The Study On Selection And Promotion Of The District Magistrate In The Song Dynasty

In the Song Dynasty, district magistrates were select from metropolitan officials, court officials,ancillary, minister commissioner-in-chief and xiaoshichen. District magistrates from metropolitan and courtofficials were called zhixian, District magistrates from ancillary and xiaoshichen were called xianling. Dueto their managing people directly, the appointment and promotion of district magistrates were especiallyimportant.The appointment of district magistrates mainly follows qualifications, and recommendation plays acomplementary role. The positions of district magistrates were divided into several categories formetropolitan and court officials, ancillary and military officials according to social stratum, affairs andlocation of the counties. The selection were adjusted among metropolitan and court officials, ancillary, civilrespectively and military officials according to the current political situation. There imposed restrictions onthe selection of district magistrates, including class origin, official career. Only when they met with allthose restrictions, could those metropolitan graduate, circulating offices, provisional be chosen as districtmagistrates.District magistrates promoted to the assistant prefect position, to department magistrate position；toregional inspector position or court gentleman position and so on. Because of many kinds of selection,equality of qualification stems from officer experience and official career the promoted position of thedistrict magistrates were various.There were shortages of district magistrates due to regions, the current political situation and difficultieswhich disturbed the counties. In order to change the situation, a series of measures were taken, such aslimiting the dispatch assign of the officials who had not been district magistrates, departmental appointment,holding a post reward, expiring reward, promotion of qualification stems from officer experience, cuttingdown the numbers of officials who could recommend, shortening the circuit of evaluation for reassignment,promotion, being giving preferential treatment in dispatch assign and so on, but all of these failed to changethe situation.