The Study Of The County Administration And Local Society Of North Zhili In The Early Middle Ming Dynasty

The county,as the most basic local subdivision in the Ming dynasty,has low status but vital duties in the administrative system.The counties are stable,the nation is in peace,and the stable operation of county government is the condition of society's steady development.At the turning of Yuan and Ming dynasty,and during the Jingnan campaign,counties of North Zhili suffered from two wars,and the society had been severely damaged,leading to population loss and wasted land.Around the issue of developing and restoring North Zhili,the Ming dynasty adjusted North Zhili in many aspects,such as provincial administrative division,rank of states and counties,and number of officials,which laid the institutional foundation for the county administration of North Zhili.The administration of North Zhili counties mainly includes four aspects:agriculture and school,education and order,water conservancy and construction,taxes and disaster relief.After Yongle relocated the capital,the establishment of status as the capital city and its environs also added some new content to county administration.The dual status of the capital and the border areas,and the change from the early Ming Dynasty to the middle Ming Dynasty,made the North Zhili's counties administration show its own characteristics in common.County magistrates as the main body of administration of county government,not only performed the official duties,but also absorbed the local elites to participate in county administration,which jointly promoted the benign development of local society.The local elite gradually mastered the power of judging the magistrate when participating in county administration,and thus built a set of standard system for judging Minghuan(??).The two criteria for the North Zhili's county magistrates to enter the Minghuanzhi(???)are political achievements and morality,but due to the different social conditions in different places,the records of Minghuan's deeds show regional differences,and some of the Minghuan's deeds record exist slightly inappropriate phenomenon.At the same time,as the human factors always exist in the process of evaluation,there are also cases of stationarity and variability coexisting in the standard.In order to demonstrate the rationality of Minghuan(??)who entered the Minghuanzhi(???),the behavior of shaping the Minghuan image is inevitable.Through the combing of the county administration and the investigation of the local society of North Zhili,we can find that the social order of North Zhili was stable alternated turbulence in the 154 years from Hongwu to Zhengde.With Chenghua as the dividing line,North Zhili was in recovery periodof heal the war scars before Chenghua,,and the society got rid of the influence of war and entered the development period after Chenghua.