Sesión de aprendizaje

A. CIRCUIT OFFICIALS

At the head of the heirarchy of local government were the circuit intendants.'7 Leaving aside the intendant of exchange (fa-yiin shih

concerned with the transportation of supplies to the capital, there were under northern Sung three main classes of intendant: fiscal

were permanently filled, unlike for example the circuit posts of early T'ang. Their responsibilities were functionally divided. There was no provincial governor analogous to the military Governor of late T ’ang or

authority in the circuit, however, did not mean that the intendants exercised an empty general surveillance over their areas. While they were not in the tasks of direct administration, and while the prefects were expected to send reports and requests direct to the central

government, the intendants had powers and responsibilities which definitely limited the scope for independent action on the part of the

) who can be considered as an agent of the central government

(chuan-yün shih ) judical (t ’i-tien hsing-yii

and military (ching-lüeh an-fu shih ). These positions

the Governor-general of Ch’ing.8 The avoidance of a single dominant

prefects. Bureaucratic fragmentation of local government was not unwelcome to the central authorities after the experience of the late T ’ang.

Perhaps the most clearly defined circuit office was the second I have mentioned, the judicial intendant. He was generally responsible for the administration of justice in his area, with the power to check on lawsuits and over-rule the prefect's decisions. Apart from his general obligation to investigate and report on undecided cases and on criminals who evaded capture, he had the specific job of reviewing judicial cases involving the death penalty (hsiang-fu A ). Yet his position was not entirely clear. The duties of the office were performed early in the dynasty as part of the role of the fiscal intendant. The office itself was periodically abolished, its powers reentrusted to the fiscal intendants or combined with others up till

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the middle of the northern Sung period. Even when the intendant became a permanent part of the government machinery, his power of review was limited by the possibility of the prefect's sending cases to the central government. This was to be done where there was doubt about the law or the circumstances of the case, or where the penalty did not seem to match the crime. The intendant made his own report.^ Added to the intendant's general task of checking local judicial

administration was a rule specifying annual inspection of offices under his command, sponsoring men for official posts and reporting weakness

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or illegal actions. For a time under early southern Sung military 12a

men were appointed as judicial intendants.

Like the judicial, the military intendant came only gradually to a regular part in the administration. Many temporary commissioners

were sent out early in the dynasty with instructions to ensure order

intendants were appointed, though they were in abeyance for a short time after 1072. The office differed from the civil ones not only in the circuits it controlled, but also in its relation to other

authorities. Typically, the prefect of an important prefecture in a military circuit would hold the office of military intendant

concurrently. At the end of northern Sung, sometimes two or even more prefects would be joint intendants. These officials do not seem to have been established in Liang-che until 1121, with the Fang La rebellion, but in 1049 the military affairs of the circuit had been put under the

authority of the prefect of Hang-chou, the office being called ping-ma

with the added title of general military administrator (tu tsung-kuan

very broad. Responsibility for the conduct of military affairs was combined with general supervision of affairs military and civil in areas of insecurity: - the conduct of trials, proclamation of edicts, keeping of registers and so on. In emergencies he had the right of sole decision on these matters and could send up memorials or not as he

chose.^ However, when the troops were mobilized, they were under the command of the assistant military administrator (fu ^ jj tsung-kuan) who in emergencies such as flood or border alerts. With time, permanent

chien-hsia ssu Over the confused period when the Chin

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were taking over north China one prefecture in each circuit was

designated as shuai-fu , and its prefect made military intendant,

was, unlike the military intendant, a soldier. ^ The titles given to the intendant himself were characterized in southern Sung as empty

18 names.

In 1135 the prefect of Lin-an fu was again made concurrently military intendant and this appears to have remained the practice till

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the end of the dynasty. The powers of the intendant himself were in this case limited to formal supervision, but offices in his bureau were in general command of the troops of the circuit. Authority over local divisions of the army was thus shared between the prefecture, which itself had a military officer tu-chien to control troops of the imperial army allotted to it, the army officers themselves, the military intendant and the assistant military administrator later called lu-fen tu-chien • The military weaknesses caused by the Sung distrust of army generals is well-known; but even in peacetime this ponderous system could lead to difficulties over the

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