Study On County System Of Jin Dynasty

The county system is an important aspect of the ancient local system in our country. Since the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States period , the county has been established down right away as grass-roots administrative unit. Although Jin Dynasty established by Nvchen put the system of prefectures and counties and the system of Menganmouke into practice on local system, the system of prefectures and counties held a leading post beyond doubt.During the process of offending Liao Dynasty, Nvchen once adopted Menganmouke as local administration units. Looked from the superficies, the Jin Dynasty's rulers put the system of prefectures and counties into practice because of the failure of Menganmouke system and the earliest county occurred in AD 1124。The reality probably is that there was county class creation during the years of Tianfu , coexisting with Menganmoukes。After extinguishing North Song,the local official system of Jin Dynasty presented a condition of disunity, which took no advantage of the stability of ruler order. Thereupon, during the years of Tianfu, Jin Dynasty carried out unified adjustment and reformation on local system. Subsequently, Xizong adjusted and reformed the local system again, and extended the county system to the whole nation. This adjustment was mainly in the Eastern Liaoning, Western Liaoning and Yanyun region, and layed foundation for the development of the county system of Jin Dynasty.The country was the third level in the local institution in Jin Dynasty. In the late Taihe age, there were 690 counties covering the whole country. According to the historical data, we can analyze three aspects as follow. First, the density of distribution showed that it was sparse in the north and dense in the south. Second, according to the investigation there were more counties in the south than that in the north although it had nearly four counties on average in each prefecture. In the meanwhile, it differed in the numbers of the county in each prefecture. Third, on average, there were 12000 households in each county and thousands in a large county and less than thousand in a small one. There was a huge difference between large and small county.The difference of numerous counties in the Jin Dynasty was huge in the south and north as well as in the households. In order to manage effectively, the ruler of the Jin Dynasty accorded to Tang system dividing the counties into seven grades as Chi, Cichi, Ciju, Jing, Shang, Zhong, Xia.The county grade system was formed in the years of Tianhui. It unerwent a developing process later, but it is hard to verify because of the limited historical data. In the official system, Xianling was the highest chief in the bureaucratic establishments of the Jin Dynasty as Xiancheng, Zhubu, and Xianwei followed. In addition, there were several Silis and Gongshis who assisted in handling the specific government affairs.In the whole Jin Dynasty, the rulers attached great importance to the selection, assesment and supervision of the county magistrates, and strengthened the governmental management to them gradually.The rulers of the Nvchen put emphasis on the selection of county magistrates. There were three ways to select the magistrates: imperial examination, meritorious service and recommendation. Besides, it was talent not to think greatly of nationality or race which was emphasized on selecting county magistrates. Intellectuals of the Han nationality is in the majority of the officials due to their quality. Meanwhile, Nvchen ruler also put emphasis on selecting the minority nationality, especially the Nvchen people to assume the position in the regime of the county.The supervision for the county magistrates could be divided into two aspect: merit system and inspection system. The merit system of Jin Dynasty formed in the years of Huangtong. In the late phase of Jin Dynasty, the merit system was very close and took seriously on county magistrates. But during developing, it gradually attached importance to the magistrates'longevity and became more and more formalized. The inspection system of Jin Dynasty also formed in Xizong. Shizong and Zhangzong developed this system further, and make it a supervision system for magistrates, especially for county magistrates, as well as the merit system. The inspection system greatly supplemented the merit system, and played an important role after the medium term of Jin Dynasty.The county magistrates of Jin Dynasty handled almost all affairs within a county, whose duty could be basically divided into three aspect: politics, economy, and culture and education.To sum up ,the counties of Jin Dynasty almost inherit Liao Dynasty and Song Dynasty, and the system basically follow the example of Tang Dynasty. But the county system of Jin Dynasty gold Dai county system does not completely copy Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty, and it have own characteristics. It should owe to the consummation of county system that county local order has continued stabilizing relatively and economy sustained developing. At the same time, the experience of county system of Jin Dynasty was used for reference by subsequent Mongolia rulers.