Text

E-book Conflicting Counsels to Confuse the Age : A Documentary Study of Political Economy in Qing China, 1644–1840

---

Penilaian

---

he most important subdivisions of the province were calledprefectures; directly subordinate to the provincial governmentthere might also be smaller units called independent departmentsor subprefectures. Prefectures in turn were subdivided into xian,"counties" (or, as some authors have it, "districts"); these werethe lowest units of formal territorial administration. Since,however, there were some departments whose position in theterritorial hierarchy was identical to that of counties, the phrase"county-level units" may be used to capture all the basicbuilding-blocks of territorial administration. Departments andsubprefectures could also be intermediary units betweenprefectures and counties.The head official of a county is known in English as thecounty magistrate. This is a misnomer: the so-called magistratewas a general administrator, not a specialist in dispensing justice.It is conventional to say that tax collection, maintenance of lawand order, and the settlement of legal cases were his central tasks;however, he was ideally considered responsible for all matterspertaining to the welfare of the people of his jurisdiction.Finally, the Chinese word yamen is routinely used, withoutexplanation, in English-language writings on traditional Chinesegovernment and society. It means the headquarters of a seniorofficial at any level of the hierarchy. Thus the county yamen wasthe complex of buildings from which the county magistrate(assisted by his staff) administered his county. Of course, the formal position in Confucianism was thatnourishing the people's bodies was important chiefly as aprerequisite for nourishing their moral natures. A central concernof Mencius ("Master Meng"), one of the founders of Confucian-ism, was that human beings should distinguish themselves fromanimals, which was to be done by respecting Confucian-definednorms for the proper conduct of a set of fundamental humanrelationships. The good ruler not only maintained the economicconditions in which his people could give proper treatment totheir aged and their dead, but also saw that they received theinstruction without which popular morality, or so the Confuciansthought, was not to be expected. Expressions of these and relatedviews are found throughout the Mencius. Besides the oft-quotedpassage about the common people needing constant means oflivelihood before they can have constant hearts, a less famouspassage, to which allusions are occasionally found in late imperialstatecraft rhetoric, reads as follows: "The Sage, in his governanceof the Empire, will bring it about that pulse and grain are as freelyavailable as fire and water. If pulse and grain are as fire andwater, how should there be any who are inhumane among thefolk?"3 To the extent that this was read as a substantive prescrip-tion for good rulership, it set a lofty standard of economicachievement for emperors and statesmen who took the Confucianmission seriously.

---

Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

-

No. Panggil

301 DUN c

Penerbit

USA : University of Michigan Press., 2020

Deskripsi Fisik

365 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780472901463

Klasifikasi

301

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

-

Subjek

Sociology and Anthropology, Society

Info Detail Spesifik

-

Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

-

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

Komentar

---

Anda harus masuk sebelum memberikan komentar