<論説>南宋における新県の成立 : 江西・江浙・広東を中心として

Abstract

小論は、南宋における新県成立過程の実態究明を通じて、県をめぐる地域住民と官府との関係を検討し、基本的な地域単位である県のあり方を多角的に捉えるための具体像を提示するものである。凡そ二〇例ほど確認される南宋期の新県は、歴代王朝において県総数に大きな変化がみられないことから、これまで十分に省みられることがなかった。しかし、江西・江浙・広東における主要な事例を検討すると、新県の多くは、税役負担の不均衡や治安悪化に苦しむ当該住民の要望と協力を背景として成立し、その意向に大きく影響されていたことがわかる。さらに、その経緯は様々なかたちで後世に伝えられ、住民と協調的な知県と在地の読書人層を軸として県政の確立していく様子が顕示された。以上のような新県における状況は、特定住民による地方政治への積極的な関与が地域全体の安定・発展に有利にはたらくこともあった、南宋時代の基本的性格の一環として理解できるのである。

In this paper, the actual process in which the county (縣), in the Southern Song, was established will be studied. Through this study, interests of the inhabitants and the government of a community will be discussed within the framework of the county, and a concrete image of the county will be presented from multiple angles so that readers will grasp the characteristics of the county as a basic community unit. The new counties established in the Southern Song, twenty or so of which are known to have existed, have never been studied thoroughly due to the stability in number that the counties maintained throughout the successive dynasties. Close observation of major cases in the Jiang xi, the Jiang Zhe and the Guang dong regions, however, revealed that most new counties, since they were located on outskirts of established counties, were established with the cooperation of the inhabitants who were longing for new counties as relief from heavy tax carrying burdens or from the deteriorating public peace. Therefore, the new countries were subject to the inhabitants' wiil to a considerable extent. In addition, stories relating to the circumstances under which these counties were established were handed down for posterity in various forms, and how a magistrate sympathetic to inhabitants together with residential literati as the central figures established a county government was depicted. These situations in the new counties then are quite understandable as historical facts consistent with the fundamental characteristics of the Southern Song Period, when positive involvement of inhabitants in the administration played certain roles in the continuance and development of local society.