Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.10, 2017

 

Regional Institutional Differences and Uniformity: The Institutions and Practice of Rural Control in the Sui Dynasty

(Abstract)

 

Lu Xiqi

 

As defined in a new decree issued in 583, the Three Heads System (san zhangzhi), designed to be implemented chiefly in Shangdong (the old Northern Qi Dynasty), basically followed the Northern Qi version of 564, with slight amendment. With the setting up of a system of rural judges (xiangzheng) in accord with Su Wei’s suggestion in 583, that system, which fell under the judicial system, coexisted with the Three Heads or Two Heads System, which fell under administrative management of rural areas. The rural system defined by the edict of 589 was aimed at the Jiangnan area, originally under the state of Chen. It basically adhered to the system of rural control of the Han Dynasty, followed in the south since the time of the Southern Dynasties. With the reform of the bureaucratic system in 607, the rural control system revolving around rural judges and hamlet heads became the Sui Dynasty’s basic system of rural control. In the course of its design and creation, the system had to take into account the circumstances and feasibility of its predecessors. Thus the system itself evinced regional differences that converged and attained institutional uniformity in practice.