A Textual Research On The Prefects Of Prefectures In Jinan Prefecture In The Ming Dynasty

The Prefecture of Jinan, capital of Shandong Province in Ming Dynasty, has the largest territory in the history of Jinan. It includes most or part of today’s Jinan, Dezhou, Binzhou, Tai’an and Zibo City, totaled more than a quarter of the territory of Shandong Province in Ming Dynasty with four counties and twenty-six states. Compared with other regions in Shandong, Jinan plays an extremely important role not only in areas of political, economic and military, but also in education, art and culture. As chief executive, the prefect of Jinan, plays a pivotal role in the social development process of Jinan and is in charge of political affairs of the prefecture, such as advocating morals and manners, solving litigation, averaging taxes and corvee as well as educating people. Currently, the research of the Prefecture of Jinan in Ming Dynasty mainly focuses on the economic and cultural aspect. While there is few study on the political aspect, particularly the prefect system of Jinan. This paper, therefore, taking 66 Jinan prefects in Ming Dynasty as a point-cut and combining its local history, the history of the Ming Dynasty, and other related documents, expands the discussion from aspects of the prefects’ birthplace, family background, serving record, responsibility and government performance and so on.The paper is divided into six parts. The first part is an introduction, mainly discussing the significance of this topic, systematically reviewing the academic research in the last three decades on the prefect system, and clearly presenting the innovation and shortcomings of the paper. The second part introduces the prefecture administrative region in terms of the number, type and grade, region, nature and status, and makes a overview of build history of Jinan. The third part is a research and analysis of the prefects of Jinan in Ming Dynasty in terms of birthplaces and family backgrounds. From the aspect of birthplace distribution of prefects, it shows a feature of whole extensive and local concentration, and strictly follows Birthplace Avoidance System. From the aspect of origin, most of the prefects of Jinan are Scholars, with a majority of second level Scholars. The fourth part is a statistical research of Jinan prefects in Ming Dynasty in terms of appointment, tenure, outgoing and promotion. About appointment, the most common appointment form for Jinan prefects is “promoted by Ming government”, in which the prefect priority was the central six subordinate officers. About tenure, the average tenure of Jinan prefects in Ming Dynasty is 4.1 years, which is basically the same with the national prefect term. While taking Chenghua Period as a turning point in Ming Dynasty, this paper analyzes the reasons for the change of tenure and its influence to official management through the statistics of tenure time before and after the turning point. About outgoing and promotion, the whereabouts of retired Jinan prefects are mainly promotion and transfer. This part also explores the features of Jinan prefects’ promotion from aspects of promotion standard, promotion direction and promotion speed. The fifth part discusses the responsibilities and government performance of Jinan prefects in Ming Dynasty in terms of achievements and dereliction of duty. The sixth part is the conclusion of the full thrust to generalize and summarize.This paper hopes to provide an enlightenment and reference to our country’s political restructuring through exploring the overall features and power operation of 66 prefects of Jinan in Ming Dynasty and summarizing the pros and cons of their political governance.