Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.1, 2017

 

Changes in the Ting System in the Qin and Han Dynasties from the Perspective of Settlements and Transportation

(Abstract)

 

Wang Yanhui

 

The formulation “every ten li (miles) is a ting (pavilion)” and “every ten ting is a xiang (township)” in documents from the Qin and Han dynasties reveal an actual institution. The setting up of ting followed two principles: they were not to be far from settlements, and not to be isolated from transportation. Youting (postal pavilions) were mostly located along main traffic routes between the capital and kingdoms, and between kingdoms and counties; xiangting (township pavilions) were mainly located in the vicinity of settlements and along sub-routes under the administration of kingdoms. The administrative regions of xiangting and youting were called tingbu (pavilion sectors); as both population and the need to cultivate the land grew, new settlements gradually formed within a tingbu. Such settlements are called qiu (hill) in the Eastern Han dynasty bamboo slips found at Changsha Wuyi Square, and in the bamboo slips from Wu of the Three Kingdoms period. New settlements were called qiu rather than li (mile); this fact indicates that qiu were named by region, rather than by local administrative organization. The formation of a qiu served both as a path for local town inhabitants to move out, and as a channel for immigrants to resettle through “reclamation” under state policies such as granting people grasslands or mountain lands. With changes in the local management system in the Eastern Han dynasty, tingbu began to administer the scattered settlements and qiu within the area of its administration like townships; thus a superior-subordinate relationship between ting and qiu formed. After tingbu withdrew from the historical arena, a qiu was put under the administration of the xiang (township) it belonged to; where a township was nonexistent, a new one was set up. The administrative systems of xiang-li and xiang-qiu were therefore different. In the wave of ju (settlement) and qiu formation, the xiang-li organizations aimed at uniting households that had existed from the Qin and Han dynasties on gradually loosened. Ju evolved into geographical units, indicating that state management had abandoned the tradition of the xiang-li system with li as the foundation, as well as that of multiple levels of regulation. Although the xiang-li administrative system still existed, the process of weakening rural administrative power had already begun.