rebellion, the clan recruited many brave people as tooth soldiers. The setting of the tooth soldiers has further strengthened the military strength of the clan towns and become an important condition for the continuation and development of the feudal towns. The soldiers in the town are very tough, and the local color is very strong, especially the tooth army, all of which are the sons of local rich people, the representative of the landlord class in the divided areas, and the embodiment of the landlord class's armed support for the separatists. The combination of the economy of the large landlords with the power of the warlords is the main condition for the division of territory. The emissaries of Jiedu controlled a large number of tun tian and camp fields, and became the proprietors of large lands or large estates themselves, and they supported themselves with the support of certain economic forces.
Before the Xianfeng Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, local governors had no military power, or only limited military power granted by the imperial court. According to the system, the governor has a small number of direct subordinate troops, called "inspectors", and inspectors are called "fubiao", and the number of people is generally about a few hundred. If the governor needs to mobilize the local green battalion or the eight flags garrison army in special circumstances, he must ask for instructions, and then the general of the eight flags garrison or the governor or the general soldier of the provinces will mobilize the army, and the governor does not specifically participate in military operations. The Eight Flags Army did become corrupt after the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, but the Eight Flags Army disappeared too clean from the vision of history after the founding of the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, in fact, the Eight Flags are not corrupting so quickly and have no combat effectiveness, but the Eight Flags rarely appear in the foreground, and they are hiding behind the scenes. They are stationed in important large and medium-sized cities, but do not contact the people and the government, but live alone in the Qiren District, known as "Mancheng". The reason why they do not appear in the public eye is because their task is not to fight, but to monitor. Their surveillance is primarily the Green Camp. The military power in the hands of the governor is mainly to mobilize the power of the Green Camp Army.
Green Camp Army
Although the Green Battalion has about 600,000 main troops in the country, it is far more than the 200,000 troops of the Eight Banners. However, the Qing rulers separated the management of the Green Camp, the separation of powers to lead troops and the right to mobilize in combat, making it possible for the Eight Banners to supervise the Green Camp. Coupled with the privileges granted by the rulers, the Eight Banners have unshakable strength. In order to ensure the true superiority and independence of the Eight Flags, the economy, education, marriage, criminal litigation, etc. of the Eight Banners are all managed by the central government or special institutions, and the local government, including the governor, has no possibility of interference. Yongzheng once said that the eight-flag garrison system is "a hidden trend of tigers and leopards in the mountains." In the Qianlong period, the Eight Banners garrison system was further improved, and there were garrisons in about 15 provincial capitals and land and water and land throughout the country. With the degeneration and corruption of the Eight Flags, the combat effectiveness of the Green Camp is actually decreasing, so there is no time for the Green Camp to crush the Eight Flags. In this case, if the governor had an idea, he had to consider this mysterious force that had been hiding behind the scenes.
This is the balance between the small and the large implemented by the imperial court, and the purpose is to prevent local governors from supporting the self-esteem of the soldiers. Moreover, although the governor had the right to dispatch troops given by the emperor, the middle and lower-ranking officers, the governor could not control, and could only be controlled and deployed by the governor's restraint. In this way, a mutually restrictive management system is formed.
In short, from the military point of view, although the governor has a certain degree of military power, it is also a limited military power, the number of troops that can be mobilized is limited, and it is impossible to have such a powerful armed force as the late Tang Dynasty, and the conditions for the formation of division cannot be met.
Three. Institutional aspects
There is a fundamental difference between the Governor-General and the Temperance Envoy, the Governor is a civilian official, and the Temperance Envoy is a military attaché. Strictly speaking, the Tang Dynasty's fanzhen was not an administrative division, but a military position, which was used to fight wars, just to facilitate the war, the Tang Emperor gave Jiedu a lot of power, making them a big member of the power side, and the fanzhen almost became an administrative district.
But the town is not an administrative district, and the envoy is still a military attaché, and the military attache controls the government, that is, the military government, and the military attaché himself is the warlord. Forty or so warlords, and can command the civil and military officials under the town, the whole town is like a small country, with its own independent yamen at all levels, the envoy of jiedu is the king of this small country, they only need to be responsible to the emperor himself, and the officials within the town can be appointed and dismissed by themselves
The viceroy of the Qing Dynasty was a standard civil official, which is why the emperor dared to let them take charge of military power, although they were high and powerful, but they were only a link in the entire government structure, the subordinate officials of the governor were appointed by the imperial court, the governor was impeached at most, and he could not appoint or dismiss subordinate officials at will.
Under the Tang Dynasty's Jiedu envoys, there was a deputy envoy of Jiedu, a Duzhi bing envoy in charge of the army, a marching Sima who was in charge of military law, two judges in charge of logistics and four Cao Shi, a secretary in charge of document exchanges, two staff officers, four accompanying troops, and one Du Ya, and so on. These were the establishments stipulated by the imperial court, and in fact, the government often broke through this regulation and could appoint its own subordinate officials according to actual needs, while the central government basically did not interfere. Therefore, during the Tianbao years of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, the number of subordinate officials who were some of the emissaries reached more than one hundred and fifty.
The vast majority of jiedushi envoys also concurrently served as camp and branch envoys in their jurisdictional areas, which in turn caused the land management and financial rights in their jurisdictions to also fall into the hands of jiedushi, forming a local military, administrative, and financial power in one of the tuwang kings, who had jurisdiction over the territory, had the people under their jurisdiction, had the army in their hands, had money, and gradually had the capital to divide the territory.
The power of the Ming and Qing governors was balanced by the system. From the superficial point of view of the system, the integration of the power of supervision and supervision is easy to cause the monopoly of the power of local governors, which is contradictory to the centralization of power, which is not conducive to the coordinated development of central and local relations. However, it should be noted that although the governor has the highest local administrative power in the system, the following two points have greatly weakened the influence of the governor in the actual operation of the power. First, in the handling of major local affairs, the final decision power is not in the governor, but in the imperial court and the emperor, the power of the overseer is limited. Second, the governor is the highest local governor, but the governor does not have a second official, and the specific administrative affairs are handled by the second division in accordance with the provisions of the system, and the governor does not interfere. Therefore, its right to dispose of local affairs is greatly restricted, preventing the excessive concentration of supervision power.
The governor was a feudal official, but the official official of the governor was only the governor or inspector. Such a system design also means that although the governor claims to be omnipotent in local affairs, he does not actually deal with specific affairs, and local specific affairs are carried out by the Second Division. In the early Qing Dynasty, the term of office of the governor was also relatively short, generally only two or three or three or four years. These measures limited the possibility of the overseers forming local interest groups against the imperial court.
From the superficial point of view of the system, the integration of the power of supervision and supervision is easy to cause the monopoly of the power of local governors, which is contradictory to the centralization of power, which is not conducive to the coordinated development of central and local relations. However, although the governor has the highest local administrative power in the system, the following two points have greatly weakened the influence of the governor in the actual operation of the power.
First, in the handling of major local affairs, the final decision power is not in the governor, but in the imperial court and the emperor, the power of the overseer is limited. Second, the governor is the highest local governor, but the governor does not have a second official, and the specific administrative affairs are handled by the second division of the cloth in accordance with the provisions of the system, and the governor does not interfere. Therefore, its right to dispose of local affairs is greatly restricted, preventing the excessive concentration of supervision power.
As the concurrent head of the Metropolitan Inspection Bureau of the State Supervision Agency, the Superintendent must exercise the power of supervision at the local level in accordance with the provisions of the law and must not exercise his power beyond the law. Despite his great power, the Viceroy of the Qing Dynasty did not have an office directly under his jurisdiction and a second-in-command official. The envoys under its jurisdiction are the specific administrative organs and must act in accordance with the laws and systems of the state.
Therefore, from the institutional level, it was combined with the Tang Dynasty's moderation of military management, combat power, financial endowment, and administrative power, and eventually dismembered the Tang Empire, and the monarchs of the Ming and Qing dynasties had a lesson from the past, strengthened the centralization of power and the absolute monarchy, dispersed the power of the overseers to check and balance each other, and set up a large number of supervision officials at the local level, who had the power to report, and the local governors did not dare to make mistakes.
Four. Geographical aspects
Among the many factors that affect history, geographical factors cannot be said to be the dominant factors, because it is always people who dominate history, but geographical factors are the most important factors that cannot be ignored.
Before the Tang Dynasty, the division of administrative regions was formed according to the direction of mountain geography. For example, Tang divided the country into ten provinces, and some border areas had good geographical advantages. LongYoudao completely controlled the Hexi Corridor and the Western Regions, and it was difficult for the army to enter as long as it guarded the horn mouth in the east; Jiannan Province has the current Yunnan Sichuan and Hanzhong and other places, with the advantages of Shu Dao; Lingnan Province, on the other hand, has what is now Guangdong and Guangxi, and completely occupies the south of the Five Ridges. In this way, it is easy to form a closed geographical environment in terms of geographical location, so as to gradually become larger. In fact, the five dynasties at the end of the Tang Dynasty were indeed the most likely to form local separatist regimes in these places.
Administrative divisions of the Tang Dynasty
In the Yuan Dynasty, this matter began to change, perhaps because the empire was vast, and the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty mixed different geographies into one province, and divided a mountain and river shape into different provinces.
Later Ming and Qing rulers found this to be a good way to prevent local power from growing, so by the Time of the Qing Dynasty, the provinces and geographical situation had been completely cut.
Sichuan is the most typical example, as long as the Sichuan-Shu region closes the gate of Hanzhong and then defends the upper reaches of Chongqing, it will be difficult for foreign troops to enter. As a result, the Qing Dynasty assigned the Hanzhong region south of the Qinling Mountains to Shaanxi Province, so that if anyone in Sichuan opposed the central government, hanzhong could easily break through the defensive line from Hanzhong and enter the hinterland of the Bashu Basin. Sichuan, on the other hand, can no longer jump. At the same time, southern Sichuan also penetrates deep into the hinterland of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, and the current Panzhihua area of Sichuan is almost half the distance to Kunming than to Chengdu. In this way, the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau was also choked by Sichuan's neck, and it was difficult to form a geographical whole. There is also Lingnan, the Qing Dynasty divided Lingnan into Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, and also assigned the Wenshan area, which is close to the cultural geography of Liangguang, to Yunnan, so that Liangguang and Yunnan jointly have the geographical advantage of Wuling.
Not only that, but the Qing Dynasty also cut apart regions with exactly the same cultural origins, forcibly combining two places with different cultural habits into one province. For example, Jiangsu, southern Jiangsu and northern Jiangsu have completely different cultures and habits, with the Yangtze River in the middle, so that no one in Jiangnan and Jiangbei can escape from the palm of the central hand.
Therefore, due to the limitations of geographical conditions, the provinces and localities have each other's throat parts, and it is difficult for each region to form a geographically independent kingdom, which greatly reduces the possibility of independence of the provinces.
Five. epilogue
Due to the lack of economic and financial independence, and the fact that the governor himself was a civilian official, although he had military power, he was also limited in military power, and he was also deterred by the Eight Banner Army, and even if he had military power, he could not exert the same strength as the Tang Dynasty Tooth Soldiers; Moreover, the top-level design of the ruler will, to a certain extent, disperse the power of the overseer from the institutional level and balance each other to prevent the power of the overseer from being too large; Moreover, geographical factors are the most important to ignore, the provinces and geographical situation are completely cut, and the governor cannot rely on the shape of mountains and rivers to form local divisions. In short, affected by various factors, even if the governor had the intention of dividing, but due to the objective conditions, no division was formed in the ming dynasty and the middle period before the Qing Dynasty.
bibliography
1. Historical materials
[1] (Qing) Zhang Tingyu et al., History of the Ming Dynasty, Beijing: Zhonghua Bookstore, 1974.
[2] Zhao Erxun et al., Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, Beijing: Zhonghua Bookstore, 1976-1977.
[3] (Song) Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, New Book of Tang, Beijing: Zhonghua Bookstore, 1975.
2. Thesis
[1] Qu Chaoli, "The Characteristics and Role of the Ming and Qing Supervision System", People's Forum, No. 26, 2021.
[2] Fu Wei, "On the Reasons for the Formation of the Tang Dynasty Feudal Towns", History Teaching, No. 2, 1965.
[3] Han Pan, "The Division of Feudal Towns in the Five Dynasties of the Late Tang Dynasty", History Teaching, No. 8, 1958.
[4] Shi Yungui, "Inheritance and Variation: A Discussion on the Ming and Qing Dynasties Supervision System", Journal of China University of Mining and Technology (Social Science Edition), No. 6, 2002.
[5] Wang Kaixin, "A Brief Discussion on the Supervision System in the Ming and Qing Dynasties", Legal System Expo, No. 24, 2017.
[6] Sun Wen, "The Transmutation of the Ming and Qing Dynasties Supervision System and Its Evaluation", Journal of Henan Polytechnic University (Social Science Edition), No. 21, 2020.