Study Of The Song Dynasty, The Local Administrative System

This thesis concentrates on the systematic research of the local administration system of Song Dynasty. The whole work was put into one propulsive mode which centralized on the local administrative organizations and went step by step from describing the individual objects, investigating the structure and relation then to going up to the comparative research with the grand background. Through this integration of the micro research content, the author hopes to reflect how this system worked as a whole. There are three main points listed as follows: First, describe and generalize the configuration of the local administrative organizations and the contents and processes when they run. It is meant to show the general framework of this system as well as its performance in Song Dynasty. In this part, the author integrated the nearly thirty kinds of local administrative organizations of all levels into one complete and regular system. Moreover, the administrative district, institution form, implementation of administrative function, working style, ways of mediation and the background of their variation have also been discussed here long or short according to their significance.Second, research the inner relations in the local administration system. This part is concentrated on the system and its performance which integrated the local administrative organizations and made them run efficiently. Besides, the continuous adjust of administration system and the variation of power distribution between central administrative organization and local ones, local administrative organizations of all levels as well as of the same level which are caused by this adjusting also be raised here. Therefore, we can see the inner working mode of local administrative organizations and the adjusting of structure of power distribution. Third, research the spatiotemporal difference of the local administrative organizations and its performance. In this part, the author first summarized the local administrative organizations of Song Dynasty and the variation of their function and performance, and then compared it with the variation of government situation of Song in order to synthesize some trend of the development of China's local administration system on the basis of the difference occurring during the three hundred years. The following research which concerned on the division of different administrative district and the diversity of the setup of administrative organizations was intended to seek some relations between local administration system and other regional diversity. It is found that the central government of Song Dynasty had designed the "Separate System" in local administration system under the ideology of centralization of state power which leaded to the most separate of administrative power among the local administrative organizations and the performance of which was fruitful but slow. Whereas, it is also found that the Song government never hesitated to adjust the local administration system depending when and where. According to the geographical variation, the local administrative organizations allocating at remote areas had more power, while with respect to the timing variation, compared with the North Song Dynasty, the central government of South Song Dynasty gave more power to local governments and moreover there was a trend that this power was obviously moving toward the high level of the power system.