The Research On The Roving Censor In The Early Qing Dynasty

As an important part of the political system history,"the research topic on the Roving Censor in the early Qing Dynasty"should have been paid much attention. However, because this political system was borrowed from the Ming Dynasty and it lasted only for 18 years during the Qing Dynasty, many historians didn't pay due attention to it. There are only a few articles on the related topic but no monographs on this topic. There are a few related comments in some works on the supervising system, but the illustration is not comprehensive enough, hence lacking the value for reference. Since the 1980s, only several articles on this topic get published, all of which are not comprehensive enough both in its scope and profundity: they either focus too much on the study of the history of this system or study a certain case, hence aren't systematic and integrative enough. Therefore, there is still a vast space that needs to be explored on this topic.Whether the effectiveness of a system according with the original intention of the rule-maker will affect the fate of the system directly, and those who plan and apply the rules are inevitably under the influence of the social environment that they live in. As Zhao Yi once said:"when evaluating a system, one should not focus on the system only, for the system is made by man. Only analyzing it in its social background, can one have a clear view".â‘ So, this thesis takes the imperial Roving Censor -- the direct executors, as its subjects, and explores the possibility, necessity, its positive role and drawbacks in the specific social background of the early period of the Qing Dynasty. At the same time, the thesis also studies the complex social relationship that caused by application of the supervision of the imperial intendants, such as the relationship between the Man zu and the Han people, the relationship between the local governors and the imperial intendants and etc. This thesis explores whether there is certain interrelationship between these complex social relationships and the appearance of the system of the intendants in the early period of the Qing Dynasty, and analyzes the latent causes of the repeated application and abolishment of the system.The thesis consists of the following four parts:Part 1 is the general illustration of the development and the application of the system of the Roving Censor in the early period of the Qing Dynasty and also its rules, so that we can have a general view of this system.