In Japanese period dramas (costume TV series), there is often a kind of evil petty official - the acting official, who is a mighty and blessed, fish and meat village, has become the evil professional household in the TV series, as long as they appear, the audience knows that there are ordinary people who are going to suffer, however, the historical acting officials are not as bad as in the TV series, because they simply do not have the right to do evil.
Typical image of a surrogate official
Acting official, the middle and lower-level official in charge of the military, government, agriculture, and industry in the middle ages of Japan, the most famous acting official, is probably the famous general Gen Yoshikei, who once helped his brother Genrai Dynasty fight against the Hei family as a substitute official. In the era drama depicting the Edo shogunate, the acting officials are often evil people with faces, arbitrarily levying tyrannical expropriations, confiscating money and grain, colluding with adulterous businessmen, and even framing Zhongliang, bullying men and women, in short, bad things are done, and there is no human taste.
"Mito Yellow Gate"
In the famous Japanese series "Mito Yellow Gate", almost every episode has a substitute official, they either arbitrarily change the tax rate, enrich themselves, or abuse the judiciary, oppress the people, anyway, never did a good job, and their endings are basically the same, and finally all of them are handled by the Yellow Gate Lord who is privately visited by micro-service. It is true that the TV series punishes evil and promotes good, but this era drama and other TV series mislead the audience for the sake of the needs of the plot: the acting officials are not the "overlords of evil" who combine all evils, and the TV series is actually a kind of crown li dai for their ugliness.
First of all, in terms of the right to collect taxes, the acting official is only the executor, not the one who sets the rules. Many TV dramas like to design a bridge section for the representative to collect harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes, but the fact is that the tax rate is the proportion of "four public and six people" set by the shogunate, as a small official at the middle and lower levels, the acting official does not have the power to adjust the tax rate at will.
At the beginning of the 18th century, Tokugawa Yoshimune underwent the "Reform of Enjoying Insurance", and the shogunate changed the fixed tax rate to the law of the average tax rate in previous years. In the event of a famine, the shogunate would also announce relief measures to reduce the burden on subjects at all levels. As a front-line official, the acting official will indeed personally supervise the tax collection activities, but he does not have the power to raise taxes without authorization, after all, the tax is related to the fundamentals of the country, and the acting officials, as the local officials and tax officials of the shogunate, they cannot and dare not change the tax rate at will, how much should be collected, how much they should collect, and finally they must be reported truthfully, and there is no chance to fill their own pockets.
Another place where the acting officials have a bad impression is that they hold the power of the judiciary and use it to oppress the people. In Japanese period dramas, the acting official is a bit like the ancient Chinese county order, who is both a civil administrator and a judge, with the power to arrest, try and execute, but in fact, the judicial power held by the acting official is very small, and there is no opportunity to oppress the good people.
As a local official, the acting official mainly helped the shogunate to collect taxes, and the judicial jurisdiction with greater authority always belonged to another institution of the shogunate, "surveying".
According to Edo-era shogunate law, if a major criminal case or a dispute resulting in personal injury or death occurred in Tenra (a land controlled by the shogunate), it must be reported to the Survey Office, and the officials of the Survey Office will investigate and make a record. For example, when the acting official was collecting taxes, the two merchants were not harmonious in speech, and they fought in front of the acting official, and one of them injured the other, at this time the acting official could only let the merchants with bloody heads pay the tax first, and had no right to arrest them. In other words, the judicial power and investigation power in the local areas of the Edo period were in the hands of the surveyors, not the acting officials of the front line.
There are often such bridges in the drama of the times: because the acting officials have disputes with the people, they hold a grudge in their hearts, directly accuse the people without trial, and then immediately bring the law to justice. In reality, this situation is basically not going to happen, because it is a violation of judicial process. Of course, the acting official, as an official who has been showing his face for many years, was eventually given the authority to maintain law and order, but the scope of application of this authority is very narrow.
Japanese period drama
At the end of the 18th century, that is, in the middle of the Edo period, the acting official was granted judicial jurisdiction to expose misdemeanors such as gathering people to gamble, but in addition to catching the neighbors to play mahjong (metaphorically, Japanese mahjong was popularized in the 20th century), even in minor cases such as swearing and looking for lost property, the acting official had to follow the legal procedures, first investigate, then make a record, and finally transfer it to the survey for adjudication, and he did not have the power to try.
For example, Taro and Jiro play mahjong, and finally because of the problem of gambling funds, Taro lost his hand and beat Jiro to death. Then, after the acting official arrived at the scene, based on the judicial jurisdiction he had, he could directly ask Taro to pay the fine for gambling and notify Jiro's family to make up for the fine, but the acting official could not directly intervene in the manslaughter case in which Taro killed Jiro, he could only control Taro to prevent him from escaping, and then contacted the Edo Komeito Office and requested that someone be sent to investigate, and after the investigation was completed, the survey office would conduct a trial.
In fact, as a magistrate, the acting official has almost no power to investigate criminal cases and judicial jurisdiction, except that he can issue tickets to the neighbors who play mahjong, and any other matters related to public order and law must be submitted to the Edo survey and tried by the survey. At this point, we can say that the acting official is a small tax bureau official who grabs and plays mahjong neighbors part-time, they are light-spoken, they do not have the power to cover the sky with one hand, and the TV series portrays them as evil people who hold great power and do not do evil, in fact, it is a kind of defilement, even if they have that mind, but they do not have that power.
Before the introduction of the modern bureaucracy in the West, There were no bureaucrats of various professions in Japan, and there were a large number of irrational designs in the administration, judiciary, and even the management of public security, and many social problems also arose, but no matter which part of the system the problem was, the acting officials would not be troublemakers, because they were light-hearted and had no power to make waves.
The reason why Japanese period dramas love to take the surrogate official to open shabu is actually for two historical reasons:
During the Edo period, people were dissatisfied with the shogunate, but they did not dare to criticize big people, and they could only take down small officials, especially the tax-collecting officials such as acting officials, which were deeply hated by people. All kinds of novels, notes, and paintings are angry with the acting official, and over time, the acting official has become the representative of the wicked, and later Japanese people see the information that has been handed down and mistakenly think that the acting official is really full of evil.
After the Meiji Restoration, the new government replaced the Edo shogunate and began drastic reforms, many Japanese traditions were discarded, which caused some people to be hostile, in order to appease dissatisfaction, the Meiji government began to deliberately scandalize the shogunate era, hoping that people would no longer miss the past, and the acting official, as the first-line official of the shogunate in the people, was naturally constantly stigmatized as the representative of the shogunate, and many bad people and bad things in history were placed on the head of the acting official.
In fact, as the middle and lower-level civil officials of the shogunate, the acting officials did not have much power, and the reason why their image was not good was that they had completely carried the black cauldron for the shogunate and were deliberately scandalized by the era drama. Later, when we look at Japanese era dramas, if there are substitute officials who appear, instead of hating these petty officials, it is better to give them more sympathy.