In Han 漢 wooden strips from Juyan 居延 and Dunhuang 敦煌 there are mentioned officials attached to a houguan 候官 who are referred to as shili 士吏. "Shili" is also mentioned in Qin 秦 bamboo strips from Shuihudi 睡虎地 and Han bamboo strips from Zhangjiashan 張家山, but here most of them appear as county (xian県) officials. In past research it has been assumed that shili similar to those attached to a houguan were also assigned to counties. In a previous article, however, the author has pointed out that county-based shili, unlike the shili attached to a houguan, was not the name of an official post but rather a collective term for a group of officials, and that at the very least, the xiaozhang 校長, or head, of a local police station (ting帝) was included among these officials. This article examines what sort of officials were actually designated as this group of county officials known as shili. After an analysis of examples of the use of shili with reference to counties, the author concludes that they were officials who met at least all of the following six conditions: (1) they were under the command of the county defender (xianwei県尉) ; (2) they had jurisdiction over a district; (3) their responsibilities consisted of military duties and police work; (4) in places at some distance from the county office, they were authorized to hear legal charges and complaints, and accept voluntary surrenders to the authorities; (5) their duties included the dispatch of manpower to meet state needs; and (6) they had to be junior subalterns (shaoli小吏) other than those known as sefu 嗇夫. According to these conditions shili might also have subsumed such officials as jiazou 駕〓, maozhang 〓長 and hou 候. The officials subsumed under county-based shili had in common duties (3)-(5) mentioned above; and (3), in particular, involved patrols and the pursuit and arrest of criminals. It is already known that the duties of county defenders included military affairs and police work, and it is evident that these duties were discharged primarily through shili. The last instance of the word shili used as a collective term is found in the Ernian Luling 二年律令 codes. The author surmises from this disappearance that because of growing domestic stability, the military preparedness of counties was thereafter gradually scaled down, and the majority of official posts included among shili were abolished. Therefore, shili as a collective term was no longer needed and fell into disuse.
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