When talking about Tang Dynasty , most people think of the golden age, when all fields, including politics and economy, experienced unprecedented development.
From a macro perspective, the Tang Dynasty has indeed achieved unification, and society has indeed become increasingly stable. However, if it falls under the inheritance system, even the Tang Dynasty still has many shortcomings.
As early as before the Tang Dynasty, there had been a situation in which villages were used as the basis for geographical division. However, the system was not clarified during this period, and naturally there were many problems.
In the Tang Dynasty, the court made adjustments to this grassroots management issue and formally established the "village" system. At the same time, it also corrected many problems that existed under the previous village system.
The village system began to appear in the Tang Dynasty, and people no longer existed in the form of settlements.
Among the various official systems in China, they basically stopped at the county level, and the grassroots systems below were relatively insufficient.
" Shuowen Jiezi " can be regarded as the earliest documentary record in my country. There is no record of the village system in it. It was not until the Eastern Han Dynasty " Zhou Yi Shen Tongqi " that it was recorded:
"To live forever, live in a fairy village."
At this time, the concept of village began to appear.
However, before the Tang Dynasty, villages were not explicitly said to be grassroots institutions. They were just regarded as groups where people lived together, and most of these names were used to describe some relatively remote areas.
Each village is not independent, but has certain connections. This is also the earliest development form of the village.
etc. During the Tang Dynasty, villages had shown an institutional development trend and no longer existed in the form of settlements as before..
Moreover, research by Tang Dynasty scholars also found that villages did not only exist in remote areas as people had said before. There were also villages under the central cities of the Tang Dynasty, such as Chang'an and Luoyang . As a result, people no longer regarded villages as a form of settlement development in remote areas, but as a specific grassroots system.
It can be seen that although before the Tang Dynasty, most people still regarded villages as a kind of settlement, they had already shown regional characteristics at this time.
Based on this regional nature, the Tang Dynasty developed in an institutional direction, and in the process, rural society also ushered in a major change.
The establishment of the village system in the Tang Dynasty does not mean that it came out of thin air and was accomplished overnight, but that there was already a certain foundation before the Tang Dynasty, and there was the prototype of the village. It was precisely because of this prototype that the Tang Dynasty was able to develop it into an institutional official system and improve it in all aspects.
2. In order to consolidate the rule of the dynasty, the Tang Dynasty set up a special village system and promulgated laws.
Based on the prototype of the previous villages, the Tang Dynasty set up a special village system. During the Takeru period, the emperor arranged Pei Ji leaders to compile laws and regulations related to the village system. This time coincided with the establishment of the new regime. In this case, what was most needed was to consolidate the rule of the dynasty. Therefore, adding a new village system to the laws and regulations was also one of the measures to maintain the rule.
The laws issued after the establishment of the new regime were for the whole country. The clarification of the village system at this time shows that the rulers have recognized this grassroots system and want to develop this system nationwide.
During the Kaiyuan period, the rulers clarified this system again, and made detailed adjustments to the village system from establishment to reaffirmation.
The "Criminal Legal System" has clear provisions: " Everything has been decided before it can be resolved, and there are still obstacles to overcome, so as to avoid the disadvantages of the times and make sure there are no flaws."
has a clear stipulation on the specific scope of villages. Cities and cities refer only to the cities in the two capitals and their prefectures and counties. As for other cities, there are no villages.
Furthermore, each village needs to select a relevant person in charge. This is also an official position, called the village chief. There is a special setting standard for this, so that the village system will be more complete.
It can be seen that by the Tang Dynasty, the village had transformed from the original settlement into an official system with clear legal regulations. It was recognized by the court and could be regarded as a grassroots local organization.
In the regulations, it is clear that Fang and Village are opposing local organizations. In addition, the Tang Dynasty also had multiple organizations such as Jia, Guo, Hu, and Li. The boundaries between these organizations are still very clear.
The laws of the Tang Dynasty stipulated that those in Guo were called squares, and those in the suburbs were villages. This can show that there is no hierarchical difference between villages and squares that had been clearly defined before the Tang Dynasty, but they just belonged to different geographical areas..
Under a management system like the Tang Dynasty, the imperial court was able to control the population in each area, and could better control the people when something happened.
Of course, the village still has the management of the chief, so when the layers are added up, it gives the impression that there is an overlap in management.
Although if we just look at hundreds of miles as a household and five miles as a township, the subordinate relationship between households, townships and villages cannot be seen in the decree that a person in the field is a village. However, if you find an epitaph from the Tang Dynasty, you can see the relationship between the reporters in the arrangement of the inscriptions.
Before the Tang Dynasty, who was older or younger between a township and a village was mainly determined by the number of households in each. If the number of households in a township was greater, it was a township-village. If it was a village with more households, it was naturally a village-township.
But after the Tang Dynasty, the relationship between the two was clarified. No matter what, the villages were the ones regulated by the laws.
Starting from the Tang Dynasty, this kind of grassroots management system based on townships and villages has appeared, which has greatly improved the efficiency of private management. Not only that, it can also assign responsibilities to individuals. Once a problem occurs, just go directly to the person in charge at the specific level. In the case of a village, it is the village chief.
It was also under this circumstance that the imperial court specifically corrected the problems that had previously existed in the management of village officials.
3. Village officials are selected according to the size of the village. The village official system in the Tang Dynasty became more and more perfect.
In fact, if we really study the grassroots management system, we can go to the Wei and Jin Dynasties as early as possible. Since then, grassroots management systems have always existed in various dynasties.
is just that it has not been fully applied in practice, and it is more superficial.
It was not until the Han Dynasty that the village began to take a relatively clear prototype. After having a vague concept, in order to facilitate management, village officials were set up.
Because the village system had not been officially recognized at that time, the election of village officials at this stage was mainly through popular elections.
After the development of in the Sui Dynasty, although the township-village system had not yet been established, the township-li system had been clarified. Therefore, when the imperial court set up township officials, it would also set up village officials for the villages.
But even the village officials set up by the imperial court were not very clear-cut. Some were to prevent local theft, and some were to facilitate the enslavement of local people. Because the purpose of setting up was different, the village officials at that time were different in terms of names and positions.
Judging from the specific official positions, the village official was not considered a formal administrative position at that time. It had a strong civilian nature, but fortunately it was also developing in the direction of institutionalization.
In the Tang Dynasty, although there were clear regulations on villages, the specific scope was still relatively vague. Some villages had only a few households, while others had hundreds of households, so this was also distinguished among village officials.
Because the sizes of villages are different, the settings of and village are also divided into specific situations.
First, If a village has less than ten households, then this village does not have a dedicated village official, but shares the same village official with neighboring villages.
Second, If the village has more than ten households but less than a hundred households, then the village will have a village official. This was the most common village situation during the Tang Dynasty.
Third, If there are more than 100 households, then the village is considered a big village. At this time, two or more village leaders will be set up according to the specific situation.
This is enough to show that the setting of village officials during the Tang Dynasty was obviously much more formal than before. Village officials would be set up according to the size of the village, and the management functions of these village officials were also the same, and they were not as chaotic as before.
After all, the previous dynasties were relatively less stable than the Tang Dynasty. Fortunately, politics became more stable starting from the Sui Dynasty. By the Tang Dynasty, it entered a new stage of development, so the village official system was also improved.
Conclusion
For the Tang Dynasty, the prosperity of the dynasty was by no means limited to one aspect, but could develop in many aspects, and the improvement of the grassroots management system was also one of them.
The Tang Dynasty made changes based on the previous ones, not only establishing the system, but also improving many details.
For the development of a dynasty, the improvement of the system and the overall prosperity are absolutely closely related, or in other words, they complement each other..
Only through continuous improvement of the system and continuous reform, under such a development trend, the Tang Dynasty could become increasingly prosperous.
At the same time, this grassroots management system also had a profound impact on later generations and served as a reference for today's management.
