A Study Of The Granary Administers In Prefecture And Counts Level During The Ming Dynasty

This article focuses on the granary administers in prefecture and counts level during the Ming dynasty, and discusses the selection, appointment, and transference of the administers deeply. By this work, we could find the operation characters of the states and the replacement of the granaries in this period.The government of Ming dynasty sets up the granary to provide the grain to the army and officials. There are the crucial granaries in capital and local ones in province, the function and status of the granaries were different because of the locations. The latter supports not only the local officials, but also the sacrifice. In additional of the officers of granary take charge of the reserving and circulating of the grain.The administers, whose status was low, and this status was more responsibility than power. These administers have to confront with the superior officers who repressed them; and unruly people who threatened them. The promotion of this administers was not easy, and the the highest could became the Zhubu in county. Administers of granary always had to go through a long period before they could move to another status. Though the term was set to be one year, as the granary often had enough grain to deal with, most of the administers could not leaver without finishing their task to distribute all of these provisions (this situation is specially called "shou zhi"). As a result, the administers, who do the work of "shou zhi",are far more than the normal administers, which was not improved until the thirteenth yeas of Wan li.As the administers,who were directly responsible for granaries, had the advantages of stealing food, but they were severely supervised by the censorate and other local officers, and heavy laws. Followings were two main reasons for such phenomenon. One was the low income, and the other was the neglect of the duty. Therefore, the corruption was not eliminated till the end of Ming dynasty.