The Qing Dynasty is the last feudal dynasty in the history of our country, its existence time is relatively close to modern times, and the various historical materials left behind are relatively complete and easy to verify, so we know more or less about many people or things in the Qing Dynasty, such as Shunzhi monk, Kangxi capture Aobai, nine sons and other events, has been talked about by the people in the people, these stories have been adapted into ** widely spread in modern times.
But for the official rank of the Qing Dynasty, in addition to knowing the high-ranking and powerful official ranks of governors, governors, and generals, we almost don't know anything about the others, especially the official position of "Daotai", we may often see it in film and television dramas, but what rank is it? What is the mandate? We don't know. In this article, let's take a look at the mysterious "Daotai".
Where does the "dodai" come from?
The Qing Dynasty's "Daotai" is the Taoist, which is between the province and the government, and the official rank is uncertain at the beginning, and it was not until the Qianlong period that the Taoist was officially stipulated to be the four products. "Taiwan" is a kind of honorific title, the title of the first leader of the various departments of the Qing Dynasty is basically to add a "Taiwan" word after the post to show respect and authority, there is no such statement in the official naming, but the lower-level departments are conventionally called so, such as making Taiwan, Futai, Pantai, Zhentai, Xuetai, etc., and those who can add the word "Taiwan" in their own posts are all powerful figures, absolute leaders.
There are two main types of Taoists, either with special responsibilities, or as political envoys and deputy envoys. A special Taoist is a supervisor in charge of a certain road, such as a person who is responsible for grain storage or supervising the grain situation, which is referred to as a grain channel; The management of a river or river project is referred to as a river. There are also customs roads, tea horse roads, post roads, etc., all of which are called according to the affairs they are responsible for. Dedicated sometimes.
It is also concurrently held by the local government, but more often than not, it exists as an assistant to the local government.
The branch of the road, the branch of the patrol road and the special Taoist is different, the branch of the road is the deputy envoy of the government, compared to the branch of the Taoist power, can directly control one to more places of the valley, although at the beginning is often "temporary", anytime and anywhere may be dispatched to all parts of the country, and later with the Qing Dynasty social and economic prosperity and development, temporary drawbacks revealed, so the temporary to adapt to the needs of the fixed nature, and later with the actual needs, sometimes to the division of the road to add military ranks, and once the position is linked to the military power, That means that the power of the position has been substantially improved by leaps and bounds.
At first, only one government was set up to govern the whole province or three or four prefectures, and the same as the sub-patrol road, the sub-patrol road also gradually changed from the original temporary to a fixed local official position. The sub-guard road is in charge of local money and grain, and the sub-patrol road is in charge of the local criminal name, and after a long time, the two have added military ranks, and the supervisors have gradually become consistent, and during the Qianlong and Jiaqing periods, they were allowed to fold and seal the music, that is, they could bypass the higher departments and directly give the emperor a fold!
However, the prefect, who was also a four-rank prefect, did not have such authority, so the power of the Taoist became increasingly powerful, and the actual power surpassed that of the local governor, which could be compared with the governor and governor. Some people even regard the Daotai as a local administrative organization below the provincial level and above the provincial level. However, in the official administrative system, the Taoist is completely non-existent as a local government, and it is only a derivative of the provincial administrative body.
Bit low weight
The local administrative region of the Qing Dynasty is divided into "provinces, prefectures, and counties"**The highest governor of a province is the governor and the governor, the governor is the second product, the governor is from the second product, and the governor is from the second product, all of them are directly dispatched by the ** feudal officials, and the power position is not heavy, but the official rank is only four grades of the Taoist platform can almost be on an equal footing with these feudal officials, there is such a paragraph in the historical TV series "Li Wei as an official", the Taoist platform in charge of the salt road gave an order, and the salt industry operators in the province could only obediently suspend business for rectification, Li Wei was the governor of Zhejiang at that time, is a proper feudal official, but he has no way to take this platform, so he can only kowtow and apologize.
During the Qing Dynasty, the government had a complete monopoly on salt, Zhejiang was an important salt producing area, and salt was an important part of the country's tax revenue, but the salt of the entire Zhejiang was not under the control of Li Wei, the governor of Zhejiang, but by the salt road, and more importantly, the Taoist platform had the power to directly fold and seal the performance.
The official rank of the Daotai seems to be inconspicuous, but it has absolute real power at the local level, not only can it directly participate in the management of provincial-level units, but more importantly, this official position manages a lot of resources related to life and death, such as salt and tea, grain and grass, Caoyun, etc., to put it bluntly, it is in charge of finance, and it is also a monopoly without competitors, and it is natural not to panic when there is money in hand, and these businesses managed by the Daotai are exclusively managed by the state, so the power of the Daotai is very stable, and it is difficult for the local government to control his power.
With the advancement of the history of the Qing Dynasty, the later emperors paid more attention to the role of the Daotai, and sometimes the emperor would order the Daotai to secretly monitor his superiors, and allow it to be secretly folded and sealed. Therefore, although Daotai only has a fourth-rank official position, his power is not lower than that of the second-rank governor and governor, which can be described as a low authority.
Irreplaceable role
The emergence of the Taoist platform has its historical inevitability, the middle and late Qing Dynasty was extremely popular in the official donation system, that is, the official government in order to raise money to sell some ** positions, the Taoist is often the favorite official rank of the donor, which is also the ceiling official rank that the official can reach, the person who donated the official according to his ability to obtain different official ranks, if the strength is very strong, donate a salt road, grain road, strength.
Almost, donate a river, the direct result of this is that the power of the Daotai is large and small, and the personnel are becoming more and more uneven, and many people in the donation system are fishing in troubled waters, and the local management is chaotic and disorderly over time, and many Daotai only work to make money, and the rule of the Qing Dynasty is also declining under such circumstances, and finally collapsed.
Conclusion:Daotai just began as the glue between the upper and lower departments of local administration, connecting the various places together, completing the things assigned by the superiors properly, so that the administrative efficiency can be improved, after all, the greater the ability, the greater the responsibility, and therefore they were appreciated by the emperor, so that the nature of their own work has been changed from temporary to fixed, the Taoist platform is like a node in a net, if there is no node, the whole net will be cracked, this kind of official position that affects the whole body, It made up for the "disconnection" of the local management system in the Qing Dynasty, and was a kind of improvement of the feudal dynasty management system, although there were advantages and disadvantages, but its role was irreplaceable.