The sentence we often say is "Seventh-rank sesame official", which means that in the past officialdom, seventh-rank officials were official positions that were too small to be even smaller. This feeling is often because in literary works such as movies and novels, we are all first-rank officials of the court, even emperors and princes, and the most so are all senior officials at the level of governors, which leads to our biases when looking at history. In fact, in real history, there are still relatively few seventh-rank officials in the county governments of the Qing Dynasty.
The county government mentioned here is mainly local offices at the county level. In the past, there was a saying that "the imperial power did not fall below the county". The county was the lowest-level official position at the Qing Dynasty level, and its jurisdiction was mainly one county, which undertakes many government affairs.
Due to the large number of affairs, the actual number of people at the county government level in the Qing Dynasty was also relatively large. According to regulations, the Qing Dynasty county government office had three shifts and six rooms. The so-called three classes and six rooms. The three classes are called fast, strong, and soap. six rooms and means etiquette, official, military, punishment, worker, household, different county government agencies, corresponding to different affairs. In these two types of divisions, the transactions they handle are also different. Class 3 is mainly responsible for heavy physical affairs, such as arresting prisoners and execution lamps, and Room 6 is mainly responsible for handling some paperwork, such as counting the taxes, money, and grain that should be collected every year.
These physical labors are what we often see on TV. The clerical work is handed over to the officials to handle. For a county government, there were actually a lot of people who had to deal with things, and during the Qing Dynasty, local county governments often had personnel exceeding the standard.
Because the Qing Dynasty did not clearly determine the quota for local county officials. During the Qing Dynasty, there were more than 7,000 redundant personnel in Ba County, Sichuan.
So, there is a question here: Since the county government has so many redundant staff, how can the imperial court afford the expenses of so many personnel? From here, we began to turn the problem from introducing the situation of the Qing Dynasty county government to introducing the situation of the official positions at the Qing Dynasty county government government level.
The seventh rank official position in the county government office of the Qing Dynasty generally corresponds to the official position at the county level. This official position is also well known to everyone. During the Qing Dynasty, the magistrate had a large or small power. Among the local officials, the magistrate belongs to the lowest level. However, for the common people of a county, it is that "county officials are not as good as current officials". The magistrate is often more deterrent than officials at the level of governor and governor, and has a greater direct impact.
In addition to the magistrate, there are also several official positions in the Qing Dynasty yamen at the county level. For example, the Qing Dynasty established a school official at the county level - the guidance. During the Qing Dynasty, this official position was mainly responsible for education affairs. This kind of official position is limited in each county. In the past, it was a relatively clean yamen, and it was not as good as a county magistrate. However, there is a special position in the position of training. After all, it is responsible for education. If a training guide can bring out a potential and qualified student, it may have a great impact on your future career.
In addition, there is another official position in the county government in the Qing Dynasty that also meets this requirement, that is, the county magistrate of Beijing County. Jingxian County is a relatively special type of local administrative division in the Qing Dynasty. Jingxian is a county directly under the jurisdiction of the capital. The special thing about this kind of place is that in the traditional Chinese concepts in the past, the capital was the "place of good fortune", which means that its level of education and governance must reach the national model level, so that all parts of the world can follow.
From a realistic perspective, it is very difficult to manage the places in the capital. At the foot of the emperor, there are princes and nobles and officials of the court. If you hit it with a stick, you may have a close connection with a noble official in the court. It is five-star difficulty to manage. The difficulty and requirements are high, so the court gave Beijing and county a very high configuration. For example, if the general magistrate is a seventh rank, they will transfer the magistrate of Beijing to a sixth rank. Correspondingly, the county magistrate of Jingxian reached the seventh rank.
In addition to the county government, there is also a "state" that is in a relatively delicate position with the county government government. The position of "state" is not necessarily higher than that of the county, it depends on the level it belongs to. If it is affiliated with a province, it is the same level as the prefecture. If it is under the direct jurisdiction of the prefecture, it is the same level as the county.
Therefore, among the local officials at the Qing Dynasty, if they were "states" affiliated with the province, their prefectures would have seven ranks.
These are the situations of seventh-rank officials in the local administrative division at the county level of the Qing Dynasty. Although there are several, overall, compared with the huge and complicated number of personnel in the county government office, it can only account for a large proportion. This is why, later, the Qing Dynasty saw local yamen runners overthrow the magistrate, which caused many disadvantages.
