The Place of Ting Administrative Districts in the Han Dynasty's State Organization

Abstract

Due to conflictiong documentation concerning the administrative organization of settlements below the level of xian 県 during the Han period-xing郷, ting 亭 and li 里, there has been much research done attempting to solve the contradictions.However, very little has been done on how ting fits into the state governance mechanism of the period.In the present article, the author examines the research done to date on the relationship between xiang, ting and li and the character of ting, along with recently excavated source materials in order to clarify the unique character of ting and the place it occupied in the Han's organization.His conclusions are as follows.First, ting was essentially a military and law enforcement facility, and while we find diverce forms in the sources, there is no doubt that it differed from the more civilian-oriented xiang and li administrative units, and thus did not exist as a "settlement" as such.The recently excavated sources show ting only as law enforcement organizations ; however, other documentation demostrates its military character.At the same time, the author verifies the opinion expressed in the research to date that the organization of ting played an important role within the process of bringing small settlements under control during the period of Han state formation.Based on this conclusion, when considering the Late Han period, after the elimination of military officers, called junwei 郡尉, and standing armies on the jun 郡 administrative level, when zhou-cishi州刺史 took command of jun-taishou郡太守 garrisons, there is the possibility that within that process a coordinated link existed beween ting and zhou州.During the Late Han period when the authority of zhou was on the rise and it gradually came to govern the inner working of local society, the occurrence of a link between ting and zhou functioned effectively to further that process.That is to say, ting not only existed as a military and law enforcement mechanism under xian during the Han period, but was also located as the lowest level mechanism for state integration linked to zhou, especially during the Late Han, and served an extremely important function in bolstering the effectiveness of intergration efforts.