PREFECTURE AND SUBPREFECTURES

It was at the level of the prefecture and, to a lesser extent in the big cities, the subprefecture that the routine administration of local government made regular contact with the people of the area. With the submission of Wu-^iieh, Sung almost immediately established

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prefect and subprefects in Hang-chou. Records were kept of all appointments, but the historian laments that for the 153 years from that time the names of only 100 prefects survive.^ This throws into sharp relief the temporary, limited nature of the prefect's authority. Appointed from outside the area, on the average for a much shorter term of office than the three years nominally required, he needed considerable

acumen to be able to see past the most immediate problems of administration. The success of any long-term policies he might formulate was subject both to his underlings, and to his own and

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his successors' handling of higher authority. Naturally, there is not the same amount of information about the prefect's assistants, but the names of only 200 assistant adminstrators are recorded for

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the 300 years that Hang-chou was under Sung control. It is possible that, like Su Shih's from 1071 to 1074, the terms of the assistants ran to their nominal length of about three years. If this is so, they may well in fact have been somewhat more skilful in handling affairs than the prefect himself.

To describe the organization of the local offices is a

complicated untertaking.^ It is made more so by the survival of military terms like chieh-tu-shih and tz’u-shih from the preceeding period as honorary titles. Hang-chou itself ranked as

ta-tu-tu-fu ’> a title carried over from the T'ang

period71 and implying no more than that it was in the highest honorary grade of ordinary prefectures (chou -^lvj ). (It was made a superior fu prefecture only with the change of name to Lin-an in 1129.) As might be expected in a prefecture of this rank, it had two assistant

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administrators working under the prefect's authority. Appointed to provide a counterweight to the power of the prefect, they were not only to act as his assistants but also to countersign his orders

7 3

and make independent reports on the conduct of government. Evidence * t ’ung-p'an

of the court's distrust of local power, the divisiveness inherent in this system probably did not mean very much in practice in normal times. Indeed in 1098 it was found necessary to order the assistant administrators, as well as other subordinate officials, to make a daily visit to the main office of the prefecture to discuss affairs

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and sign documents. That the assistant administrator could take an independent iniative is shown by Su Shih's story of how he looked on his own account for a way to keep the city's canals clear when he filled the post in Hang-chou. More typical, perhaps, was his

cooperation with the prefect in the repair of the six wells.^ By southern Sung, these officials were recognized as being essentially the prefect's deputies. They still had special responsibility for inspecting the affairs of the subprefectures and especially for the collection and transmission of taxes.76 Lin-an fu had an official complement of two, but it was regular practice to commission one extra, and sometimes up to five were appointed.^

The officials next in the hierachy were an inheritance from the 78 militarized system of local government under the five dynasties. Responsibility for the detailed administration of prefectures under

the T'ang had been divided among up to seven "services" (ts'ao

#

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). With administrative secretary (lu-shih ts'an-chün

the central government's control breaking down, the staff organization of the Military Governors itself took over the tasks of local government.

At first a dual structure was retained, with the military system involving aides (mu-chih kuan ) , service officials, clerks and servicemen. The civil system followed this pattern, with assistants

(tso-kuan ^ ) instead of aides. Both the military service officials and the civil assistants soon became redundant. To the military system were later added officers from the army command, ya-ch' ien » officers who had come to have responsibility for the provision of supplies. With time, elements from the military coalesced with the civil officials even in prefectures not the seat of a military governor, so that the prefect had under his authority a civil structure consisting of service officals, clerks and servicemen,

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and a military one of aides, ya-chTien officers and soldiers. It was this structure which the early Sung emperors adapted to the needs of centralized civil government. Thus, leaving aside clerks and

servicemen for the moment, the prefect had under his authority both aides developed under military rule and a curtailed system of service

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