【Controversy and Discussion】
Author: Peng Yong (Professor, School of History and Culture, Minzu University of China)
In recent years, the study of the Ming Dynasty health center system has been deepening, becoming a new hot spot in the study of Ming and Qing history, which is largely due to people's deeper understanding of the nature of the health center, and the health center is no longer only understood as a simple military organization, but also has administrative responsibilities. Specifically, the Health Center, to a large extent, like Fuzhou County, is an independent management system, which governs the population, land, finance, justice, education and civil affairs within the Health Center, and the Health Center shows different characteristics from the prefectures and counties, which has had a far-reaching and all-round impact on the society of the Ming and Qing Dynasties for more than 500 years, so it is worth studying extremely rich (see Gu Cheng: "Hidden Territory: The Weisuo System and the Ming Empire", Guangming Daily Publishing House, 2012; Zhao Shiyu: "The Weisuo Military Household System and Ming Dynasty Chinese Society—— From the Perspective of Social History", Journal of Tsinghua University [Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition], No. 3, 2015; et al.).
Floor plan of Dapeng City, Shenzhen.
There is no doubt that in recent years, the academic circles have reached more and more consensus on the basic attributes of the health center, such as the hereditary inheritance of military households, the juxtaposition of the military and the people, and mutual non-unification, but there are still obvious differences in the understanding of the independence of the health center system in terms of quantitative and qualitative aspects, which is bound to affect the understanding of the basic attributes of the health center and its operation, and affect the judgment of many specific issues. The author believes that although there are many types and wide distribution of health centers in the Ming Dynasty, as a systematic system design, the basic attributes of health centers should have universal principles. Because the health center has independent and complete management power, it is more appropriate to regard it as a jurisdiction in the traditional sense than as a political district in the modern sense.
Jiajing's "Records of Qingyuan County" (photocopied Tianyi Pavilion Collection) records the relationship between Daning Dusi and Fu County.
The determination of the ownership of the guard has nothing to do with the size of the area under jurisdiction and whether the demarcation is clear or not
One of the main differences in the academic understanding of the attributes of the health center is whether the health center has a universal "political district" nature, and the criteria for judging the nature of its political district can be judged by indicators such as the size of the area under the jurisdiction of the health center (the number of tuntian), whether the demarcation is clear, and whether the state and county are cut. Some scholars, following the traditional view of historical geography, divide the health center into the Real Earth Sanitary Institute, the Quasi-Solid Earth Health Center and the Non-Solid Earth Health Center, believing that "the small territory, defense area and Tuntian District of the Coastal Health Center are not enough to support it to become an administrative geographical 'unit' comparable to that of prefectures and counties, and basically do not have the characteristics of 'real soil'" (Li Xinfeng: "Research on the Political Areas of the Ming Dynasty WeiShou", Peking University Press, 2016, p. 61). Some scholars have also put forward different views on the above views, because the Ming Shi Ji Ji uses the term "real earth" weishou, but only borrows the concept of "shitu county" in the southern dynasty, and refers to the weishou that does not have a prefecture and county in the defense area as "real earth". To analyze the "political district" attribute of the Ming Dynasty Health Institute by whether there is real soil and "solid soil" is a misunderstanding of the concept of "real soil" (Fu Xianglin: "Analysis of the Meaning of "Solid Earth Guard Institute", "New Theory of Bingshen Youdi- Proceedings of the 2016 Academic Symposium on Chinese Historical Geography", Northeast Normal University Press, 2017, pp. 400-405).
Genealogy of the Jinyiwei family of the Luo clan in Xintian, Hunan.
Indeed, as early as the 1930s, Tan Qijun proposed in the "System of The Capital Division and Guard House of the Ming Dynasty": "The Wei Dynasty ruled over the army, and the Capital Division was set up to control the military administration, and its original origin was not related to local divisions." Hongwu Chu or abolished the border prefectures and counties, that is, the prefectures and counties were responsible for the capitals of the prefectures and counties; later, following this example, the capitals of the prefectures and counties were placed in the place of not having prefectures and counties, so this kind of capitals and guards were also in charge of military and civil affairs, and became a local division. ("Changshui Collection" [vol. 1], People's Publishing House, 1987, p. 150) This sentence was widely quoted by posterity to prove the political attributes of the ShituWeiShou. However, his later interpretation of the "non-real earth guard house" was long ignored: "The Ming History and Geography Records divide the health center into two types: real soil and non-real soil, and the actual so-called real earth guard refers to the health center that is set up in the non-prefecture and county, and the non-real earth guard house refers to the county where there is a state. Because the former has no prefecture and county, it is called so-and-so, so-and-so, and the latter is called its land in a certain state and a county, because most of the land population belongs to a certain county in a certain state. But there is a small part of the land population that belongs to the health center... It's not really soilless. (Jin Runcheng: "Research on the Governor-General of the Ming Dynasty", Tianjin Ancient Books Publishing House, 1996, photocopy and illustration in front of the book) Here, Mr. Tan's explanation has been very clear, the difference between solid soil and non-solid soil lies in whether there are prefectures and counties in the local area, not whether there is land and the size of the area, in fact, the Ming Dynasty's inland health centers, coastal health centers, and Jingwei houses (internal health centers) also have tun land.
Ruins of the ancient city of Songying in Penglai, Shandong (Ming Hundred Households). The pictures in this article are provided by the author
If it is believed that only the health centers located in areas "beyond the reach" of the Fuzhou county system are used as administrative division units, it is not in line with the actual situation of the Ming Dynasty health centers. Because although the Border Guard Is generally considered to have the attributes of a modern political district, and indeed has independent jurisdiction over a large area of territory, it is difficult to say that there is a clear demarcation between different guard houses, and the boundary between a large number of Border Guard Houses (Shi Tu Wei Shou and Qiang Zhi Wei Shou) is not as clear as the jurisdiction of the Inland Guard House and the Coastal Guard. As Zhou Zhenhe put it, "In ancient times, due to the low degree of development, many political districts did not have clear boundaries, only general scope" (Sixteen Lectures on The Historical and Political Geography of China, Zhonghua Bookstore, 2013, p. 29). Therefore, indicators of modern political districts such as the size of the jurisdictional area and whether the demarcation of the boundaries are clear do not directly correspond to the ancient political districts. Considering the complexity of the types of health centers, in order to grasp the basic attributes of the health centers as a whole, although it already has the basic attributes of the ancient political districts, it is of more common significance to call the health centers "jurisdictions" rather than "political districts". In the jurisdiction of the Weishou, not only did it independently exercise its jurisdiction in the Ming Dynasty, but even in the Qing Dynasty, some jurisdictions within the Weishou system continued for a long time, and the annexation of the Prefecture and County of the Weishou went through a long process in the Qing Dynasty.
The main embodiment of the Weishou jurisdiction and its jurisdiction in the Ming Dynasty
As an independent jurisdictional area, the health center is manifested as having completely independent or relatively independent jurisdiction within the jurisdiction of the health center, and the administrative power within the jurisdiction exists in parallel with the administrative system outside the district; second, the jurisdiction of the health center is not directly related to the size of its jurisdiction, and there is no necessary relationship with whether it is independent and clearly demarcated. The nature of the political districts of the frontier solid earth guards will be more obvious because they are connected to each other, while the jurisdictions of the "non-real earth guards" such as the inland health centers and the coastal health centers exist in the form of flower arrangements and enclaves, but they cannot negate the existence of their political district significance. In fact, it is precisely because the health center has corresponding jurisdiction similar to that of prefectures and counties that it is regarded as an independent system alongside it.
The health center has independent jurisdiction over a certain area (Tun Tian). As the economic basis for the existence of the guardhouse, the independence of Tuntian is manifested in the independence of the jurisdiction of the guardhouse, the independence of the frontier shitu weishou jurisdiction is self-evident, and no matter how scattered and staggered their distribution is, it does not affect the nature of the official field of the tundi and the jurisdiction of the guardhouse over it, even at the end of the Ming Dynasty. In northern China, in the early years of Chongzhen, Zhang Kentang of Zhixian County, Xun County, said: "Li Zili, Ningshan Weijun also, there are seven acres of land ... However, those who are subordinate to the guardian cannot go to their place of origin also. ("Ci" vol. 5 "Li Zili") In the Central Plains, Hou Fangyu of Guidefu (present-day Shangqiu, Henan) at the end of the Ming Dynasty said: "At the beginning of the country, Tuntian was opened, and the faction sat far away and spread a wide range. The name belongs to benwei, and where the earth falls, there are those who are hundreds of miles away, and there are those who are thousands of miles away. Military and civilian property, in between. (The Collected Writings of zhuang repentance hall, vol. 4, "Dai Situ Gong Tun Tian Song Discussion"). In the southwest, The Kangxi "Jiuxi Weizhi Fan case" records that the Jiuxi Weituntian is extremely widely distributed, "Wei Tu is not a corner, and there is only one acropolis in the Map of Cili County, and its Tun Tian is within the Shimen Boundary of Chengzhou, one in the Chengzhou Map, one in the Public Security Circle, one in the Songzi Boundary, one in Yue Yongding, and one in the Wuling Boundary..."
Although it is a distribution of flower arrangements, the division of jurisdiction between the health center and the neighboring prefectures and counties is very clear. Jiajing's "Qingyuan County Chronicle of Chengchi" said: "This county Zhiye, He Fu Zhijun Wei Yi Zhiye? Although Gaifu Wei cannot be listed in the county chronicle, the construction places are all in the Qingyuan Land, so zhizhi. Ho Shu Li Yay? Detailed in the county Zhiyi, county Zhi Qina, for reference, do not dare to be afraid of their arrogance and extravagant. The Wanli "Dingxiang County Chronicle tian fuzhi" also records the relationship between the weishou and the prefecture and county land close to each other but not subordinate, "According to: Tun land and folk are mixed, and their origins can be examined, taking care of the same ear." In the people's grain per stone, yu tun is five dollars, which is equivalent to half a loss. Tunyu has its own Ding Cha, which belongs to the Benwei reviewer.".
In the early Ming Dynasty, the principle of allocating the tuntian of the Wei Institute was to allocate unowned land in the interior without disturbing the original land relations, while in the border land, it was mainly distributed in the nearest whole area. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the establishment of health centers or prefectures and counties was premised on stabilizing the situation, and many places in the interior set up health centers first and then established prefectures and counties, and the administrative power of the localities was also handled by the officials of the health centers. For example, in Yingzhou (颍州, in present-day Fuyang, Anhui), "(Hongwu Yuannian) placed Yingzhou Wei and ordered him to command Li Shengshouzhi(李盛守之). Yingzhou has been rebelling since the Yuan Dynasty, the people have fled, and the city is empty. Shangyin Ru dao, crossing his land, ordered to build a city and establish a guard, recruit exile, and restore the people's business", that is, the Wei officials temporarily took care of the civil affairs (Ming Taizu Shilu, vol. 36 [part II], Hongwu first year November). In Dengzhou, Henan, "the thousand households in front of the imperial guard are governed by the state in the east." Ming Hongwu ordered the town of Fukong Xian to know the affairs of Deng Prefecture for three years. In the sixth year, he was promoted to a thousand households, and issued a seal to specialize in military affairs" (Shunzhi "Dengzhou Zhi", vol. 9, "Founding Zhi And Zhi Zhi"), which is also the combined management of military and government, with military and political officials set first, and administrative officials appointed later. In the late Ming Dynasty, because the ownership of the land was relatively fixed, the central government re-formed a new health center, and it was indeed necessary to adjust the jurisdiction of the original health center and the prefecture and county. In Sichuan, the tun tian of Southern Wei in the early Ming Dynasty was similar to that of the whole country, and "all members of the military staff have fields." When the time was created, each belonged to the field, and listened to its own choice, and the guards had soldiers to prepare for the defenders, and the tun tian was issued" (Jiaqing "Yibin County Chronicle", vol. 20 "TunTian Zhi"). However, by the time the Jianwu Shou Yuqianhuo was newly established in the early years of the Wanli Calendar, the jurisdiction of Tuntian and the Qianhushou would be "cut" of the nearby administrative districts (prefectures, counties, and Weishou), "with the Nine Silk Cities being barbaric, the Inspector Yushi Zeng Province, Wule Bing, and the county should be cut off from the six townships of Shandu, and the Jianwu Institute would be set up" (Guangxu "Xuzhou Fuzhi", vol. 16, "Ming Zhou Ya Ping Man Song Stele"). The jurisdiction of Jianwu Shou Yuqianhushou was, "Four hundred and twenty miles to the south of the province, ninety miles to luzhou wei in the northeast, eighty miles to the yongning Xuanfu Taiping ChiefTainsi in the east, one hundred and fifty miles to the west to the junxian county, eighty miles to the quiet chief of Zhenxiong Prefecture in the south, and one hundred and fifty miles to changning county in the north... In the first year of the Wanli Calendar, the mountains and mountains were suppressed, and the water was frightened, and they were returned to the households and expanded the land for more than 500 miles" (Gu Zuyu: "Minutes of Reading the History of Fang Public Opinion", vol. 70, "Sichuan Five"). Here, the division of the independent jurisdiction and jurisdiction of the Health Center is clearly visible.
The health center has independent management of the population. In the Ming Dynasty, the population management and conscription system of "assigning households to errands" and "assigning military personnel by nationality" was implemented, and the military, civilian, craftsmen, stoves and other households were hereditary, of which the hereditary nature of military households was more prominent. The military households of the Weisuo Are managed exclusively in the yellow book, and if necessary, the "Gou Military Register" is compiled, and the "Military Households of Prefectures and Counties" should be listed in the household registration of Fuzhou County to distinguish them from ordinary households. Because different household registrations bear different errands, their social roles are not very different, for example, military households are not allowed to separate households to ensure the hereditary rotation of military households; different household registration statuses, the schools attended and the places where they take the imperial examination may also be different. Most of the existing Ming Dynasty imperial examination archives (inscriptions, inscriptions, dengke records, etc.) are clearly marked with household registration types, and the number of military households is second only to that of civilian households. In addition, the Guangxi Normal University Press's 2001 photocopy of the "China Ming Dynasty Archives Collection" shows the official archives of a large number of hereditary military attachés of the Ming Dynasty, which shows the high level of central government management of the household registration of health centers, the high degree of independence of military households, and the management of military households has caused a series of social problems.
Independence of the economic jurisdiction of the Health Centre. The nature of the official field of Weishou Tundi did not change until the fall of the Ming Dynasty, although military land and private transactions were more common in the late Ming Dynasty, but there was no legal formality between buyers and sellers. Although the warehousing management right of the health center was entrusted to the nearby prefectures and counties in the early Ming Dynasty, the functional positioning of the health center of the health center has not changed significantly. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the central government still clearly stipulated: "In the province where the Wei is located, it is written in the Department of Cloth Administration; in the province directly subordinate, it is written in the province, and all the money and grain that should be levied are replaced by the governor of the province" (Bi Ziyan: "Du Zhi Zhi Zhi Yi Yi Xin Zhi Si" Volume 10 "Covering Fengyang Wei Shou Tun Grain instructs the government to urge the evacuation"), which is said here to "transfer the governor on behalf of the governor". Of course, because the two major systems of military and government and administration do not belong to each other, and economic ties occur from time to time, they are bound to be ridiculed, and military-civilian economic disputes are not uncommon. For example, Ningshan Wei is located in the north of Zhili, Tuntian is scattered, and the management power has been adjusted many times, "Although ningshan Wei is directly subordinate to Ningshan Wei is located in Zezhou, Shanxi, and its military remnants are in Henan, please still be under the management of Henan Guan Tun Guanguan, and The year Na Zi grain is awarded Jia and Huaxian Counties in order to release the branch" (Records of Emperor Mingxianzong, vol. 270, Chenghua 21 September Xin Wei). This shows that between the different systems of the health center and the prefecture, the role of the state and county in penetrating into the health center's finances is only "with the tube".
The independence of the judiciary in the Health Centre. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, there was an independent judicial organ in the health center system, and in the central government, there was a division under the governor's office of the five armed forces, which was the main five products and specialized in the prisons of the five armies. As the actual power of the Governor's Office of the Five Armies declined, the judge was dismissed at the time of Jianwen. In the localities, the judicial power of the health centers has existed for a long time, and each health center has a division of judgment to specialize in prisons, and often has a hereditary military attaché as a town counselor, who is responsible for handling judicial proceedings within the health center. If there is a dispute between the military and the people, the two major systems should be handled through consultation, especially when the military violates the interests of the people, it cannot be handed over to the prefecture and county for trial, and it must be approved by the central government and then entrusted to a special judicial officer to deal with it (see Zhang Jinkui: "Research on military households in the Ming Dynasty", Line Bound Bookstore, 2007, pp. 181-200). By the middle of the Ming Dynasty, with the inspectors of the three local divisions, the dispatch of the governor, and the general establishment of the system of section officials, the judicial power of the health center and the prefecture and county was gradually merged, but the main thing was to adjust the judicial power of the health center from top to bottom, and the situation of the health center and the prefecture and county in parallel was not broken, and the prefecture and county must be authorized to handle the judicial affairs of the health center. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, with the deepening of social exchanges between the inland health centers and nearby prefectures and counties, in places where the military and the people were miscellaneous and highly integrated, the maintenance and management of grass-roots social order appeared in the phenomenon of military-civilian integration, which was a new change in the two major management systems for a long time (Huang Zhongxin: "A Preliminary Study of the "Military Map" along the Coast of Zhejiang in the Middle and Late Ming Dynasty", Historical Archives, No. 1, 2013). For example, when Zhang Kentang of Zhixian County in the late Ming Dynasty tried cases involving health centers, he still needed to have corresponding authorization or appointment to deal with them, and the difference between the legal identities of the military and the civilians did not completely disappear.
The health center handles administrative affairs independently. In ancient times, the jingbiao was a reward made by the government to commend the people for their contribution to leading the social atmosphere, which was reviewed by various management departments step by step and finally submitted to the central government for approval, and the administrative procedures were complicated. The health center has administrative functions and also plays an independent role in this "civil affairs" type of undertaking. In the border areas, such as the Jingbiao in the Liaodong region, they were all completed by the Weishou official, and there are a large number of Jingbiao in Jiajing's "Liaodong Zhi", all of which have records of "Guarding their affairs and watching their doors" (volume 6, "Character Zhi Zhenlie"). In the inland health centers, it is not uncommon for the wei officials to be responsible for the affairs of the jing table, such as Wu Pingwei (武平衛, ming belonged to Henan Dusi, ruling in present-day Bozhou, Anhui), the wife of Jin Yuan, the wife of Jin Yuan, "at the age of twenty-three, and her husband died." Live in mourning and reasoning, be diligent and thrifty, and keep the festival. Jingtai 5 years, Ben Wei Song, Table Gate Lu" (Chenghua "Zhongdu Zhi" vol. 5 "Zhenjie"). In Guangdong, Jiajing's "Biography of Nanxiong Fuzhi Zhenlie" records the deeds of Ye Shi, the wife of Li Chun of Nanxiong Qianhu, "more than sixty years old. The ten military flags were verified three times, and the table was not revealed" (Jiajing's "Chronicle of Nanxiong Province", vol. 2, "Chuan Zhenlie"). By the middle and late Ming Dynasty, Confucian officials in the Weishou and the inspectors and inspectors also participated in the affairs of the Weishou.
The Ming Dynasty existed for more than 270 years, with the development of the times, the provisions of the early Ming Dynasty to the middle and late periods have undergone new changes, the two major systems of military administration and prefecture and county civil affairs have also operated independently of each other, to the emergence of unified voices and signs, on the one hand from the central government sent by the inspectors, governors and section officials, their power can be combined with the military and civilian two major systems; on the other hand, the actual needs, civil affairs power continues to penetrate into the military system. Of course, until the end of the Ming Dynasty, civil administration did not replace military government, and most of the independent jurisdiction and jurisdiction of the military and political system were still in place.
In summary, the Ariake generation has formed an independent jurisdiction because of the coexistence of the two major management systems of the military and the civilian, each with its own organizational structure and jurisdiction. In the frontier areas where there is no Prefecture or County, the Health Center has a high degree of independent jurisdiction. In areas where inland health centers, coastal health centers and Fuzhou counties are cross-aligned, a "natural realm" of military and government coexistence has actually been formed, for example, the "Henan natural realm" includes the area of Henan Buzhengsi and Henan Dusi, and the "natural realm" of Shanxi includes the area of Shanxi Buzhengsi, Shanxi Dusi and Shanxi Xingdusi. In the Ming Dynasty, the health centers, like Sifu Prefectures, had the nature of "geographical units", except that Sifu Prefecture and County were traditional typical political districts, and the Health Institutes had the "necessary conditions" for administrative divisions. It is worth noting that we cannot measure the health center management system with the concept or indicators of modern administrative divisions, because it is a form of management in ancient China with obvious flexibility, transition or flexibility in border governance. In view of the fact that the Ming Dynasty Border Guard Institute has a relatively strong political district nature, and the Inland Health Center also has independent jurisdiction but cannot be measured by the standards of modern political districts, it can be called a "geographical unit", and it is more appropriate to strictly express the jurisdiction attribute of the Ming Dynasty Health Center as a whole, and call the geographical unit of the Health Center "jurisdiction" rather than "political district".
(This paper is a phased result of the General Project of the National Social Science Foundation "Research on the Institutional Design and Group Identity Change of Military Households in Ming Dynasty Prefectures" [18BZS065])
Guangming Daily (2020.05.18. 14th edition)