A Research On Road-level Administrative Area Of Liao Dynasty

Road-level administrative divisions, including the management of flower-arranging area, pure farming area, part of grassland area, were the highest local administrative system and an important pillar maintaining the centralized rule of the Liao Dynasty. The paper chooses the road-level administrative divisions as the research object. It investigates whether Liao built a road-level administrative divisions,the evolution and characteristics of road-level administrative organization, the system of their officials and duty, their status and functions. It analyzes on the negative ideas on road-level administrative divisions and explores the specific situation of the road-level administrative divisions in the Liao Dynasty. Besides the preface and the conclusion, the body can be divided into four chapters.In the preface, we introduce the significance of the choosing the topic, combing the current research status of academia, and conclude the deficiency existing in the present study. We discuss the ways of thinking and the methods of how to do the research. Furthermore, we also discuss the innovations and the difficulties of the paper.The first chapter mainly inspects road-level administrative divisions of the Liao Dynasty. By combing the “road” in historical records and inscriptions, consulting modern scholars' understanding of the “road”, we conclude the Liao Dynasty had road-level administrative divisions. The Liao Dynasty had five road-level administrative divisions, which included Dongjing Road, Shangjing Road, Beijing Road, Nanjing Road and Xijing Road. We also analyze the negative road level administrative ideas at the end of the part.The second chapter inspects the road administrative organizational evolution and characteristics. The former had three stages: initial stage, perfect stage and definition stage. The latter summarizes the characteristics of the three periods respectively. This part argues road-level administrative division and their Fu, Zhou, Jun, Xian, including the setting time, their process, their subordinate relations and their places at present.The third chapter inspects road-level administrative management institutions and civilian officials. The highest military and political management institutions of the road-level in the Liao Dynasty is the department of Jing left-behind. It lists civilian officials of the department of left-behind and discusses heads of the left-behind andthe functions of their officers. Two aspects are discussed: one is administrative, the other is military. We investigate the department of Jing left-behind's agencies and its civilian officials' military/political management institutions and their specific settings.In the end, we conclude road-level administrative officials' administrative/military duties.The fourth chapter inspects the positions and functions of road-level administrative divisions in the Liao Dynasty. This part takes road-level administrative division as a whole and explores their status and functions in the Liao Dynasty. It discusses the status of road-level administrative divisions from the following four aspects: road-level administrative divisions are the highest local administrative divisions; Five Jing Dao and Five Jing Fu's unique position; and Zhong Jing Dao became the national administrative center. The functions of the road-level administrative divisions reflect areas under their jurisdiction, the foundation of stable involvement, coordination with the development of the nomadic areas under their jurisdiction.The last is epilogue. we analyze the Liao Dynasty road-level administrative divisions inherited from the Tang Dynasty and Five-jing system of Bohai Kingdom.The way of the Liao Dynasty road-level administrative division system had an important influence on the rules of the road system of Jin Dynasty.