1. In the history of China, there were two rebellious emperors who ascended the throne directly through peasant uprising. One is Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang, and the other is Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang. From a certain point of view, Liu Bang can be said to be a rogue. He can pee on a scholar's neck, and he can say "I want a piece of cake" when others want to cook his father. Zhu Yuanzhang is most famous for killing heroes. He killed more than 50,000 heroes in the past 20 years. He thinks it will make his descendants rule better. Dramatically, since then, there was no minister who knew the soldiers in the DPRK. As a result, when Judy went to war, his emperor Zhu Yunwen had no generals to send, and it took Judy only four years to capture the capital.
Generally speaking, the cultural level of the founding emperors who cultivated the world was relatively low. These two rebellious emperors are no exception, but they have one thing in common, that is, they all think that as long as they surround their close relatives and build a tributary around to guard the capital, they can keep peace forever. This also led to the Wu Chu Rebellion in the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and the Jingnan War in the period of Wen Jian. The difference is that Jingdi has Zhou Yafu, while Wen Jian has no generals to send. It is also interesting that Zhu Yuanzhang did two things, one was to abolish the post of prime minister, and the other was that Zhu Yuanzhang did not allow officials (eunuchs) to interfere in politics. However, his descendants did not set up a prime minister, but relied heavily on eunuchs, which led to eunuchs taking power in the middle and late period.
2. Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties all implemented the enfeoffment system, that is, the feudal system. At that time, the enfeoffment of vassal States ranged from sixty to seventy to several hundred. When Qin unified the six countries, Ying Zheng adopted the suggestion of Prime Minister Reese and implemented the county system, which was a brilliant point of Qin Shihuang. Although the county system implemented later was different, it was basically the same.
There were probably less than forty counties in the Qin dynasty, and the time of the Qin dynasty was short, so I won't mention it. At the beginning of Han Dynasty, the number of counties remained unchanged. By the time of the Seven Kingdoms Rebellion, there were 54 counties, while at that time only 15 county was directly under the jurisdiction of the central government. Later, after the pacification, the central government gradually restored the counties to the central government. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty reduced the size of counties and increased the number of counties to more than 120. The registered permanent residence in big counties can reach more than one million. The sheriff is a 2000-stone official, with the same status as the nine central ministers, and the county is the next level. In this way, officials can perform their duties safely and efficiently with fewer official ranks and superior promotion, so the local administration of the Han Dynasty will always be a beautiful talk for future generations. In addition, Han divided the whole country into thirteen prisons, and each prison sent a secretariat. At first, it was just a small official with 600 stones.
During the Tang Dynasty, there were 358 states in China. Although the status of states and counties is equal, the size of states in Tang Dynasty is far from that of counties in Han Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, those with household registration above 100,000 were called Shangzhou, and those with household registration below 20,000 in Xiazhou were called Shangzhou. Then the Central Committee divided into ten roads, and each road was supervised by an observer. Later observation made it gradually evolve into a higher level state. In this way, there are actually three levels in the local area, and if the county magistrate at the next level wants to be promoted, he must first be the county magistrate at the middle level, then the county magistrate at the next level, and finally he can take office in the state at the next level. In this way, there are more official ranks, and although there are more opportunities for promotion, subordinates will always become subordinates, which is overstaffed and inefficient. However, the border areas endowed the observers with military power and evolved into envoys of our time, resulting in the later buffer zone separatist regime.
The Song Dynasty followed the old system of the Tang Dynasty. Setting roads all over the country is equivalent to the Tao of the Tang Dynasty. At first, there were 15, and then there were more than 20. Below the road is the state, below the state or the county. Each road has four supervisors: Cang, Xian, Shuai and Cao. In this way, there are four bosses above the state governor, which makes it more difficult to do things.
The Yuan Dynasty, like the Song Dynasty, was divided into prefectures, prefectures and counties. However, in order to control the place, the Yuan rulers sent officials from the central government, that is, Zhongshu Province, to that place, which was called Zhongshu Province, and sometimes they were stationed for a long time. This is also the origin of what we call province in modern times. But in fact, the division of provinces is only for military rule, which is very different from Taoism and Taoism.
The Ming dynasty knew that the provincial system was unreasonable, but at least it survived. In Ming Dynasty, thirteen departments were set up in the whole country, that is, thirteen provinces, to undertake propaganda and transfer troops, but the Ming people did not call them provinces. The governor of this province is a political envoy. In addition to the secretary, the propaganda, and the bureau, there are also punishment, trial, and envoy, which are combined into three divisions. Division, that is, the provincial department, sent the next division (called Daotai in Qing Dynasty) to supervise the local government, which added another layer out of thin air and made it even more difficult for local officials to do it.
In order to control the place, the Qing dynasty appointed the governor who was not established in the Ming dynasty as a permanent official, adding another layer to the place. When something really happens, the central government will send officials appointed by the government, such as the minister of economy and the minister of counsellor. The governor and the governor just obey orders.
So, to sum up, I think it is a trend that there are more and more local ranks and it is more and more difficult for local officials to do it, but the original intention of the county system has not changed. Zhu Yuanzhang's division of feudal princes is only an episode.