Talking about ancient and modern times, digging deep into the history of Hebei that you don't know, hello everyone, I am "Qing Shi Jun", welcome to pay attention to the "Qing Shi Guan", every day to bring you fresh, interesting, dry goods full of historical stories.
Today, we are talking about the story of administrative divisions during the Ming Dynasty.
The approximate location of Qing County in Hebei Province
During the Yuan Dynasty, there were many states, and the drawbacks of local administration were great. After Zhu Yuanzhang succeeded to the throne, he knew this very well. On the one hand, the local management during the Yuan Dynasty adopted a "dual system", which not only wasted manpower and material resources, but also caused a great waste of administrative resources. The second is that during the Yuan Dynasty, most of the prefectures had few counties under their jurisdiction, which caused an increase in administrative costs. Third, because the large-scale war in the north has led to a sharp decline in the population of many counties and a contraction in economic scale, the population under the jurisdiction of many states has been very small, and there is really no need to keep it.
The approximate location of Wei County in Hebei Province
The local administration of the Yuan Dynasty adopted four levels: road, prefecture, prefecture, and county, of which the number of counties under the jurisdiction of the prefecture was very small, and some states were almost at the same level as the county. Overlapping administrative bodies result in a waste of resources. Zhu Yuanzhang, the ming emperor, ordered that the four-level administrative system be changed to the three levels of prefecture, prefecture, and county.
The Yuan Dynasty was a government established by the Mongols, and adopted a dual system of local county administration, with one county having a Daru Huachi, appointed by a Mongol or Semu, and a county yin with a Han Chinese. Such dualistic management makes administration inefficient. Moreover, the four-level management system of the Yuan Dynasty made officials at the county level become "cold officials" who were unsought-after and had low rank. In fact, the appointment of county-level officials is extremely important, and if they are not given enough respect, it means that the administration at the bottom is rigid.
The approximate location of XianXian in Hebei Province
On this basis, Zhu Yuanzhang succeeded to the throne and "demoted" some of the original states. Some of the prefectures located in Hebei were downgraded to counties. These include Xianzhou, Lizhou, Xiongzhou, Weizhou and Cheongju.
Xianzhou is a prefecture named after Liu De, the king of Hejian . During the JinYuan period, Xianzhou's jurisdiction included the southern part of present-day Qingxian County, as well as parts of Cangzhou and Xianxian County. During the reign of Emperor Hongwu of the Ming Dynasty, Xianzhou was demoted to Xianxian County, which is also the earliest record of Xianxian county in the establishment.
The approximate location of Li County in Hebei Province
During the Yuan Dynasty, Li Prefecture's jurisdiction included the area around present-day Boye and Li County, and there were too few counties under its jurisdiction, and Zhu Yuanzhang ordered that Li Prefecture be downgraded to Li County. In addition, Cheongju, located in the area of present-day Cangzhou, was demoted to Qing County. Xiongzhou, located in the Baoding region, was demoted to Xiong County. Weizhou, which administers the counties of Jingxing and Huanshui, was demoted to Wei County.
When Zhu Yuanzhang carried out administrative reform, it was divided into three levels according to the amount of tax paid by different counties. Counties with grain of more than 100,000 stones are Shangxian, Zhixian is from Liupin, 60,000 stones to 30,000 stones of grain is Zhongxian, Zhixian is Zhengqipin, counties below 30,000 stones are Xiaxian, and Zhixian is congqipin.
Murals from the Yuan Dynasty
In addition, Daxing and Wanping counties have special locations, and ZhiXian is from Liupin.
After a series of reforms, some of the original states disappeared and were replaced by new counties. This also changed the history of the administrative division of Hebei. In today's Qingxian County, there are still place names for Cheongju Town, which is also a kind of historical commemoration of Cheongju.
Portrait of Zhu Yuanzhang
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