The Disquisition On The Military Commissioner System In Liao Dynasty

From Tang to Yuan Dynasty, the military commissioners had last for more than 500 years, and it played an significant role in Chinese ancient history. In Liao Dynasty, it was followed the mode in Tang Dynasty and was developed into an settled military commissioners system with the nation`s own characteristic. Now that the study on the military commissioners system in Liao Dynasty is not sufficient till now, so the author choose this subject in order to do something complementary to it.The military commissioners in Liao Dynasty is various. In term of the different departments, they can be devided into palace military commissioners, tribe military commissioners, military commissioners of vassal state or tribe affiliated to Liao Dynasty, prefecture and army military commissioners, the military commissioners of tou xia jun zhou and so forth. It is quite different about setting military commissioners in larger states in Tang Dynasty and Five Dynasties, especially for the Woluduo, it is the defender department for the palace, but there`re still military commissioners in it. For example, In the second august, The Taizu emperor was buried to Zu mausoleum, the military commissioners was set to defend it. In that time, there are departments such as Zhu-zhang-lang-jun-yuan and Zhu-zhang-hu-si, which were set to serve the emperor about factotum, the ministers of them could also be called military commissioners. Besides that, there was an special kind which named the military commissioner of Tou xia jun zhou, it was the private city wall of the lord. The military commissioners were dispatched by the court, but the officials subordinate to the CiShi were set by the owner of the citywall and that was unique in Liao Dynasty. In the article, a particular classification of all kinds of military commissioners was made , and on the basis of this study, the exact setting time of the military commissioners was defined as well. But on account of the limited capability of the author, the research for the military commissioners in the chart was not taken into consideration. Which should not be neglected is that in Liao Dynasty, the military commissioners had been developed into the actual governors. for example, the tribe military commissioner was regarded as an actual post and the prefecture and army military commissioners could be awarded to the officials as the honnrary rank.There are causal reasons for the military commissioners to be an settled system in Liao Dynasty, among them , the evolution of time, the institutions relying on, and the contents of selection, the term and the power of the posts should be given more attention. It was earlier for the military commissioners established in Liao Dynasty, because in the Five Dynasties, there were scuffles in central China, in that situation, Abaoji invaded into the boundary, occupied the city walls and ruled the residents, established towns in form of Tang`s and resided in them. The names of them were remained directly but the governors were changed for military commissioners or Cishi. There are four important phases in the development of the system but because the setting time of them was different and not accurate enough, so there is only cursory generalization in the article, the military commissioners are vary from each other, so are the institutions which they belonged to, Zhuzhang military commissioners is subordinate to Zhuzhanghusi. Another fact should also be emphasized is that in Liao Dynasty, the military commissioners can be affiliated to two or more different departments. Take Liaozhoushipingjun for example, in one hand it belongs to Changning palace, bt in the other hand, it also belongs to Beinvzhibingmasi, and it is a bit more important to military function.In Liao Dynasty, the selection and assignment power of the military commissioners was firmly held by the court of Liao, most of the important posts were occupied by the Qidan people, so the pedigree selection system was the most important criterion in selecting the officials and military commissioners in that time, and that was the particular phenomena only appeared in Liao Dynasty.Some military governors had the traits of technicality from their functions in liao dynasty, such as Zhuzhanglangjun,Zhuzhang jiedushi,were exclusively responsible for managing service business around the emperor. There were Woluduo Jiedushi whom took imperial mausoleum as a main job technically, yet this kind of circumstance was the minority, more were the tribe military governors and prefecture military governors whom controlled the place military and administration power.In order to prevent the return of military governorship separatist in the tang dynasty, the court of the liao dynasty adopted various measures to restrict the military governors. Firstly, the court put up Xiangwen,Zhihuishi whom managed military with military governors. Despite their power lowed than the military governors, they shared the power with them, which led them to contain each other. Secondly, the court generally provided military governors, which led them to flow for a wider generic title of chief executive. In addition, the officials conferred military governors, up to now for a second, third grade, also equivalent to four, five or six for seven goods, and some on only a small tribal long. Military governors in liao dynasty tended to universalization .Unlike the military governors in tang dynasty, they had become loyal officials of the court, commanded the military, defended the frontiers, appeased profoundly minority tribes, and let the people live, worked and played a maintaining law and order in one of the important role. So, the military governors settings didn't decline in liao dynasty, which had become an powerful tool of the rulers to rule the people. In short, the military governors system had the traits of inheritance and development in liao dynasty, which worth to learn from by future generations.