How powerful were the ancient officials? Why can dozens of officials govern a county?

How powerful were the ancient officials? Why can dozens of officials govern a county? In all kinds of film and television dramas, you can see the scene that the magistrate went to court to ask questions. In the lobby, the magistrate of a county is imposing and seems to have a lot of power. At present, the population of some populous counties in some provinces has exceeded 1 ten thousand. In ancient society, although it was impossible to reach this figure. But in some prosperous areas, it is no problem for a county to have a population of 200,000 to 300,000. Then, an important question appeared. How many officials are there in a county, which is in line with the management of several hundred thousand people?

First, let's look at the officials in the county government. In the county government, there are three ranking officials. They are the seven-product magistrate, the eight-product county magistrate and the nine-product master book. In fact, the magistrate of a county is an official in charge of all aspects of the county. Therefore, there has always been a saying that "the family knows that the government is destroyed, and the government is destroyed." As for the two officials, Xian Cheng and Chief Accountant, they are called "shaking their heads" because they work with the top leaders and have little actual power.

In fact, in terms of actual power, Xian Cheng and the main book are not even as good as touts. Although the master has no rank, he helps the magistrate handle all aspects of his work. Therefore, in the county government, the officers generally call the master "the fourth master". The implication is that it is second only to three successful officials. Of course, these officials are not the only ones in the county, and other officials do not work in the county government.

There used to be only a dozen officials, mainly because the society at that time was relatively backward. In ancient times, the division of labor was relatively simple. Unlike our current occupations, different industries needed specialized personnel to manage them.

The population of our society is much larger now than in the past. China had a population of 450 million when it was just liberated, but now it has almost increased by 1000 billion. Not to mention the population, the population of sheep is very large and needs many people to manage it. We know that the bee population needs to be divided into boxes to a certain extent, which is actually the product of socialization.

In ancient China, social management was based on families and clans, and officials only needed to give them instructions. Unlike now, it is based on family and individuals and needs more detailed management.

In the past, it was an agricultural society with few social activities and few social problems, so the classification and number of service personnel were not so much, which was very clear. Public security problems can also be solved. There used to be a curfew at night, but now some people play outside all night, which actually requires manpower to maintain.

In the past, farmers cultivated land, salt merchants sold salt, and some people sold cotton. Most of them belong to the self-sufficient small-scale peasant natural economy. There is basically no conflict of interest in social activities without economic behavior, so there is no need to adjust personnel, so the work pressure of officials will be very small. Let me give you a few simple examples:

Most ancient people ate in their own homes, even in large families, so there were few catering services, and only some so-called post stations would provide such services, so there was basically no need to formulate and manage catering standards. Because the social demand is low, it is unnecessary.

It's different now. The safety of catering needs a large number of service personnel to supervise. The reason why we can eat out safely is because the role of various regulatory agencies can not be ignored. At least everyone has a place to complain about rights protection, which is usually not felt, but when you need it, you will know the necessity of their existence.

In the past, when traveling, no matter Xu Xiake or Kyle Polo, their lives were not guaranteed, because at that time, there were a large number of bandits entrenched, they looted houses and robbed money, and the county government did not have the extra financial resources to recruit people to supervise, so the danger of traveling alone was quite great, unlike patrol cars all over the street now.