Bureaucratic Structure of Prefectural Goverments in the Qin as Seen from the Liye Qin Wooden Slips

Tsuchiguchi Fuminori

doi:10.14989/230676

In 2002, over thirty thousand Qin wooden slips were unearthed at the Liye 里耶 site in Hunan province, giving scholars new primary sources on Qin history. Known as the Liye Qin slips 秦簡, they are administrative documents that were used in Qianling 遷陵 prefecture from the end of the reign of the First Emperor to that of the Second. Only one hundred slips had been introduced by the time of the excavation report published in 2007, however, 2500 slips were unveiled at a stroke in a newer report in 2012. One of the important results of research on Liye slips was clarifying the distinction between xianting 縣廷 (a prefectural court) and guan 官 (bureaus) in the prefectural government. The xianting was the core organ of the prefecture administration, consisting of a ling 令 (prefect), cheng (丞 deputy prefect) and their retinues lingshi 令史 (prefectural clerks) ; Guan was a general term for subordinate organs staffed by a guansefu 官嗇夫 (bureau chief), zuo 佐 (assistants), and shi 史 (clerks), who carried out the prefecture's administrative works. The author previously conducted research on this issue, using the Shuihudi Qin slips 睡虎地秦簡 and those Liye Qin slips that had been published before 2007. He argued that xianting and guan respectively had separate offices that were spatially distinguished, but contrary to the claims of previous scholars, there was no evidence that they were strongly independent of one another. He found instead that the xianting had absolute superiority over guan, and administrative practices were completely under the xianting's control. This paper, which verifies and supplements his earlier assertions, demonstrates the following conclusions : First, most of the Liye Qin slips are documents that were stored at the office of the xianting, not of a guan. Second, there existed within the xianting a series of administrative organs whose names were similar to those of the guan, but were which were separate institutions and should be called liecao 列曹 (arrayed offices). Third, the xianting completely controlled the documental communications throughout the prefecture, and the guan did not have the capacity to communicate with any organs outside the prefecture independently.

Bureaucratic Structure of Prefectural Goverments in the Qin as Seen from the Liye Qin Wooden Slips

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