A Study Of Hedong Dao County Magistrates In The Tang Dynasty

The county magistrate of the Tang Dynasty was the highest administrator of the county organization,and also the most popular official position in the local government system.The county magistrate was the county affairs,and its governance was closely related to feudal rule.This paper takes the county magistrate community of Hedong Dao in the Tang Dynasty as the research object,on the basis of careful combing of the official history and local records and other handed down documents,combined with the unearthed documents such as epitaph,through the comparison of relevant statistical data,in-depth investigation of the distribution characteristics of this special group’s native county,the way to enter the official position,the way to transfer and so on.This paper is divided into five chapters:The first chapter provides an overview of the local administrative divisions and local official system in the Tang Dynasty,the administrative divisions and the establishment of county magistrates in the Hedong Dao,and shows that although the magistrates in the Hedong Dao had different ranks,their functions were basically the same,involving social education,hearing lawsuits and deciding prisons,removing maladministration,collecting taxes,constructing water conservancy,and guarding the people.In addition,the diversity of counties and magistrate ranks in the Hedong Dao during the Tang Dynasty is the fundamental reason for the differences in county prestige and advancement of magistrates in the Hedong Dao.The second chapter quantifies the overall situation of the native places and the distribution of county area of Hedong Dao county magistrate in Tang Dynasty by means of data statistics,and draws the conclusion that the distribution of native places of Hedong Dao county magistrate is not balanced,showing the characteristics of more north and less south.Hedongdao County magistrate is mainly the gentry,that is,the important county surname and the local big surname,the number of non-county surname is small.This distribution characteristic has a great relationship with the distribution of the political center of the Tang Dynasty and the government’s employment policy.The third chapter,through statistics and analysis of the ways of Hedong Dao county magistrate to become an official,concluded that the Tang Dynasty Hedong Dao county magistrate to become an official in various ways,in the early stage of the main door and imperial examinations,military merit,recommendation,recruitment as a supplement;In the later period,the imperial examination accounted for the mainstream,followed by the door shadow,and fewer candidates for recruitment and military service.This change was roughly the same with the development trend of the two main ways to enter the official position in the Tang Dynasty.The fourth chapter mainly examines Hedong County Magistrates from two aspects:examination and relocation.Examination has a significant impact on the relocation of Hedong County Magistrates.Those with excellent academic performance have smooth career paths,while those with poor academic performance have multiple career paths.The analysis of migration mainly focuses on three aspects: the interpretation of brown officials,the immigration of officials,and the immigration of officials.It is concluded that the interpretation of brown officials,the immigration of officials,and the immigration of officials in Hedong County Magistrates are relatively diverse,and they are mainly local officials.Among them,the county lieutenant,enlisted soldiers,and the judge are the main interpretation of brown officials in Hedong County Magistrates,and the immigration and immigration of county magistrates are mostly level transfers or promotions.