Mongolian rule in China: local administration in the Yuan Dynasty

113 Pages·1989·47.96 MB·English

by  Elizabeth Endicott

MONGOLIAN RULE IN CHINA
Local Administration in the Yuan Dynast)
ELIZABETH ENDICOTT- WEST
THE YUAN DYNASTY, 1272-1368 A.D.
Scale: 1:22.500,000
Published by the COUNCIL ON EAST ASIAN STUDIES, HARVAi
UNIVERSITY, and the HARVARDYENCHING INSTITUTE, and
i
tributed by the HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS, Cambridge (Ma.
I chusetts) and London I!
For Francis W Cleaves
and
E W Mote
Copyright 1989 by The President and Fellows of Harvard College
Printed in the United States of America
The Harv.vd-Ycnching Institute, founded in 1928 and headquartered at Hanwd Uni-
versity, is A foundation dedicated to the advancement of higher education in the hu-
manities and social sciences in East and Southeast Asia. The Institute supports
adv.inced rcscarch at Harvard by faculty members of certain Asian universities, and
doctoral studies at Harvard and other universities by junior faculty of the same uni-
versities. !t also supports East Asian studies at Harvard through contributions to the
Harvard-Yenching Library and publication of the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
and books on prc-modern East Asian history and literature.
Libr~tryo f Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Endicott-West, Elizabeth.
Mongolian rule in China : local administration in the Yuan Dynasty
/ Elizabeth Endicott-West.
-
p. crn. (Harvd-Yenching Institute monograph series ; 29)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-674-58525-9 : $23.00
1. Loc.~l government-China-History. 2. China-History-Yuan
dynasty, 1260-1368. 3. China-Polities and government-1260-1368.
I. Title. 11. Series.
JS7352..43E54 1988
352.051 -&l9 88-23553
CIP
Preface
From the mid-1970's when I first began to study the history of the
Yuan Dynasty up to the present, the road has been long. On the way,
the two people to whom this volume is dedicated, Professor F. W. Mote
.. of Princeton and Professor Francis W, Cleaves of Harvard, have consis-
tently given me cheerful encouragement, thoughtful criticism, and
good advice. What more could a traveler on the horizonless steppe ask
for?
In the course of turning my doctoral dissertation into a publishable
manuscript, I benefited from the suggestions of other scholars who
were kind enough to read part or all of the manuscript. In particular, I
should like to offer thanks to Professors Thomas Allsen, Ch'i-ch'ing
Hsiao, Ruby Lam, and Denis Twitchett. For any errors remaining in
this work, I of course take sole responsiblity.
A National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for College
Teachers in 1985-1986 enabled me to revise and expand the manuscript,
and I remain grateful to the Endowment for its support. Florence Tref-
ethen, Executive Editor at the Council on East Asian Studies Publica-
tions, has been most helpful throughout the editing process.
To my husband, Jay, I again express gratitude for his insistence that
the subject of the Mongols' impact on China could be discussed just as
fruitfully on a walk into the hills as at one's desk. His perspective as an
historian of Russia contributed immeasurably to my own rethinking of
several issues in Yuan history.
And now, in the words of the Naiman watchman Qori Subeti, "It is
the time and the destiny of the Mongols."
Goshen, Vermont
August 1987
Contents
PREFACE vii
1 INTRODUCTION 1
2 THET A-LU-HUA-CH'IH-EAHRILSTYO RAYN D OFFICIDALu rm 25
3 THET A-LU-HUA-CH'IH-APPOINTTOM OEFFNITC EA ND THE
NATIONALITQYU ESTION 65
4 THET A-LU-HUA-CHOF'I THHE APPANAGES 89
5 YUANL OCALG OVERNMENTASONDCI ETY 105
APPENDIAX: CHAROTF YUANL OCALG OVERNMENT 13 1
APPENDBIX: YUAND OCUMENTS 133
NOTES 137
BIBLIOGRAPHY 179
GLOSSARY 193
211
ONE
Introduction
The period of Mongolian rule in China, in its broadest sense 1206-1368,
..
gives the historian an opportunity to examine the process by which two
separate cultures and societies coexist, interact, and change one another.
Neither China nor Mongolia emerged from the Yuan Dynasty un-
changed by their century-long interaction. Chinese notions of rule and
governance were greatly altered by over one hundred years of Mongol-
ian overlordship. Similarly, one hundred years of exposure to Chinese
culture and immersion in the day-to-day tasks of governing a large seden-
tary empire could not but have altered Mongolian concepts of ruler-
ship. The history and folklore interwoven in the later Mongolian
chronicles note the importance assigned to the Yuan ~eriodin the Mon-
golian people's historical memory.
Compared to the Sung and Ming ~eriodst,h e Yuan period has suf-
fered from historians' readiness to skip over the period entirely1 and
from their tendency to ascribe the origins of the less appealing features
of the late imperial Chinese socio-political landscape to a negative leg-
acy bequeathed by the Mongolian emperors of China.2 This book does
not intend to paint a rosy picture of China under Mongolian rule; but
it is "revisionist" to the extent that it seeks to air certain of the musty
stereotypes about the nature of the Yuan political system and to see
whether they can stand the test of exposure to fresh lines of inquiry.
While recent monographs on Yuan history have concentrated on
7 Introduction
Introduction 3
military institutions and legal codes, very little attention has been fo-
tution grafted onto a Chinese-style bureaucracy, but also because the
cused on civilian administration on the regional and local levels.' By ex-
office and its occupants were involved in virtually every aspect of civil-
amining the nitty-gritty, day-to-day workings of Yuan government, I
ian government. It is difficult to find a set of Yuan documents on local
believe that a more accurate assessment of some of the larger issues in
government without mention of the daruyaft's involvement. In fact, as
thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Chinese and Mongolian history will
I hope this book will show, the history of Yuan local government can be
evolve. And, by investigating the details of Yuan civilian bureaucracy in
written mainly through the history of the office of dmyafi.
action, we may then seek to define the nature of Mongolian concepts of
rule and how those concepts were reflected in the practical running of a
large sedentary bureaucracy. In fact, only by studying government at LOCALG OVERNMENTCSH INABE FORE THE YUAN
the local level can we with reasonable confidence tackle the difficult
While those administrative institutions peculiar to the Yuan period
questions of centralization, systematization, and effective control-
alone will be the focus of later chapters, a chronological overview of the
questions historians of the Yuan have long been debating.
salient characteristics of pre-Yuan local governments in China will pro-
Because the input of both Mongolian and Chinese notions of rule de-
vide some sense of how the Yuan borrowed and diverged from earlier in-
tcrmined the exact form the civilian local administration would take,
stitutional practices. As will be seen, the Yuan owed more to northern
the topic of Yuan local administration straddles both Chinese and Mon- .-
conquest dynasties and far less to indigenous Chinese dynasties.
golian history. Mongolian practices of population management that
Starting with the Han Dynasty (206 B.c.-A.D. 220), we find a three-
were appropriate for the steppe obviously had to be compromised for
level system of submetropolitan government: the chou, the chiin, and
governing the world's largest sedentary empire, China. Yet, the Mongols
the hsien. In addition, a territorial-administrative unit called a tao was
tenaciously clung to certain of their pre-conquest notions and practices,
created to encompass non-Chinese populations in border areas5 Under
thereby producing sources of bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption
the Han, the central-government capital appointed only the principal
that were new even to the Chinese. Thus, one must face the topic of ci-
official of each of the local government offices; the principal official se-
vilian administration in Yuan China armed with a knowledge of both
lected his own subordinates.* The staff of the average chin has been es-
Chinese and Mongolian institutional practice. In addition, the Turkic
timated to have numbered many hundred officials.' Although there is
contribution of such Central Asian peoples as the QipZaq, Qangli, and
little information on the terms of office of Han local officials, we know
Uiyur constitutes a third dimension.'
that there was no established system of tenure, but that long terms,
The key institution in the Mongols' administration of China on the
some more than ten years, were the rule.8 Han local officials appointed
regional and local levels was the office of ta-Iu-hua-ch'ih,a Chinese trans-
by the capital were subject to a rule of avoidance whereby, for instance,
cription of the Mongolian word daruyazi. This office was created by the
inspectors (tz'u-shih) could not serve in their home chou, chin adminis-
Mongols with the express purpose of controlling conquered territories;
trators (chfin-shou)c ould not serve in their home chin, and prefects and
yet, during the century and a half of Mongolian rule in China, the
chiefs (ling, chang) as well as their subordinates, assistants (ch'eng) and
office evolved from a military-conquest institution into a civilian bureau-
commandants (we!), not only could not serve in their home hsien, but
criitic institution. The substance of this book is devoted to an investiga-
also not in the larger chCn of rig in.^
tion of the duties of this office, the way in which they were carried out,
Outside the chou-chun-hsien structure of Han local government were
and the inciividu.il OLzr:~*~.z?i'ilns teraction with local society. The daruyati
the fiefs or kingdoms (wang-kuo).A fter the uprising of the Seven King-
institution is the key to >i more exact understanding of the way in which doms in 154 B.c., the capital appointed all officials and personal staff of
Yuan government functioned, not only because it was a Mongolian insti-
the kings, and strengthened fiscal control over the kings. This tension
4 Introduction Introduction 5
between the regular bureaucracy directed by the capital and the person- dynasty (1126-1234) and the Mongolian Yuan dynasty, both of which at-
nel of fiefs, run by imperial relatives, is a recurrent theme in Chinese his- tached the prefix hsing to temporarily established civil-military organs
tory. In the Yuan, however, Mongolian notions of population and of administration.
territorial control were to add a different twist, as Chapter 4's analysis of In both the early Sui and early Tang periods of consolidation, re-
the appanages (tbn-hsia)w ill make clear. gional presidential councils (hsing-this hang-shu-sheng)w ere created for a
During the period of disunion that followed the fall of the Han dyn- brief time but later abolished. In the Tang, for instance, the hsing-chi
asty. military and civil officials were often one and the same on the local represented military administrations that were abolished by the end of
level, and territorial jurisdictions were not clearly demarcated. The sys- Kao-tsu's reign. It is only fair to point out, however, that the govern-
ten1 of staffing local offices under the Northern Wei dynasty (386-534) ments-general (tu-tufi)w ere far more important in early T'ang history
merits particular description as a precursor of Yuan practices. The as military commands set up over the organs of civilian administration
Turkic Hsicn-pei rulers of the Northern Wei instituted a system of than were the bsing-thi.
triple staffing of principal officials at each of the three levels of regional- The unifying Sui and Tang dynasties (581-617; 618-907) are usually
local go~ernmentE.~ac~h chou had three inspectors (tz'u-shib) of the 6th credited by historians with initially concentrating unprecedented au-
rank; one of the three was a member of the Hsien-pei tribe. Each chzin thority at the very top.13 One major advance towards control of the lo-
established three commandery administrators (thi-shou)o f the 7th rank; calities by the capital did indeed occur in Sui and Tang times: All
and each hsien established three prefects (ling) of the 8th rank. This sys- appointed officials in civil offices were selected by the capital. The ear-
tem did not last long; a two-level system of chou and hsien was insti- lier practice of principal local officials appointing their own subordi-
nates was thus ended.
tuted, and triple staffing of principal offices was discontinued." As a
The Sui dynasty reduced local government to a two-level system of
predecessor of the method of dual staffing of principal local offices in
chou and hsien, abolishing the chin. Local government regulations in-
the Yuan dynasty, the Northern Wei attempt at triple staffing represents
cluded a rule of avoidance, prohibiting local officials from serving in
an institutional practice peculiar to the administration of Chinese terri-
their places of origin. Short terms of office were instituted to prevent
tory by steppe peoples. Like the Northern Wei custom of reserving one
too much official involvement with local interests: three or four years
of the three offices for a member of the ruling ethnic group, the Yuan
government iittempted to reserve the office of dar~rfatfi or Mongols; the for principal local officials, and four years for subordinate officials. Ap-
exit-in 10 which Mongols actually filled the office of daruyafi is ana- ointments to local office were made by the Board of Civil Office in the
capital, and three times a year representatives of the chou attended assem-
lyzed in Chapter 3.
blies in the capital at which local officials' performance in office was re-
Another institution favored by "northern" dynasties during the post-
Han period was the hsing-t'ai or regional administration.12 The term viewed.14
Tang Tai-tsung followed the Sui dynasty precedent of simplifying
hsing-chi can be traced back to A.D. 257 when, under the San-kuo Wei
the structure of local government by reducing the number of local-
dynasty (220-26-+),i t was used to refer to temporary branch administra-
government units. The local government as constituted under T'ai-
tions set up in local areas. The hsing-t'ai in the third to seventh centuries
tsung consisted of chou and hsien. Circuits (tao) existed on paper, but
had predominantly military functions, and, in the Northen Wei period,
had no administrative staff. On occasion, censors were delegated by the
the term came to designate the senior official in a military regional ad-
central government to carry out investigations within a particular cir-
ministration. The proclivity of "northern" dynasties towards depend-
cuit. The leading officials of the chou and hsien, the inspectors (tz'u-shih)
ence upon military arms of authority (with varying degrees of
and prefects (hsien-ling), were appointed by the capital, specifically by
participation in civil administration) was shared by the Jurchen Chin
6 Introduction Introduction 7
the Board of Civil Office. The chief local officials were not permitted to his civilian government counterpart, the hsien-wei, of his duties and
serve in their chon of origin, and were subject to transfer about once authority.19
every three years.15 The militarization of local governments in North China was a trend
Under Tang Hsuan-tsung there were attempts to revitalize the sys- that continued from late Tang times through the Five Dynasties period
tern of circuits by redividing and increasing their number from 10 to 15, to be weakened only by the Sung dynasty.20 In the Five Dynasties pe-
but it was not until after the An Lu-shan Rebellion of 755-763 that the riod, the staff members of former chieh-tu-shib who had successfully
circuit was recognized as a tier in government with its own staff.16 As is established their own kingdoms became members of a central govern-
well known, in the wake of the An Lu-shan Rebellion the Tang Court ment bureaucracy. Thus the tn-ya-ya and ya-ya, for instance, took on cen-
remrted to the appointment of military governors (chieh-tu-shih),p revi- tral government civilian, military, and finance duties. Under the various
ously used only in frontier areas, in the interior. In order to retain the kingdoms, the central government organization was virtually identical
loyalty of areas under nominal Court control after the Rebellion, seri- to local government organization, the main difference being that a self-
ous comproinises were made by the Court: allowing the military govern- styled emperor, as opposed to a chieh-rid-shih, reigned. The new emper-
ors long tenure in office, conferring legitimate office on usurpers, and I ors put defense commanders (chen-chiang) in charge of the territories un-
asking local garrisons for their opinions concerning Court appointees der their jurisdictions.21
to local posts.17 -. A coterminous development beginning in mid-Tang times consisted
Among those subordinate officials appointed to the staffs of the late of the growing power of large regional administrations imposed be-
Tang military governors were the ya-ya and the tu-ya-ya, whose duties tween the metropolitan and local levels of government. Robert M.
were primarily those of high-level military administrators with great dis- Hartwell's research on demographic and administrative changes from
cretionary power in the management of affairs. The similarity in official midT'ang through early Ming times convincingly shows a trend
nomenclature between the Tang ya-ya (the primary meaning of ya be- (though by no means a steady one) away from central government dom-
ing to affix a seal) and the Yuan Dynasty daruyaci (one meaning of darn- inance of regional and local levels of government, and towards the grow-
being to affix a seal) makes it tempting to see the late Tang office of ya- ing influence of these intermediary administrations. In Tang China of
ya JS an institutional precedent, diffused westward into Inner Asia, for the post-An Lu-shan Rebellion period, the military governorships and
the Mongolian dartt-{a?;." Direct, connective evidence, however, is lack- various intendencies and commissionerships were, in Hartwell's opin-
ing. Nonetheless, it is worth noting certain similarities: Both offices be- ion, precursors of the regional administrations (hsing-sheng) of the Chin
gan as military, not civilian, offices, and both gradually usurped aspects and Yuan governments. The Sung dynasty's centralizing tendencies,
of civilian governance, although the Yuan daruya?i took on far more however, make the Sung an anomaly in this administrative evolution.22
substantial tasks than the Tang ya-ya in the realm of civilian govern- After the period of disunion that followed the collapse of the Tang,
ment. Also, it was quite common for the Tang ya-ya to 'hold another the Sung dynasty established a three-tiered system of local administra-
office concurrently, while, to my knowledge, it was unusual for the tion: at the top, the route (In), which corresponded to the circuit (tao) of
Yuan d.zrw/,zci to hold a concurrent post. Tang times; then, the ~refecture( fu or chou), inherited from Tang
Sufi members serving the post-An Lu-shan Rebellion military gov- times and corresponding to the chfin of Han times; and the county
ernors often encroached upon the civilian realm of local government. (hsien), the lowest unit. The total number of Southern Sung civil offi-
For instance, civil administration and civil legal cases often came under cials has been roughly estimated at 12,000, with 8,000 in capital offices,
the jurisdiction of one such staff member, the tu-yu-hou, thus depriving and 4,000 in local offices.23 Thus, under a dynasty known by historians
8 Introduction Introduction 9
for its "centralizing" tendencies, local officials were obviously thinly dis- and civilian bureaucracies were never completely disengaged, as various
tributed. imperial decrees translated in Chapter 2 make clear,27H . F. Schurmann's
Sung local government reflected the Court's concern about, and de- hypothesis that the political structure of the Yuan was based on "an es-
sire to avoid, the separatist rebellions and disorder that had plagued the sentially Mongol monarchy and military" and "essentially Chinese bu-
late Tang and the period of the Five Dynasties-Ten Kingdoms (907- reaucracy" needs to be refined.28 Evidence from the Liao, Chin, and
960). Two institutions exemplify the Court's concern. First, the office of Yuan Dynasties supports the notion that, in dynasties of conquest, the
gneral controller (t'ungp'an), which was established in the prefectures, military tends to encroach upon the civilian sphere with no clear sepa-
represented the capital on the local level. Although nominally second in ration between the two. It is precisely this lack of clear demarcation that
command to a prefect, the general controller was in fact a capital official is a distinguishing trait of the governments of conquest dynasties. The
who had the authority to memorialize the Throne directly concerning Chapter 2 description of the often military nature of the duties of the ci-
local officials' actions, and without whose signature no order of the pre- vilian bureaucracy's da~oyafait tests to the absence of a clear line separ-
fect could be carried out. Second, capital officials were often given tem- ating the Mongolian military from the Yuan civilian administration.
porary assignments as "administrators of the affairs of x prefecture" In the early Chin period, as in the Liao, military and civil functions
(chih . . .fit shih); by this means the early Sung Court avoided the sup- were merged at various levels of the administration. The meng-an and
posed dangers of appointing real prefects. This institution of ad hoc . mou-k'e, the designations for Jurchen military units of thousands and
commissions has led one historian to write that the Sung did not have hundreds respectively and also the names of the heads of those units,
a real local government, but only capital-commissioned, temporary over- acted as local officials in newly conquered territory in the early Chin.
seers of local affairs." The Sung office of general controller was superfi- At the same time, the chou and hien of the Liao dynasty were retained
cially similar to the office of ta-lu-ha-ch'ih in the Yuan, though the by the Chin, and were staffed by Khitan and Chinese officials under the
authority of the la-di-hua-ch'ih was far more extensive. close supervision of Jurchen meng-an and mou-kk personnel garrisoned
Along with the Northern Wei dynasty, two other non-Han dynasties in the l~calities.U~n~d er the Chin ruler Hai-ling Wang (ruled 1149-
of conquest, the Liao (907-1125) and the Chin (1126-1234), shared fea- 1161), Chin territory was divided into 14 routes (h)e,a ch headed by :
tures of local government institutions similar to those of the Yuan. The general aministrator (tsnng-kuan}, always a Jurchen, who controlled thi
basis of Liao administption was the five-capital system, borrowed from meng-an and mou-k'e.10 There is no doubt that the Jurchen rulers, liki
the Po-hai kingdom.25 Each of the five capitals administered a circuit their Khitan predecessors in North China, gave greater ~recedencet <
(tao) of the same name, and the circuits were divided into subprefectures military than to civilian business.
(chou) and counties (hsien). What is of particular significance in the Liao One institution the Chin borrowed from earlier northern dynastic
administration is the lack of clear demarcation between civil and mili- was the regional presidential council (hsing-t'ai shangshu-sherag). As a n
tary functions in government offices. Each of the five capitals was ad- gional arm of the Presidential Council (Shang-shu-sheng) in the capita
ministered by two sets of offices, the civil and the military. At the the regional presidential councils were created to manage both militar
subprefectural level, subprefects were entrusted with both military and and civilian affairs, but gradually came under the aegis of military get
civil tasks.z6 erals, until they were abolished in 1150. The hsing-chi shang-shu-she7
Such overlapping of military and civil duties is typical in the govern- were revived with the shorter appellation hsing-shat~g-shii-shengin tt
ments of conquest dynasties, and the Yuan was no exception. Although late Chin, particularly after 1195, to exercise military and civilian autho
the Yuan rulers, particularly Qubilai (the Emperor Shih-tsu, ruled 1260- ity in areas considered unstable. The number of hsing-shang-shu-shengi t
1294), attempted to separate civil and military functions, the military creased as the war with the Mongols esca1ated.J' It is clear th
Introduction 11
10 Introduction
tem: in descending order, regional secretariats, circuits, routes, prefec-
the Chin hg-shtzng-sbu-shengw as the model for the Yuan hsing-chung-
tures, subprefectures, and counties, or in other words, 6 tiers. It should
shu-sheng, or regional secretariats.-'2 Like its Chin predecessor, the Yuan
be pointed out that, while the routes (lu) always outranked the prefec-
regional secretariat held both military and civilian authority. Since the
tures (/a), it is clear that the terms 114 andfi referred to virtually identi-
Yuan regional privy councils (l~~ing-shu-mi-yuawne) re established only
cal administrative units. The lu, however, greatly outnumbered the fu.^
for temporary purposes, the permanently established regional secretari-
The complexity of the Yuan administrative hierarchy becomes obvi-
ats managed garrison troops on the provincial level.-"
ous when one glances at the "Chart of Yuan Local Government" (Ap-
Even in such a brief overview of pre-Yuan local governments in
fu
pendix A)." A might be linked directly to the regional secretariat
China, the debt the Yuan owed to such non-Han dynasties of conquest
with no intermediary offices intervening, or a fu might be responsible
as the Northern Wei, the Liao, and the Chin becomes obvious. The
to a lu which in turn would be responsible to a tao which in some cases
Northern IVei triple staffing of top offices, the overlapping of the civil-
might be administered by a so-called pacification office (hsttitn-/Â¥~vei-ssu)
ian and military spheres in Liao and Chin times, and the use of "tem-
Why the Mongols felt it necessary to institute so many levels of admin-
porary" branch administrations (bsing-t'at) in local areas, a practice
istration is an important question. The multiplicity of levels of govern-
dating from the third century, A.D. and further developed by the Chin
ment is only one aspect of a tendency towards duplication and redun-
dynasty, all were reflected in Yuan bureaucratic structure and practice.
dancy of functions and responsibilities which Mongolian government
The following sections on the structure of Yuan local government and
È exhibited in China. Why the Mongols felt comfortable with such ex-
the position of the fa-lu-ha-ch'ih in that government will point to
traordinary arrangements is an issue to which we shall return. For now,
specific Yuan borrowings as well as to Mongolian organizational prac-
it is important to stress the unprecedented and complex nature of Yuan
tices with no apparent precedents in Chinese history.
regional-local government.
The pacification office in the Yuan regional-local bureaucracy merits
a brief discussion as an office with both military and civilian duties. Lo-
cated between the regional secretariats and local offices, the Yuan pa-
Any scholar familiar with imperial Chinese bureaucracy knows that
cification offices administered a circuit (tao), although some tao were
the official nomenclature that inevitably carries over from one dynasty
administered directly by regional secretariats. In their admixture of civil
to the next Joes not necessarily reflect the continuation of the same
and military functions, the pacification offices were similar to the Liao
functions and range of authority of each office. Thus, the fact that the
dynasty's use of dual civil and military offices and to the Chin dynasty's
Mongols employed an official nomenclature derived in large part from
bsing-t'ai shang-shu-sheng. The Yuan shih offers the following description
previous dynasties' terminology does not tell us a great deal beyond the
of the pacification offices:36
formal structure of government. Each of the offices in the Yuan regional-
local hierarchy of offices from the regional secretariat (hsing-chung-shu-
The pacification offices (hswn-wei-ssu)m anage military and civil affairs. They
sheng) down to the circuit (tao), the route (h), the prefecture (fu), the
are divided by the circuits (tao)J7t hrough which they supervise the [subordi-
subprefecture (chou), and the county (hsien) did indeed have its counter- nale] localities (chiin-hsien).[ Whenever] a regional secretariat (hinphengPa
part in earlier periods of Chinese history. handles an official order, then [the pacification office] proclaims it below;
What is unusual about the Yuan is the sheer number of territorial- [whenever] the localities have a request, then [the pacification office] transmits
administrative units in regional-local government. Whereas previous it up to the regional secretariat (sheng)."l When in the frontier areas there are
dynasties used a two- or three-level system of sub-metropolitan admini- military affairs, then [the pacification office] concurrently holds the head
office of the military command (LU-yuan-slJu.si-fu)[;t he concurrent military
stration, the Yuan, at its most complex, employed an unprecedented sys-