The purpose of this article is to analyse how the department of Seine-Inferieure benefitted from the system of replacement, taking into consideration the social, economic and the cultural aspects of the department between the year VII of the Republic and 1815. Using the deeds drawn up by notaires and signed by the substitutes and their employers as the major sources, the author examines 325 replacements for service in the army and 353 replacements for the national guard and coastguard gunners. He shows that the average substitute was either a day laborer or worked in the textile industry as a weaver, and was poorer and less educated than his employer. The fact that many weavers were among the substitutes shows how the textile industry developed within the department. Moreovers, the typical employer was a quite well-off educated "cultivateur." Employers usually resorted to replacement due the requirements of farming making it difficult for them to join the army. In addition replacement was resorted to in the case of brothers or communes who hired substitutes for some of their citizens, although these were not the common practice. Replacement cost more in the department of Seine-Inferieure than in the average department. This reflects the high cost of labour due to scarcity in agriculture and industry. During the Empire, replacement became too expensive for the Normans, who were characteristically thrifty. Therefore, the number of replacements decreased. On the other hand, replacement for the national guard and coastguard gunners was often chosen because the price was moderate. This shows how much the people of Seine-Inferieure resented joining the army, which was more foreign to them than the people from the border zone in the East of France.

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The conventional research on the large / small administrative districting system of the Meiji period known as the daiku-shoku-sei 大区小区制 explains that the passage of the "Three New Acts" (sanshimpo 三新法 ; a new four-district system, rule for prefectural assemblies, and taxation guidelines) in 1878 was in direct response to various forms of nationwide resistance to the system's "bizarre" character. On the other hand, in the midst of increasing administrative problems after the abolition of the Tokugawa era fiefs and the establishment of prefectures, in addition to expanding administrative districts in the hope of governmental rationalization, a method allowing either "consolidation" or "alliance" of local villages and towns was being sought. While consolidation was being aggressively pursued in some prefectures, almost nothing was being done in others, thus causing much regional diversity. Therefore, the early Meiji era's local administration system has been characterized as "different depending on both time and place," resulting in an institutional history portrayed within both temporal and spatial discontinuity. In recent years, scholars have focused on villages and towns under this large / small districting system in terms of its continuity with the "Three New Acts" of 1878 ; however, the conventional methodology is incapable of explaining changes implemented in the Three New Acts regime after 1878. In the present article, the author searches for away of understanding the large / small districting system by building a systematic structure of its temporal and spatial differences, a methodology to examine the continuity of the two systems in question by focusing particularly on the administrative districts headed by kocho 戸長 under the large / small districting system and their counterparts under the Three New Acts regime. The main findings are as follows ; 1) the large / small districting system involved the "alliance" of towns and villages ; 2) "alliance" was convenient for implementing the new land tax system ; 3) however, under the system, " consolidation" was pursued to expand administrative jurisdiction ; 4) regional discrepancies in consolidation efforts led to regional diversity in terms of both scale and character ; 5) in order to eliminate such discrepancies, the Three New Acts established an administrative district headed by kocho to continue the "alliance" process ; 6) here lies the continuity before and after 1878 ; and 7) all of these events amounted to preparation for the establishment of "Allied Kocho Administered Districts" in 1884 and the large scale consolidation of towns and villages after the establishment of City, Town and Village Districts Law (shisei-chosonsei 市制町村制) in 1888.

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Concerning the "Bazhuguo 八柱国", lauded for their distinguished service to the Western Wei Dynasty, the end of chapter 16 of the Zhoushu 周書 mentions that these official posts were established in AD 550 (Datong 大統 16). Occupying the top position among the seven Zhuguo-dajianjun 柱国大将軍 other than the Northern Zhou's Wendi YuwenTai 文帝宇文泰 was the Tang imperial ancestor LiHu 李虎 ; however, the official posts of Taiwei 太尉, Shangshu-zuopushe 尚書左僕射, and Longyou-xingtai 隴右行臺 added here are in conflict with the actual bureaucratic system of the time, showing that they were added by later editors. The Western Wet modeled its bureaucracy after the Zhouli 周礼, rather than adopting the former Northern Wei system. The first step in the process, a framework for bureaucratic reform created in the fifth month of 548, abolished Sangong / Erda 三公・二大 in favor of the Liuqing 六卿 system. As a result, the position of Dajiangjun was relegated to a ranked status with no official duties. The post of Taiwei had probably already been abolished, since there is no mention of it as of 550. Furthermore, Shangshu-zuopushe was a much lower position than mentioned, and the existence of Longyou-xingtai cannot be corroborated for that era. Judging from the other posts, the author estimates that the actual position occupied by Lieu among all eight Zhuguo-dajiangjun was seventh, implying that the order was changed during the editing of the Zhoushu. The reordering of the generals can be explained by the fact that Lieu was the imperial ancestor of the Tang Dynasty and that the Zhoushu comes to us from the books selected for imperial perusal at the beginning of the Tang period. After all, it would have been politically incorrect to list the any ancestor of the present emperor second to another. The anomalous bureaucratic posts attributed to the Western Wei probably reflect the system in force at the time that the Zhoushu was edited at the beginning of the Tang period. Here is at least one example showing the necessity for careful critical review of both the narrative, especially concerning the Tang imperial ancestor, and the source materials cited in the Tang period imperial selections.

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