清代的乡官论与制度选择

Arguments on and Selection of Rural Official System in the Qing Dynasty

以隋唐时期废乡官为转折点,传统中国乡村治理经历了从乡官制到职役制的重大转变。明末清初,顾炎武等倡导“寓封建于郡县之中”,试图在县以下重建乡官体系,以弥补郡县制的缺失。此后乡官问题逐渐进入清朝官方视野,雍正君臣言论、地方志编纂及冯桂芬《校邠庐抗议》中皆有关于是否重设乡官的议论,戊戌变法时还曾波及几乎所有在京官员,而清末新政之时,讨论方式又为之一变。不同时段对乡官问题的争论重心不断转变,其背后涉及对清朝乡村行政体制架构的歧见,尤其进入晚清,传统乡官的思想资源得以重新激活,但已深受西方政治理论特别是地方自治思想的影响。围绕乡官的争论决定了清朝乡村治理的制度选择与政策走向,既呈现了清代国家政权建设试图进入乡村的复杂进程,也在一定程度上反映出近代以来中国乡村政权建设的内在困境。

Starting from the abolishment of rural offi cials in the Sui and Tang Dynasties,the traditional rural governance in ancient China went through great changes from rural offi cial system to the corvee system.In the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties,scholars headed by Gu Yanwu called for“developing feudalism through prefecture and county system”,trying to rebuild the rural offi cial system in areas below the county to fi ll the gap caused by the prefecture and county system.Since then,problems related to rural offi cials had begun to come into sight of the Qing government,and whether to reset these offi cials was always discussed by Emperor Yongzheng and his offi cials,and in local chronicles,and Jiaobinlu Kangyi(校邠庐抗议)by Feng Guifen.At the time,when the Hundred-Day Reform of 1898 took place,nearly all offi cials in the capital were involved in this discussion,which,however,was conducted in a different way in the late Qing period of the New Policy Reform.Despite the shift of the focus on the argument in different times,what was always involved behind was the prejudice against Qing’s rural administrative system,and in particular,ideological resources of the offi cials,even though activated in the period,were deeply infl uenced by western political theories and especially the idea of local self-government.The discussion with rural offi cials as objects plays a decisive role in system selection and policy trend of the rural governance,which not only shows a complicated process that the Qing government wanted to build its political power in rural areas but refl ects,to some degree,the internal diffi culty faced by rural power construction in modern China.