The lobby——the place where the county magistrates try cases
Ye County was the territory of Yuzhou in ancient times, the Zhou Dynasty was the Yinghou State, and it belonged to Chu in the Spring and Autumn Period. "Ye Yi".
Yexian County Government is located on the north side of East Street in Yexian County. The entire building consists of 41 units and 153 rooms on the central axis and east-west side lines, covering an area of ??16,848 square meters. On both sides of the county government gate are eight-character walls extending outward. According to "Baopu Zi Neipian", "Shiyun Yao's eyebrows were eight-color, otherwise, his brows were straight and very erect, like eight-shaped ears." That is to say, in the legend, Yao's eyebrows grew into an inverted figure, which looked very harsh. The figure-eight walls were built on both sides of the county government gate to take its symbolic meaning and use it to set off the solemnity and sacredness of the county government building.
Most of the chief executives are of the fifth grade.
“The Yexian county government is different from other county governments. The official titles of serving officials can be seen from the buildings of the county government. To a layman, You can’t see this,” said Zheng Xiaopei, the county government tour guide who accompanied the author on February 3. The gate of the county government office is a hard-mounted structure building with a width of three bays. It is red in color and is set off by tall and straight green lacquered door pillars. It is intimidating and shows the majesty of the ancient county-level political institutions. In ancient times, people used to refer to county-level officials as Qipin Zhima officials, but Ye County had served as the capital of Ying State and Xu State as early as the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and had a higher historical status. In addition, in the Han Dynasty, Ye County was composed of Kunyang and It was formed by the merger of Hongyang, Wuyang, Guye and so on. It has a large population and pays more than 100,000 dan in grain rent to the country every year. Therefore, most of the chief executives who came to serve here during the Ming and Qing Dynasties had the title of Tongzhi or the fifth rank. According to the regulations of "History of the Ming Dynasty", the Yexian county government can enjoy the treatment of three gates and blue-green door pillars.
There is a large black lacquered plaque above the gate of the county government office with the words "Ye County County Office" written on it. There is a couplet below the plaque, "Heaven listens to the people, God sees and the people see, people drown and they drown, people starve and they starve", which was written by Ouyang Lin, the magistrate of Ye County in the sixth year of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty, when he first took office. The couplet is easy to understand, except for the word "drown" in the second couplet, which expresses the magnanimous mind of one parent and official who is willing to accept supervision from the masses and share the joys and sorrows with the people. In the feudal era when "the yamen gate opened to the south, and no one came in if they had reason or no money", this undoubtedly played a very positive role in establishing the image of the political institutions and strengthening communication and exchanges with the people.
Xiao Cao Temple is the Zhengtu Temple to solemnly observe the discipline
Enter through the gate. On both sides are the places where the three ancient "Zao, Zhuang and Kuai" yamen were on duty and the watchmen lived - —Class room. If there are people beating drums to complain about grievances, the yamen on duty here will ask about the situation and report it to the county magistrate for handling as appropriate. Next to the main gate is the Yimen, which is three rooms wide. The middle gate is usually closed and can only be opened whenever the new emperor ascends the throne, during national celebrations, or when a new official takes office. The setting up of the Yimen means "there are rituals to imitate", which not only reminds the county magistrate to set an example for the people, but also adds a bit of rigor to the county government. On the east and west sides of Yimen, there is also a urinal gate, which are called "Life Gate" and "Death Gate" respectively. Prisoners summoned to enter and exit usually pass through the Gate of Life, but the Gate of Death on the west side is only opened on the day of execution of the condemned prisoner. The prisoner is pushed out by the Yamen to be executed, so it is also called the "Ghost Gate".
On both sides of the Gate of Life and the Gate of Death, there is a small building on each side. Immediately to the east of the Shengmen Gate is the "Xiao Cao Temple", which enshrines Xiao He and Cao Shen, the famous prime ministers of the Western Han Dynasty. Because of their good governance, Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, asked all levels of government offices across the country to build Xiao Cao temples after he proclaimed himself emperor. He went to the temple regularly to worship, learn from the political methods of the two prime ministers Xiao and Cao, and benefit the people; on the west side of the Death Gate is the Earth Temple. Because Zhu Yuanzhang was born in a Earth Temple in Xuyi County (originally Anhui, now Jiangsu), so He had a special feeling for the Earth Temple, so after he became emperor, he ordered all government offices across the country to build a Earth Temple to worship the Earth God. Firstly, he wanted to repay his kindness, and secondly, because Zhu Yuanzhang attached great importance to rectifying officialdom, he stipulated that corrupt officials should be punished. Punishments such as "skinning and pulling grass" and "eating the intestines" of officials were usually carried out in front of Tutu Temple, so Tutu Temple became synonymous with discipline.
The sunken kneeling stone bears witness to hundreds of years of history
Passing through the ceremony gate is the lobby. Except for major events and ceremonies held here, the lobby is mainly used as a place for county magistrates to hear cases, which is equivalent to the current court trial hall. What caught the author's attention is a quartzite kneeling stone in front of the lobby. This is a person who complained in ancient times. The one used for kneeling on one leg is a real cultural relic of the Ming Dynasty. After more than 600 years of friction and wind and rain erosion, obvious dents have appeared on the kneeling stone, which has become a testament to the long history of Yexian County Government.
Zheng Xiaopei told the author that when the county government was rebuilt in 1997, this kneeling stone was not found. At that time, the foundation was more than one meter higher than the kneeling stone. The kneeling stone was only exposed when the foundation was being cleaned. In front of the kneeling stone, there is a brick pavement preserved from the Ming Dynasty. Although the large bricks have long been weathered, the sunken ground still seems to allow people to see the actions of the accuser before kneeling hundreds of years ago: According to the regulations at the time, People who complain in the lobby must stamp their feet and straighten their clothes before kneeling down to express their grievances.
There is also a row of half-red and half-black wooden sticks in the lobby. When entering the hall, the yamen servants stood on both sides of the county magistrate holding wooden sticks. In the past, they always thought that this wooden stick was used to beat prisoners, but this time You know, this rod is not a torture instrument, but a ceremonial rod that symbolizes justice and the distinction between black and white. According to the regulation of "Left with civility and right with military power", the east and west sides of the lobby were equipped with "officials, households, etiquette" departments and "military, criminal, and industrial" departments respectively. They were the gathering place for all functional agencies in the county at that time.
According to the regulations of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the number of staff in the sixth and sixth departments of the county government who enjoyed the fifth-grade treatment could not exceed 20 per day. Therefore, at that time, there were only 3 staff members in each department of Ye County. It seems that "Equipment of troops and simplicity of administration" indeed has a long history.
In the middle of the lobby is the picture of "sunrise at rising sea water", which symbolizes the upright and upright political image of the county magistrate. Inlaid on the purlin in the middle of the top of the lobby is an inscription from Ouyang Lin who renovated the lobby in the eighth year of Tongzhi's reign in the Qing Dynasty: In April of the eighth year of Tongzhi's reign in the Qing Dynasty, in April of the same year, Tongzhi, the magistrate of Zhongmu County, was transferred to Ye County. Ze Ouyang Lin's reconstruction movement was supervised by Du Heci, a native of the city with the same title as the head of the household department. This inscription has witnessed the vicissitudes of the county government's history for hundreds of years. In the feudal era when the saying "officials did not build government offices" was widely circulated, it is even more precious that it has been preserved with the ancient county government to this day.
The origin of "walking through the door"
Immediately after the lobby is the house door, which is the barrier from the lobby to the second and third halls. It has a rigorous meaning, but it is not what we usually think of. Said residential door. The door of the house is usually closed and is only opened when welcoming important guests and holding major celebrations. All government staff enter and exit through the side door. In addition, because the second hall and the third hall were offices where officials gathered in ancient times, ordinary people could not enter and exit at will. Therefore, there was a concierge on both sides of the house door, which was guarded by a door guard (commonly known as "menzi"), responsible for the interrogation and inspection of visitors. Report, so it is inevitable that some disciples will be greedy for profit and take advantage of their positions to blackmail people for personal gain. This is the origin of the "grooming" in ancient times. In "A Dream of Red Mansions", the disciple who provided the "talisman" to Jia Yucun did this job. It would be difficult to get through here without providing the disciple with an offering.
The second hall is five rooms wide. There is a couplet on the eaves column in the middle, "Nourish the righteousness of heaven and earth, and perfect the laws of ancient and modern people."
It means to promote justice in the world and learn from ancient and modern virtues. people. There are four screen doors in the middle of the second hall. Above the screen door is a large plaque with gold characters "Qing, Prudence, Diligence", which is taken from the words of Sima Zhao of Wei State during the Three Kingdoms period: "Those who serve as officials should be Qing, Prudence and Diligence". If you practice these three things diligently, why not cure it?" Emperor Kangxi personally wrote this plaque and ordered it to be hung in all prefectures, prefectures, and counties across the country.
"Without Shao, there is no Yamen"
Enter the third courtyard and there are three halls. There is a striking and special couplet on both sides: "The past and the past, the past and the present, the past and the past, the past and the present." "Ancient and modern", tour guide Zheng Xiaopei said, it has no fixed explanation, it uses limited changes of two words to open up people's unlimited imagination space, which is very thought-provoking.
Santang, also known as the magistrate's house, is the office of the magistrate and the staff and masters who are close to the magistrate. In ancient times, officials adopted a system of avoidance when taking office, and they usually served in foreign lands hundreds of miles away from home. When the local governor took office, he did not understand the local customs and customs, so he needed to hire some people with great literary talent, familiarity with the officialdom, and resourcefulness to make suggestions for him. The recruited staff and masters are not on-the-job officials, but the magistrate often "respects the curtain as a teacher", and their compensation is the red envelopes sent regularly by the magistrate, which are usually very generous. During the Qing Dynasty, the people of Shaoxing were very resourceful and had many court operators. Many local officials liked to hire them, so there was a saying that "a government office cannot be established without Shao".
Today's Ye County government office still displays some brief lists of officials who served in Ye County. The first county Yin (called Yin in the Spring and Autumn Period) was Shen Zhuliang. It can be seen from the brief lists of these officials that in the existing records, the more than 200 officials who took office from the Northern Song Dynasty to the Republic of China were all from other provinces. The official titles of county officials also range from county Yin, county magistrate, and county magistrate to governor and county magistrate.
Zheng Xiaopei said that the main structures of the county government lobby, second hall, and third hall are all preserved buildings from the Ming Dynasty, so Ye County County Government is the only Ming Dynasty county government in the country.
The wells of the Ming Dynasty are well preserved
Yexian County Government is composed of three parts of the building complex: the central axis and the east and west side lines. In addition to the above buildings on the central axis, On the east side of the auxiliary line, from south to north, there are also buildings such as prison cells, kitchen courtyards and the magistrate's house. The prison cell was in use from its initial construction until the Republic of China, as evidenced by the unearthed stone tablets. The various instruments of punishment in the prison make people deeply feel the brutality of the officials of that era. The kitchen courtyard is the place where the staff of the government office have their daily meals. The deep ancient well from the Ming Dynasty in the courtyard has been preserved to this day. From the outside, the ancient well is more than ten meters deep and the water is as clear as a mirror. Today, the ancient well has become a cultural relic and has been protected. Standing next to the ancient well, you can still see the scene of ancient cooks fetching water and washing vegetables here.
The only county government with a rolling shed
The ancient county government buildings can be said to be basically the same. However, in front of the lobby of the Yexian county government, you can see a long and narrow shed-style building. The building is connected to it, which is the roll shed. The rolling shed is an architectural form derived from the worship halls in palaces and temples. When used in government offices, it has become a symbol of the status of officials. Since most magistrates of Ye County during the Ming and Qing Dynasties enjoyed the title of Tongzhi (the fifth rank), the rolling shed here is a reflection of their high-level official titles in the architectural form.
It is worth mentioning that Yexian County Government is the only existing county government in my country that has rolling sheds, especially the "gutter and rafter hook connection" used at the connection between the rolling shed and the front eaves of the lobby. The overlapping method is even rarer in ancient Chinese woodworking technology.
On the pillars of the rolling shed, there is a saying: "It is no honor to gain an official position, and it is no disgrace to lose an official position. Don't say that an official position is useless. The place depends on one official. Eat the food of the people and wear the clothes of the people. There is no way." The couplets "The common people can be deceived, but you are also the common people" and "The mountains are strong, gold and silver are treasured by not being greedy; the rivers are surrounded by iron and stone, but we are united as one", which profoundly express the expectations of officials from the imperial court to the common people.
From the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China to the early 1970s, the Yexian County Government Office has always been the office of the county government. After the county government was relocated in the early 1970s, the county government office became the office space of the county education bureau, library, theater troupe, and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, as well as the residence of some employees. It was not until restoration began that these units were moved out. In 1997, Yexian County invested 6.4 million yuan and began to carry out rescue restoration of the county government office. The entire restoration work strictly followed the principle of restoring the old as before, and better preserved the architectural style of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In order to increase the cultural connotation of the county government and improve its ornamental value, a county government museum cultural relics exhibition room with a construction area of ??473 square meters has been built to display more than 300 pieces (sets) of cultural relics collected and unearthed in Ye County since the founding of the People's Republic of China, including more than 50 The pieces are unique to the whole country. The newly unearthed bronze chimes are particularly precious. Today, 2,500 years later, this set of chimes can still play a variety of Chinese and foreign music, which is amazing.