This thesis has been prepared in order to identify the governing principles of the Northern Wei Dynasty for migrating people, and to clarify the reason for the establishment of Zuo-jun-Xian on the border with the South Dynasty. In Contrast to the Sout...
This thesis has been prepared in order to identify the governing principles of the Northern Wei Dynasty for migrating people, and to clarify the reason for the establishment of Zuo-jun-Xian on the border with the South Dynasty. In Contrast to the South Dynasty(南朝) which governed the immigrant Barbarians indirectly and collectively, the Northern Wei used the methods of forced removal and tribe dissolution to govern them in the structure of household organization. There have been some studies which cast doubt on the effectiveness of the dissolution of tribes and insist that it was a limited strategy with shortcomings. However, like most of the other Dynasties of Nomadic Peoples, the Northern Wei which wanted to establish a Dynasty adapted
from Chinese civilization probably had to adopt 'household organization' of all the tribes as an aim.
However, unlike the governing principle for the Northern Barbarians, the governing of the Man tribe which migrated from the South Dynasty was dealt with by the establishment of Zuo-jun-xian. Zuo-jun-xian was a special administrative organization which controlled the assignment of power to their chief and recognized the autonomy of tribes. It appears that Zuo-jun-xian designated their chief as Ci-shi(刺史) to assure the people's protection and gave him the title of General to allow a degree of power.
Analysis suggests that originally the Zuo-jun-xian was introduced by the South Dynasty which had a weaker command of governing power to pacify the Man tribe. But Zuo-jun-xian is also found in Northern Wei. The setting up of Zuo-jun-xian by the Northern Wei had two purposes; one was to use it as a military force, and the other was to absorb the refugees from the South Dynasty into this politically loose space along the border.