Administrative Operation Of Xihe County Yamun In Qing Dynasty From The Perspective Of Interaction Between Officials And People

Since the beginning of the last century,many scholars have attached importance to the administrative setup and administrative operation of local prefectures and counties in the Qing Dynasty.However,the existing research focuses on the static investigation of the local administrative operation,while little attention is paid to the interaction between the county-level administration and the lower citizens.This indicates that there is still much room for study on the administrative operation of the state and county yamun in the Qing Dynasty.Xihe County is located in a corner of Gansu Province,where the land is poor and the people are scarce,because of its key point,it has always been busy,it is a transit station for business exchanges with neighboring states and counties.Xihe County Yamun assumes the prime right of the administrative and judicial affairs of the county.This article takes Xihe County Yamun in the middle of Qing Dynasty as the starting point,a general clue through the full text with the interaction between the officials and the people in the Administrative Operation of the State and County.While revealing the concrete administrative operation of state and county Yamun,this paper probes into the characteristics of local administration and its power relationship with rural society in this period.The state and county Yamun was a grass-roots administrative district in the Qing Dynasty.The state and county Yamun has the most direct and frequent contact with the people,so it has a profound impact on the production and life of the local people,in addition,the diversification and importance of its functions make it a key hub connecting the central government with the grass-roots society.Tax collection,judicial proceedings,public order education and so on,which are closely related to the common people,all take their governance as the starting point.From the internal organization of the state and county Yamun,to the duties and responsibilities of the personnel of each department,we can see that a county government affairs are numerous and complicated.In the administrative operation of Xihe County Yamun,the interaction between the officials and the people is the most important form of expression.The administrative official duties mainly revolve around the document reporting,that is,the information transmission carried out layer by layer with the official document post as the carrier.But in fact,the administrative operation ofYamen in Xihe County has deviated from the expression and practice,that is,the deviation between official command and actual operation,for example,grass-roots organizations procrastinate on public orders,and officials do not know government affairs and restrict them to local forces.Therefore,whether it is a decree issued by a higher level government official to a lower level or in judicial proceedings,the Yamun contacts the public through the form of difference of votes,which reflects the mutual compromise between Xihe County Yamun and the rural society and its leaders.Finally,a more balanced form of mutual cooperation was reached.In general,the administrative efficiency of the county yamun is dependent on the level of its administration,due to the maladies of bureaucrats,petty officials and inadequate finance and other factors,Xihe County Yamun is faced with a practical dilemma in its administrative operation,and the interactive game between the officials and the people became the internal manifestation of its administrative operation.