26 Rural China Administrative Divisions 汽 ten [bead].Ou are to be the coun s far from clear to him and com- s-cher,are to be institu y persons o oftheystemofminativeund pel as far as possible confusion and misunderstanding that arose dur- ing and after the Ch'ing dynasty.We shall first describe these sys- and policeupvlson,withempthe cems and uating and occasionally The real forerunner of the Ch'ing system,however,was the pao- chia of the ang dynasty,set up by Wang An-shih in 170.This Sung with clearly defined functio umed the name pao of interchangeable names. fo the first tim THE PAO-CHIA DIVISIONS politan area of the im tthe of the This origin.S ians held that it had its said: rde n to ch c control of its own affairs. I inhabitants of the same po committed robbe ，mrm d poison them these latter we e punished acco to t hteCoebedaboverd the h e a bro r purpose than the strictly police functions of main- The kiot-fay contained several sche organization and local peace. divisions of Ch'in and Han and subsequent dynasties usual- a sort of permanent local militla rect at from the C wang Shou-jen,the well known philosopher and official of the Ming opment ot the pao-cma as suftices to pote here that the lol stance as well as i 1 52 gaged i Emperor Wen-ti of the Sui dyuasty med to he the fir the idea of policing,a departure from the classical traditon.It was requiring every ten households to ater their said: and"to report promptly to the government any unfamilar faceor suspicious action"that appeared in the neighborhood.The ten house-
28 Rural China Administrative Divisions 29 holds were collectively responsible for any delinquency in performing official regulations.For the moment it may be useful to make clear dTyeverdifdthe the relationship between the pao o-ciia on the one side and chia of Ch'ing times in seve It was a local institution the Hsiang and the villages on the other.The village was not officially recog- not applied to other parts of the empire.The heads of the ten house- nized as an integral element of the pao-chia system,but in practice. holds took charge of the records by turns;no permanent headmen were village boundaries were respected.For instance,Liu He instituted.Even in 1520,when a pao-ckan was appointed in each vil- ng,a re- putedly capable magistrate of the nineteenth century informs us tha lage,his duty was restri cted to integrating local efforts at dealing when he renovated the pao-chia in Pa Hsien(Szechwan),he allowed with thieves and robbers.He had no jurisdiction over any matter that the households in small villages,if numbering less than the official concerned the ten-household groups.The historical significance of quota in each village,to constitute a separate p'ai or chta.The 1879 Wang Shou-jen's system lies in the fact that it was designed exclusive edition of the et eer of T ung Cho Chihli)indi ly for the of and riminals ated that there was a total of 608 villages and towns in this locality,for which 567 pao- responsibility. cheng were instituted.The village was generally taken as a unit co- Whatever the historical origin of the pao-chia,it is plain that the extensive with the bao. In Lin -chang Hsien (Honan)villages be Ch'ing dynasty used it as a device to watch and check the number, came the compon nits of the division the number of of the people,through agents selected from in each pao varied from about half a dozen to over twenty. the local inhabitants themselves.The scheme as laid down by the im- The Hsiang also came into unofficial relationship with the pao-chia. perial authorities was a relatively simple affair.Briefly.e Occasionally the Hsi (households)were arranged into the pao (or over villages which co (head o p'ai, sometimes called p'ai-chmg)was set up;every ten p'at to become coextensive with the pao).This seems to be the meaning constituted a chia,the head of which was known as chia-chag or chia- of the dictum of an eighteenth-century writer that"the pao-chia be- and every ten which was placed ander the comes operative when villages are interlocked in the Hsia care of a bao-chang The following example wil illustrate this type of relationship.In One or two actual instances may be cited here.According to the 1669,shortly after the pao-chia system was launched,the magistrate gazetteer of Nan-ning Hsien (Yunnan),the pao-chia arrangement as of Teng Hsien (Shantung)renamed the eight Hsiang into which this it existed there in 1851 was as follows:5 was originally divided,and distributed the pao in this fash- Households:21,232 P'at: 2,096 Ch'ien Hsiang(Northwest): 5 P'ai-chang: 2,096 K'an Hsiang (North): Chia: 209 Ken Hsiang (Northeast: Chia-chang: 209 Ch en Hsiang (East): Pao: Pao-chang: 8 Hsun Hsiang (Southeast): Li Esiang (South): 22 eerof-y( K'un Hsiar (Southwest): Tui Hsiang (West): 12 Households:62,334 In other instances a different relationship obtained.The picture P'ai-chang: 6,1 presented by Ch'ing-pien Hsien(Shensi)is ng.In Chia-chang: 6 1731 when this district was newly constituted,its countryside was Pao-cheng: 2 divided into three Hsiang.The number of p'ai in the city area and in each of the Hsiang was given as follows: This ksien,like Nan-ning Hsien above,followed the official tithing City: 475 East Hsiang: 172 It was the exception,however,to follow the official tithing system West Hsiang 519 As we shall see later,local practices usually deviated widely from South Hsiang: 188
30 Rural China Administrative Divisions 31 Curiously,neither pao nor chia was mentioned by the compiler of the rthat supplied the above information.By the end of the nine- ten chia,a pao-cheng.A pao-chang is instituted in each of the four teenth century this district was redivided,and two more Hsiang were eastwest,and north,who is to take general charge Likewise,in Nan-yang Hsien (Honan), so said added to the original three.The arrangement is shown in Table 6:2 the 1904 edition of its gazetteer, the Hsiang became the highest di- TABLE 6 vision in the pao-hsystem,occupying the position of thepa. PAO-CHLA ARRANGEMENT IN CH'ING-PIEN HSIEN It is clear from the above that during the nineteenth century if not earlier there were in practice two versions of the official pao-chia Locality No. No. No. No. scheme with reference to the Hsiang: Households Villages Pang-cht'a Plai-t'ou First Version Second Version City 776 121 10 76 East Hsiang Hsiang 352 34 South Hsia 561 5 50 1,000 households pao (pao-chang) Hsiang =pao (pao-chang) Southwest Hsiang 397 100 households chia (chia-chang)(?(pao-cheng)(bang-ch'a) West hsiang 406 140 4 0 10 households p'ai ('ai-t'ou) chia (chia-chang)(p'ai-t'ou) Northwest Hsiang 618 70 6 6 It may be asked wh the Ch'ing rulers did not make use of the natu- The pao remained conspicuously absent.The compiler of this gazet- ral and customary divisions of the rural areas,the Hsiang and the village,as a basis upon which to erect the bao-chia structure teer explained that "each p'ai-t'ox controlled ten registered house- since holds,and,besides shan-shen [assistant gentry],.there werepang these divisions were found by local officials to be too useful to dis- nse with.One reason may have been that since the number of house- ch'a [assistant inspectors]in place of chia-chag. Each pang-ch'a holds in the villages varied widely these natural divisions could not controlled ten ai-t There were several shan-shen in each Hsiang always fit in with the decimal system of the police divisions.It is to supervise and check [the pang-ch'aj."These shan-shen presumably probable too that since the purpose of the pao chia was to watch and took the place of the bao-chang of the official scheme. The Hsiang.howeve control the inhabitants of the countryside,the imperial government was sometimes identified with or treated as an equivalent of the pao.An experienced magistrate who served considered it safer to make it an entirely separate system,free from the influence of village organizations.Indeed,it might have been the in several districts in the north during the reign of K'ang-hsi,for example,regarded the Hsiang as the highest division in the pao intention of the Ch'ing emperors to use this syste em to counterbalance -chia whatever system. According to hi "the present pao-chia calls for a head in strength the rural communities might develop.For that purpose,it would be much better to keep the pao-chia as separate as each ten households,to be known as chia-chmg,and a head in each hundred households,to be own aspao Each Isiang is to have possible from the existing rural organizations. a head,bearing the title his terminology de- Whatever had bee en the eal moti for not incorporating the pao- chia into the viated from the offic ial, Hsiang and villages,the emperors did not succeed in the pattern of organization remained sub- keeping this set of subadministrative divisions entirely distinct from stantially the same.This magistrate was not the only one who equated the natural divisions.As we have just shown,local officials frequently the Msiang with the pao.Some nineteenth-century writers held prac- found it expedient to avail the nselves of the e facilities afforded by the tically the same opinion.According to one,"the method of pa chia conststedinnstttngeonchorgnsgesneReigeanictiae natural rural divisions.The Hsiang and villages therefore eventually became working divisions in the pao-chia system despite the imperial chang to watch over ten households." 'Another observed that the intention.This marriage of the administrative and natural divisions method then in use was "one chia-chang for every ten households,one brought the former una oidably under the influence of local exigen- or every hundred households,and one pao-cg for each cies,and this partially explains the discrepancies noted above. Actual instances may be produced to substantiate their opinion.Ac- THE LI-CHIA DIVISIONS cording to the 1891 edition of the gazetteer of Li-p'ing Fu (Kweichow) the pao-chia arrangement obtaining in this prefecture was as follows: The li-chfa was a little more complicated than the pao-chia.It was for every ten households a chia-chang is instituted,and for every officially set up by the Shun-chih emperor in 1648,four years after
32 Rural China Administrative Divisions 33 the inception of the pao-chia.It also had its origin in the past.As a formity with the official scheme and nomenclature in the provinces system of subadministrative divisions for the purpose of revenue col- along the Yangtze Valley and to the south than in the provinces of coud be traced directly to the -cha of theM North China. Many causes brought about these discrepancies.Some which in turn was based upon the 1-she of the Yian dynasty. of the irregularities in the south were inherited from previous dynas- the Ch'ing n was directly copied from the Ming with but slight ties and were allowed to persist partly because the imperial govern- modifications,it may be interesting to note briefly the arrangement ment did not find it necessary or feasible to enforce uniformity in adopted by Emperor T'ai-tsu in 1321.According to the Ming-shik those comparatively remote regions.Other deviations seem to have the emperor ordered that in compiling the hang-ts'e(yellow regis- ters)for tax collection, been the result of local economic or demographic changes;a sub- stantial increase or decrease in the number of households in a given very one hundred and ten households be constituted intoone locality,for example,might eventually disturb the li-chtia arrange- ，fr A ho wildering ch en with the largest number of fing [taxpaying adult ment(see Appendix I). variety of forms and nomen- males]and taxable land be selected to serve as chong [heads].The clatures thus came into existence,making the study of the rural tax The remaining hundred households are to be organized into ten chia,with collection structure of the Ch'ing dynasty a rather baffling task. a total of ten chta-shou [heads of chial. [the division containing question arises,if the government was unable even to establish a one hundred and ten households]Is to be known as fang in the city reas nable de gree of in the li-chia structure,how could inareas near the city,and in the Bsiang andra it achieve uniform results in the highly difficult task of collecting taxes in the vast countryside In spite of its defects this system persisted and late in the sixteenth RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PAO-CHIA AND THE LI-CHIA We are now ready to settle the question whether the pao-chia and dof theivisons as they eisedn the li-chia were in fact two distinct systems or one system with two different names.The materials presented above have already shown As already noted,the li-chia arrangement adopted by the Ch'ing that these were separate devices of imperial control,each with its rulers differed little from its immediate predecessor beyond a slight own special purpose and functions.The following brief arguments modification in nomenclature.According to the official regulations, may further clarify the issue. every 110 households in the rural areas were to constitute a i in which the heads of the ten households that had the largest number of tax- In the first place,the pao-chiaand the li-cha were treated by law as two systems serving distinct purposes.In the Ta-Ch'ing lii-li,* paying adult males were to be elected li-chang (heads of the li).The the legal provisions governing the operation of the pao-chia came un- remaining 100 households were,as in the Ming system,to be divided der the hsing-li (penal code dealing mainly with crin es and crim inals) evenly into ten chza: each of the latter was to elect a chia-chang (heac whereas the it-c a came under(laws concerning finance of the chria the of the chia-shou in the Ming system).Simi- and population).While we cannot attribute scientific accuracy to this lar groupings of households were to be made in the cities and suburban and other classifications made by imperial jurists,this demarcation areas,but these groupings were to have different names.In the cities between the police control and tax collection systems seems to be a every 110 households formed a fang(instead of a li),whereas in the sufficiently clear indication that the Ch'ing government regarded these suburbs they formed a "Hsiang."A census was to be taken every three systems as functionally distinct and independent of each other. years.The chia-chang was assigned the duty of collecting the tax rec- There was sufficient structural differentiation to mark the one sys- ords of the eleven households under his supervision and of handing tem from the other.The pao-chia and the li-chia arranger ts were them over to the head of the higher division,li-chang,fang-chang roughly similar but not identical.Both had the chia as one of the lower sin as the case might be,who in turn was responsible divisions (which could be one cause of confusion)but it was different- for sending the records to the local vamen ly constituted.In the official bao-chia(police control)system,the This official scheme was not strictly carried out,nor was it uni chia was made up of ten p'ai,each of which co tained ten The formly applied in all parts of the empire.Indeed,deviations from it therefore,was the basic unit and the ai the basic division.The tith- were so numerous as to defy systematization.Only in a few instances ing or decimal idea was consistently maintained.In the official was it followed more or less faithfully.There was much less con- chia(tax collection)system while the was also the basic unit,the
34 Rural China Administrative Divisions 9 chia was not really a basic division.According to the regulations between the tax and police divisions.He recorded that in 1865 the the li was made up of 110 hu,and subdivided into ten chta,each con- district magistrate rearranged the Ziang-in(households paying the taining eleven h.The decimal idea was to some extent modified.The grain taxes)of this locality,so that they constituted eighteen li with a 7i was the basic division rather than the chia;it was also the highest total of 18,802 /About a quarter of a century later,in 1889,another division,since there was none over it.The pac -chia as officially de magistrate revamped theo divisions,consttuting thirty-one fined had a three-level,the li-chia a two-level,structure: with a total of 31,502 The term was here used as the name of a pao-chia division which in this instance contained an aver- The pao-chia structure The li-chia structure age of about 1,000 households.Hence it was the equivalent of an of- ficial pao.Ko Tao, in his preface to the section on the pao-chia in 10h =1p'ai 10 hu 1 chia the gazetteer of Hsien Hsien,put the whole matter in a nutshell by 10 b'ai (100 hu)=1 chia 110h=1z pointing out that "the chief function of the /-chia was i[service,i.e., 10ca(1,000hu)=1pao whie the chief function of the paochi waswe tection, police Remembering that these structures were officially set up at about the As oificially defined,these two systems did have functions that same time (1644 and 1648),one is led to think that they were inten- overlapped at one point.Both were assigned the task of counting and tionally made to differ so that they might remain separate systems registering thember of households in a given area.But evenhere with specifically assigned functions. a distinction existed.The li-chia registrati n wa ade for the pur A number of local historians recognized a functional difference be- pose of ascertaining the amount of taxes to be collected,whereas the tween the bao-chig and the li-chia.The compiler of the Yung hsien pao-chia registration was designed to detect unlawful and subservient ch(1897 edition)in discussing the registration of households dis elements by keeping a reliable record of the households and inhabi- tinguished between what he called i-i chih-kou(households and tants of the locality concerned. inhabitants registered for the li service)and p'ai-men chih hu-k'ou In spite of their distinct purposes,the h-k'ou registration task (households and inhabitants registered from door to door).He went of the li-chia was transferred (early in the reign of Ch'ien-lung)to on to explain that the -k'ou registered in the first connection in instances even the matter of tax collec cluded households and inhabitants liable to the land and corvee taxes. tion went into the hands of oca agents.It was probably this trans In this case,"the li controlled the chia,the chia controlled the h, fer of functions that led a recent writer to believe that "the /i-chia and the hu controlled the ting [taxpaying adult male].The h-ko structure was in reality merely an antecedent stage in the formation registered in the nection inc luded all the households and of the pao. chia structure ,"and that,in other words, "the -chia sys their members that dwelt in a given area.In this case,"a ti-fang [a tem before the Ch'ien-lung and Chia-ch'ing times together with the Dao-chia agent,see chapter 3]controlled ten chia,and each chia con- pao-chia after this period constituted,as a matter of fact,two suc- tained ten households."The inthe first,he added,were reg cessive stages which completed the development of the pao-chia. istered "on the sis of farm land,"those in the second. "on the basis Such a view square with the fact that the /i chia was of of residence.This writer was speaking of the practice of his own ficially instituted in1648,four years after the official establishment time.The pao-chia structure he envisaged deviated from the original of the pao-chia(1644).This view also overlooks the fact that in post- official sch me.But his distinction between the pao-chia and li-chia Chia-ch'ing times (when,according to the writer cited above,the pao- functions with respect to household registration was essentially valid d its "comple ete development")both the chia and pao- Similar distinctions were made by other writers.Explaining the adeterorated.The main functions of ther fact that Ch'ang-ning Hsien(Kiangsi)contained twofour over to the pao-chia,with or without express imperial approval,in and twelve pao,the cor pile of the 1901 edition of its razetteer wro the eighteenth centur simply because the li-chia had suffered a more l the ou ege theMaking advanced atrophy than the pao-chia.The transfer of functions was in reality the telescoping of two previously separate systems,instead we have no reason allowance for the somewhat confused termction made by this of the transition from a lower to a higher phase in a single system. to doubt the correctness of the functional Indeed,there is every indication that the Ch'ing rulers purposely set writer.The compiler of the 1890 edition of the Ho hsien chik also up two separate systems with specific and independent functions,as employed inaccurate terminology but maintained a cogent distinction a precaution against giving too much power to any one local agency