The Study On Xiangyue In Xihe Country Of Gansu Province From The Ruling Period Emperor The Qianlong Of Qing Dynasty

As an autonomous organization in grass-roots society,Xiangyue began in Song Dynasty.And it spreaded from the cities to the rurual areas in the ruling of the Emperor Kangxi(1670AD).The Qing government regulated them to give speeches on the first and fifteenth day every month to educate the common people.Every emperor in Qing Dynasty treated the Xiangyue speeches as the way to educate the audience.The Xiangyue in Xihe town identified the household occupants,kept the society stable,settled down some trivial things and helped the officers of the state deal with the judicial and administrative affairs.The Xiangyue gradually have become the important tool for the officers to govern the grass-roots society.The above functions of the Xiangyue in Xihe made up for the serious deficiency of the state’s governance,which played an active role in keeping the grass-roots society stable and improving the administrative efficiency of the state’s governance.From the ruling of the Emperor Daoguang on,the contradiction between the government and the common people became extremely acute.In that situation where the common people rebelled the governors ruling and the foreigners invaded China,,the relationship among the Qing rulers has been rearranged.And the most direct way was to put the political rights down from the whole country to small towns.Xiangyue in Xihe were vested with more powers by the officers.They could assist the police to keep the society’s stability and deal with the judicial affairs,or even act on their own,and became the main tool for officers of the state to govern the common people.However,the reinforcement of the Xiangyue’s judicial administration made them too busy to educate the common people,which led the Xiangyue’s education function become a written form in the late of Qing Dynasty.During the ruling of Emperor Guangxu,there were many cases that the common people the Xiangyue accused each other and the gentry accused the Xiangyue,which showed the great condtradictions between the Xiangyue and the common people,and the gentry.It was the inevitable result of the Xiangyue’s function reinforced in Xihe.From these cases,it could clearly see that some cases took place because of the Xiangyue’s bribe-taking or unfair regulation and others happened because the common people brought a false charge against the Xiangyue or even hit them.It alsoshowed the conflicts between the two groups both keen and complicated.Xihe Town is located in the remote moutain areas in Gansu province.Xiangyue in Xihe played an indispensible role in maintaining the stability of the grass-roots society and government administration.The relationship among Xiangyue,the common people,squires and magistrates had the characteristics that sometimes they clashed against each other and the conflicts were dispelled acassionally and the balance of the rights helped the grass-roots work regularly.