A Study On County Level Administrative Operation In Qin Dynasty

Few historical materials took notes of the Qin dynasty historical records.People ratiocinated the Qin political system according to the idea of "Han Inherit Qin's Regime" in the past.As the unearthed bamboo and wooden slips of Qin dynasty publishing constantly,significant progress and remarkable results were made in the Qin political regime study,especially in the "Official Regime" study.The research of "Official Regime" mainly focused on traditional research,for example,the agency,official position,particular portfolio,etc.However,few scholars could interpret the practice of regime operation.In fact,many unearthed archive documents saved the documents forms and its processing of administrative operation.It provided the conditions for analyzing the administrative operation mechanism.Inspecting regime operation and its power relations with a pointcut of the administrative operating mechanism has become the forefront topic of the regime history research in recent years.Official regime research is the foundation for further discussion of administrative operation;administrative operation couldn't work without the official regime.According to the newly published bamboo and wooden slips of Qin dynasty,the county administrative organizations showed a new situation.First,examining the geographical settings and the administrative operation mode of County"Cao"(?)and "Guan"(?)in Qin dynasty to prove the distinction of them,and adjust County Shu-li(??)classification structure in the past,would help to review and unscramble the relevant materials in order to form a new understanding;Second,it provided more specific materials about County Wei(??)clerk setting.Local fiefdom set Weishi(??)and Fanu(??)internally and also set You(?)and Ting(?)externally,which certified that Ting(?)belonged to County Wei(??).This helps us resolve the ownership of Ting(?).Third,little previous study and discussion referred to the relationship of County Magistrate,County Deputy and County Wei(??).In the records of Bamboo and Wooden Slips of Qin,County Deputy ranked a prominent position of three,because he was strongly independent to the County Magistrate,and had large power in county.In many cases County Deputy managed the administrative exchanges among County Sima(???),township,Zhuguan(??)and other official institutions as intermediary force,and discharge the power and the duty independently.Lots of the unearthed county administrative documents of Qin dynasty researched the individual document regime such as morphology,production,storage and delivery of documents.But few of them surveyed county administrative operation mechanism of Qin dynasty comprehensively.Through the analysis we found that Qin's county administrative operation mechanism was primarily reflected in three ways.First,the documents which the inside and outside county agencies returned to County Ting(??)would be unsealed by Liecao(? ?),and the Liecao(? ?)issued the document to the inside and outside county agencies,County Magistrate and County Deputy operated as intermediary force.Second,County Ting(??)issued the decree in the following implementation manners:The"Perform Administration Based on Precepts"(that meant performing the government administration in accordance with the relevant precepts)and "Perform Administration Based on Documents"(that meant performing the government administration in accordance with the relevant documents);Third,the arbitraments of administrative declaration documents were mainly made by the County Magistrate and County Deputy,especially the County Deputy.The arbitrament methods included "No Approval"and "Approval".The approved arbitraments had two types:"Perform Administration Based on Precepts" and the independent arbitraments made in the specific circumstances.The ultimate goal of the political system history study is to be the study of power,which can be researched from the longitudinal and cross-sectional perspective.On the cross-sectional study,it focused on specific powers and responsibilities,which will be discussed in this dissertation by taking the County Magistrate and County Deputy for example.According to the bamboo and wooden slips in Qin dynasty,the rights of the County Magistrate and County Deputy contained stipulation authority,prohibit authority,supervisory authority,reward-punishment authority,final approval right,personnel management authority,and the jurisdiction,centered contact right,enforceable rights,command the right,and so on.Responsibility was the limitation of power,there were two kinds of responsibilities:own illegal responsibility and the joint(even collective)responsibility.The relationship of duty and power was that they pursued the consistence of duty and power in the Qin Dynasty county administration,but there were five types of deviation of duty and power:the asymmetry of the power and duty,the rigescent responsibility bearing mechanism,the administrative responsibility based on negative duties,the internal accountability,and the duty-power deviation triggered by the emperor-oriented responsibilities relations.The longitudinal power was reflected on the relationship between Central and Local Governments.On previous studies people used centralization and decentralization as analytical framework,simply thought that the Qin Dynasty had highly centralized power,and had no local autonomous right.Now,from the local document perspective,according to the administrative operation mechanism and practice,I have more concrete understanding on the relationship of central and local in Qin dynasty:On the legislature aspect,although the Central played a leading role in legislation,the Local had a certain independent legislative power;However,on the arbitrament aspect,the Local Government affairs would be decided in accordance with the precepts,the Local had less self-ruling.This indicated that the Central established authority through legislation,the Local had few autonomous rights for self-administration.