A Research To The Guangxi County-administration During The Late-Qing And The Early-Republic Of China

This paper mainly focuses on the Guangxi County-administration from the beginning of the "New Policies" held by the Qing government to the period of the reign of the former Guangxi clique (approximately1901-1921). During this period, the various aspects of Guangxi underwent a great change. The investigation of the county-administration is not only able to realize the reform of the political structure in Guangxi, but also can find out the significant change of economy and society at that time.In the late Qing dynasty, Guangxi was in the condition of being beset with troubles internally and externally, with the famine and starvation to happen from time to time, which severely threatened people’s normal production and life. And meanwhile, the continuous chaos also constantly affected Guangxi’social stability. In order to maintain the local social peace and pay for the Qing government cliques’ arbitrary charges, Guangxi local government had to increase tax collection, which further aggravated the sharpening social contradictions. Yet the county, in the bottom of the national government institutions, still maintained the traditional running track. The chief executive the county run all the different kinds of affairs, but the attention only focused on security, taxation and litigation; Besides, the administrative staff had no decent salary, and many of them were not officially included in the national administrative system, so they ignored the laws and regulations, and do whatever the wish; In the areas of minority nationality, the vast grass-roots officials could not be managed effectively. All of these intensively cried out for the reform of the county administrative institutions.In1901, as the "New Policies" being carried out by the Qing government, Guangxi began to clean up the county personnel, gradually cutting part of redundant staff. Thereafter,"The General Straight Province Official Rules" was promulgated, so Guangxi began to a new round of reform to the county personnel by setting "branches" under the county, which effectively changed the original condition of the arbitrary county chief executive. In addition, the rectification of finance and taxation, the initiation of modem education, the establishment of police system and the rise of local autonomy, all of these are the contents that are related to the reform of the Guangxi county-administration and the "New Policies" in the late Qing dynasty.The former Guangxi clique strengthened the internal rule and positively expanded to the outside world after they occupied Guangxi. The construction of the county-administration is mainly in the service of meeting the needs of their rule. During their governing to Guangxi, the former Guangxi clique made a huge reform to the administrative region of Guangxi, and actively took " The system reform of chieftains to bureaucrats " into effect, and the more ethnic minority areas were brought into the region of their effective control. In the office of the county magistrate, some branches were set up, such as education and construction, etc, which was beneficial to the transformation from the traditional autocratic magistrate system to the hierarchical administrative institutions. Moreover, the former Guangxi clique also strengthened the collection of fiscal and taxation and established the judicial system under the lead of the magistrate of the county and continually developed the modem education. All of these measures definitely play an important part in the social progress of Guangxi.Finally, this paper, from the positive and negative aspects, makes an evaluation to the reform of the Guangxi county-administration during the Late-Qing and the early-early-early-Republic of China, so as to make a comprehensive understanding of it.