试析萧梁官班制度下的诸县分等

分析萧梁一代县官选任和调动案例可知,“县制七班”“大县六班”是当时客观存在的制度。但在制度的实际运行过程中,许多县官都会出现超班用人,即任职者官资超过县官对应内职班次的现象。正史所见高班大县全部位于扬、南徐二州境内,且主要隶属南朝国家腹心地区的丹阳、吴、吴兴、会稽等郡,这与史书记事的偏向性不无关系,但同时也是上述地区政治地理条件的直观反映。影响县官班次的最主要因素是人口,结合其他制度推测,等第最高的六班大县有可能是以领民满五千户为定等标准。探索县官班次,也可增进对当时人口地理的认知。

An Analysis of the Classification of Counties Under the Official Rank System of the Liang Dynasty

Analyzing the cases of selection and transfer of county officials in the Liang Dynasty (502-557 AD), the system can be characterized by the rules of “Counties divide into seven classes” and “Officials of large counties equal those at the sixth class” existed at that time. In the actual operation of the system, many county officials were employed below the proper class, i.e. it was common for the seniority of the county officials to exceed the rank of the county. The counties of high rank seen in the official history were all located within the territory of Yangzhou, Nanxuzhou, and mainly belonged to the prefectures of Danyang, Wu, Wuxing and Kuaiji, which were the heartland of the empire. This is not only a result of the bias of history books, but also a direct reflection of the political conditions in the above-mentioned areas. The most important factor influencing the official’s rank of each county is its population. Taking other factors into consideration, it is believed that the highest-ranking counties which were at the sixth class may have been classified by the criterion of having 5 000 households. The analysis of the rank of each county can also improve our knowledge of the population distribution at that time.