The county, the magistrate, and the yamen in late Ming China

This is a study of local administration in sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Ming China. It focuses on the role of the county magistrate as the key figure in the relationship between the central government and local society and as an important actor within the politics of each county. It shows that county magistrates maintained the fiction of centrally coordinated government even as the uniformity of administrative practice was being undermined by changes within each county. In order to fulfill the demands placed on them by the central bureaucracy, county magistrates were partially dependent on power holders in the counties. This gave counties limited autonomy within normal bureaucratic operations. This study also shows that administration in the Ming differed in important ways from administration in the Ching despite the structure continuities. The first section of the study outlines the physical realities of the counties in Ming times and surveys the administrative staff. The second section examines the appointment procedures for county magistrates and explores whether they were differences in the qualifications of the magistrates who served in different counties. The third section describes in detail the administrative operations of late Ming counties. The fourth section examines typical local power holders and how their power was exercised. The final section explores the ways that individual magistrates handled the difficult role that they were asked to play. Appended to the study are a discussion of Ming dynasty handbooks for magistrates and the texts of three handbooks from the late Ming.