Study of Institutional Culture in Ancient Tujia Society—Political System Culture (III)
Section 3: The Baojia System. The baojia system was a grassroots social management system established by the Qing dynasty, drawing on the experience of past rural administrative systems—especially the 'lijia system' implemented by Yuan and Ming dynasties in the Central Plains. Historical records state: 'In the first year of Shunzhi, jiazhang and zongjia posts were established in each prefecture and county...'
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Section Three The Baojia System
The baojia system was a grassroots social management system established by the Qing Dynasty on the basis of drawing on the experience of local administrative systems from successive Chinese dynasties, especially on the useful experience of the "lijia system" implemented by the feudal dynasties of the Yuan and Ming periods in the Central Plains region. Historical records state: "In the first year of Shunzhi, the posts of jiazhang and zongjia were established in each prefecture and county. In the villages under each prefecture, county, and guard, one jiazhang was appointed for every ten households, and one zongjia for every hundred households." In the Qing Dynasty, "the baojia system had become a system universally implemented throughout the country, and its influence penetrated into almost every corner of rural society," and baojia became the most core institution of the Qing Dynasty's local administrative system.
I. The Organizational Structure and Duties of the Baojia System
After abolishing the tusi system in the Tujia region, in order to stabilize the rural social order there and address the possible loss of control in rural society caused by institutional absence, the Qing Dynasty extended the baojia system prevalent in Han Chinese areas to the Tujia region. "The native people and the Hakka should be organized into jia under the same regulations. An investigation of the tusi areas shows that there are very many outsiders from Jiangxi, Chenzhou, Yuan, Hu, and other places, some of whom have acquired property, buried their dead in graves, and lived there for thirty-five years or even two or three generations, all calling themselves Hakka and not subject to native corvée. Consider that in Sichuan, Shu, and other places, all those who have lived for more than thirty years and acquired property are allowed to be regarded as natives in terms of adult labor and grain tax. Now, since they have property and have lived there for a long time, they should be organized into jia together with the native people for the convenience of investigation..." Therefore, from the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, baojia systems were established in various Tujia areas one after another.
According to historical documents, in Yongshun County, "in the seventh year of Qianlong, baojia was ordered. County Magistrate Wang Boqun personally traveled through the townships and cities to conduct inspections, and organized the inner and outer parts of the city and the various bao of the four townships into a total of twenty designation characters, with the inner and outer city divided into the two characters Cheng and Xiang. The eighteen bao of the townships were organized under the eighteen characters Shi, He, Shi, Tai, Ren, Shou, Nian, Feng, Zheng, De, Li, Yong, Hou, Sheng, Wan, Bang, Xian, and Ning." In the eighth year of Yongzheng (1730), "Baojing County changed the qi into du, and each du established one xiangzhang. The reason for changing qi into du was not only that land surveys could be conducted by du and taxes apportioned by li, but also that after the baojia was organized and investigated, all baozheng, jiazhang, and paitou would each have a du name, making investigation easier when matters arose. The reason for establishing xiangzhang was originally to have them lecture on the Sacred Edict in the villages within their du. But in organizing and investigating the baojia, they could also be ordered first to investigate one by one within each du, so as to avoid the disturbances caused by former runners." The regulations for baojia organization were: one paitou for every ten pai, one jiazhang for every ten households, and one baozhang for every ten jia. If a village was scattered and the number of households did not reach the required number, they were organized according to the smaller number.
As the representative of power through which state authority extended its administrative reach into rural society, the baojia organization had three main administrative powers: First, it bore defensive security duties. "Every ten households formed a jia, and a jia had a head; every ten jia formed a bao, and a bao had a zheng. All people within a jia were each to have one weapon, the jiazhang one gong, and the baozheng one drum, or one musket." Second, it compiled tax registers as the basis for collecting taxes. Each baozhang and jiazhang was responsible for investigating the number of fields, grain, and adult males, compiling the yellow registers, and straightening out the relationship between land and households. "Each provincial administration commissioner was to strictly order the circuit and prefecture officials, who in turn were to order the prefectures and counties, to check against the old registers, assign responsibility to the baojia, and clarify item by item." Third, it maintained rural public order. "One who serves as baojia is thereby an official servant. For all matters in the villages under his jurisdiction, the local official shall hold this servant solely responsible." "If within a jia there are thieves, heterodox teachings, gambling, gambling paraphernalia, harboring fugitives, adultery and abduction, private minting and selling of private salt on both sides, trafficking in saltpeter and sulfur, and privately establishing names and collecting money for gatherings, as well as suspicious strangers with secretive conduct, the person shall be ordered to investigate and report on these exclusively."
The baojia organizations established in the Tujia region were an extension and concretization of the functions of prefectural and county authority, and a powerful tool for the Qing Dynasty to rule the countryside and strengthen centralized power. After the tusi regime exited the stage of history, in the face of changes in the original power structure of rural society and the disappearance of the original authoritative forces, the Qing Dynasty quickly found a new institution—the baojia system—as a replacement for the tusi system to rebuild the ruling order and power structure of Tujia rural society. It should be affirmed that this system once played a certain positive role in maintaining the stability and development of Tujia society.
II. The Impact of the Baojia System on Tujia Society
The baojia system was a control system by which state authority obtained maximum benefit at minimum cost in the face of a highly dispersed and settled traditional rural society. It made rural social management formally an indispensable component of the operation of the political system, and public power could intrude into and control every level and every stratum of rural society without restriction. This system had a certain impact on the changes in the sociopolitical structure of Tujia society and on changes in ways of social life.
The baojia system broke through the original clan forces in Tujia society and realized direct intervention and management of rural society by state authority. "In agriculturally developed areas, especially in the south, blood relations expanded into clans. Political power and wealth were linked through bloodline clans, constituting one of the most important characteristics of Chinese rural society." For a society long closed off like the Tujia region, the long-term combination of bloodline factors and clan forces formed a powerful force that excluded any external authoritative power, so that the intervention of state authority often failed in this region. The establishment of baojia organizations provided or cultivated an ideal attachment body that combined the role of an authoritative carrier with that of an intermediary between upper and lower levels, finding a medium for communication between state authority and rural society. Moreover, the baojia organization, in which residents directly participated, could free them from the control of clan forces and make them relatively free political persons. Therefore, the establishment of the baojia system increased the strength and depth of the expansion of state authority into rural society.
The establishment of the baojia system provided an institutional foundation for the emergence of the gentry stratum and gentry rule. The baojia system relied on publicly recommending worthy and capable men to ensure the management of rural society: "For the baozhang, the person who should serve in the baojia organization was selected first as baozhang, baozheng, and jiazhang, and appointed after the baojia was organized. The method of selecting the baozhang was first to issue a notice, stating that the baozhang would oversee the baozheng and had duties of investigating bandits, fugitives, and evildoers, and would be treated with exceptional and extraordinary courtesy and exempted from various miscellaneous corvée duties. Each township recommended two persons, one principal and one deputy, as candidates and reported them to the county; the county magistrate carefully reviewed their letters of recommendation, summoned them to the county hall... examined their responses, and selected the most competent of the two, and on a certain month and day held a public appointment ceremony." It can thus be seen that the baojia system provided moderate space for the growth of gentry power. As the elite group of rural society, the gentry stratum could use the baojia organization to display individual talent, fully exert personal influence, and serve as organizers and representatives of public affairs in rural society. Therefore, in the Tujia region during the late Qing period, the gentry became, for a certain period, a major political resource in the power system of rural society, and their role in promoting the modernization process of Tujia society cannot be underestimated.
The establishment of the baojia system also had a certain impact on the economic life of Tujia society, providing institutional conditions for individual ownership of land. The baojia system realized the separation of the tax system from the registration and review of households and adult males. Land was legally confirmed as belonging to specific possessors, and the state did not adopt the method of direct deprivation to strip land owners of their right to possess land. Taking the household as the basic unit of production and consumption and taking land possession and the amount possessed as the basis for tax collection simplified the economic relations of rural society, and its social consequences were twofold: on the one hand, landlords used their economic advantages to rise gradually as the ruling class of rural society; on the other hand, owner-cultivators and small peasants, having lost their land, became the ruled objects of the landlord class. These two opposing classes, landlords and peasants, linked by land, thus gained space for development within this political structure of rural society, and consequently the economic formation of Tujia society inevitably had to realize the transformation from a feudal lord economy to a feudal landlord economy.