Chapter Ninety-Nine: Luquan County

A heavy snowfall blanketed the vast fields and mountains. The winter wheat, sown in August, now held the promise of a bountiful harvest for the small farmers. Compared to the biting wind outside, the carriage interior was as warm as spring, yet the hand-warmer held in Zhen Qian’s arms could not melt the icy chill in his heart.

As the wheels creaked over the remnant snow, Wang Peng, who was driving, cracked his whip in the air. "Young Master, we are about to reach the county seat. Shall we head to the magistrate's office first, or return to the residence?"

Every time Zhen Qian visited the county seat, he would stay for two or three days. He not only had to inspect his shops but also enjoyed wandering through the slave market. Naturally, staying at an inn was neither as comfortable nor as convenient as staying in his own home.

Luquan County enjoyed excellent transportation, with the Luquan, Taiping, Hutuo, Qingshui, Xiao, and Jin Rivers, as well as the ancient canal, forming a major north-south arterial network. With boats shuttling to and fro, goods flowing freely, and merchants gathering in crowds, the town's prosperity was not inferior to Zhending, the seat of Heng Prefecture.

In the Tang Dynasty, the rank of a prefecture or county was determined by the number of households, which in turn corresponded to the rank of its officials. A prefecture with over 20,000 households was a middle-tier prefecture, while one with over 30,000 was a top-tier prefecture; those governed by princes were also considered top-tier. For counties, those with over 6,000 households were top-tier, over 3,000 were middle-tier, and under 3,000 were lower-middle-tier. Special administrative districts, such as those in the capital or strategic border regions, were classified regardless of household numbers, typically as top-tier. Border counties were graded slightly differently: over 5,000 households for top-tier, over 2,000 for middle-tier, and over 1,000 for lower-middle-tier.

The Tang Dynasty comprised 358 prefectures and 1,557 counties, with the chief official of a county known as the magistrate. The scale of administration and the official's rank were determined by geography and status. Important counties near the capital were called "Capital Counties" or "Red Counties." Others were categorized as "Metropolitan," "Prominent," or "Strategic" based on their regional conditions. More commonly, however, they were ranked into four grades—top, middle, lower-middle, and lower—based on land area, population, and tax revenue. Large counties like Wannian, Chang'an, Henan, Luoyang, Taiyuan, and Jinyang were "Capital Counties," with magistrates holding the rank of Regular Fifth Grade, equivalent to the mayors of sub-provincial cities like Shenzhen, Xiamen, Dalian, Qingdao, or Wuhan in later ages. Counties governed by the three major prefectures of Jingzhao, Henan, and Taiyuan were "Town Counties," with magistrates at the Regular Sixth Grade, akin to the mayors of prefecture-level cities. Magistrates of top-tier counties in various prefectures held the Sub-Sixth Grade, similar to mayors of county-level cities like Xiantao, Tianmen, or Qianjiang in Hubei. Magistrates of middle-tier, lower-middle, and lower counties held the Regular Seventh, Sub-Seventh, and Regular Eighth Grades, respectively—merely equivalent to modern town mayors. Thus, not every county magistrate was a "small seventh-rank official."

With over 6,000 households, Luquan was a top-tier county, and its magistrate held the Regular Sixth Grade.

A top-tier county was staffed by one magistrate, one sheriff, and one or two county assistants and clerks. These were the officials. The county office also employed various functionaries: four household registration officers, seven record keepers, and one accounting clerk (with additional staff for larger populations). There were four judicial officers, eight record keepers, ten prison wardens, four investigators, ten bailiffs, one market inspector, one assistant, one clerk, two guards, and two warehouse supervisors. With one educational instructor, one assistant teacher, and forty students, the total staff exceeded one hundred.

The Tang household registration system served two primary purposes: ensuring the collection of taxes and corvée labor, and exercising social control. After establishing a dynasty, one of the first tasks was to count and register the population.

When declaring household information, citizens had to undergo a process called "Tuanmao." Inherited from the Sui Dynasty’s "Appearance Inspection," this required the county office to verify the age and appearance of everyone in the household to prevent people from falsifying ages or feigning disabilities to evade taxes and labor. Once verified, the age was noted in the records: "Yellow" for children under 3, "Small" for those under 15, "Medium" for those under 20, "Adult" for males over 21, and "Old" for those over 60. Reaching adulthood meant the obligation to perform labor and pay taxes.

Tang household records also noted physical traits, such as skin color, height, and facial features. Descriptions like "limp in the right foot, small mole under the ear, black spot on the face" were standard. In an age without photography, these descriptions served the same purpose as a photo, preventing fraud and providing leads for the pursuit of fugitives—an indicator of the sophistication of the Tang registration system.

To Zhen Qian, however, the system remained imperfect. Many hidden households were impossible to count; children born to servants or slaves were simply absorbed into the internal household count, and populations in remote mountains and marshes remained entirely disconnected from the outside. Even the locals likely had no idea how many people truly lived there.

Most Tang prefectures and counties were modeled after Chang'an, albeit on a much smaller scale. Though he had never seen the grandeur of Chang'an, Luquan County consisted of sixteen wards, with the widest streets running east-west and north-south through the center. The county office sat to the north. The entire town was wider from east to west than from north to south, measuring four <i>li</i> at its widest and three <i>li</i> at its narrowest.

The ward-market structure in Luquan was strictly organized. Wards were residential, while markets were commercial. Generally, each county seat had one market; Chang'an had two. Markets were organized into rows or "trades," often referred to as the "thirty-six trades," "seventy-two trades," or even "three hundred and sixty trades," where shops of the same industry were concentrated to facilitate trade.

The modern term for "market" originated here. Markets were managed by dedicated officials under strict regulations. To facilitate management, "trade leaders" were appointed by the county office or elected by the guilds themselves.

This ward-market system began to loosen by the end of the Tang Dynasty and collapsed completely after the mid-Northern Song Dynasty.

Originally designed for effective urban management and military function, the system strictly separated markets from residential wards, enclosing residential areas with walls and implementing neighborhood surveillance, curfews, and gate-locking policies to control the populace.

The Tang government also decreed that "markets shall not be established outside of prefectural or county seats," ignoring the realities of economic development and consumer needs—a fact clearly evidenced by the proliferation of "grass markets" in the late Tang.

Nevertheless, this system had many merits. Categorizing goods into specialized trades facilitated both management and trade. Strict control of weights and measures protected transaction order and consumer rights. Quality control and the prohibition of illegal profiteering helped maintain market integrity. Furthermore, regulations regarding the repair of market gates and the prohibition of public disturbances helped maintain a stable environment.

From the perspective of early Tang social development, the ward-market system essentially met the economic needs of urban residents and played a positive role in the recovery and growth of the early urban economy, even if it eventually became obsolete as the economy outgrew its structure.