Jody
what does "law of avoidance"mean? If the Ch'ing Dynasty ignored its own law of avoidance and named scholar-officials as militia leaders, the upper gentry might transform their t'uan-lien into the constituents of a provincial military ma¬chine. Remembering the three feudatories' revolt in 1673, the Manchus easily conceived of such a situation encouraging regional secession from the empire, or even the birth of a rival dynasty headed by some prestigious Chinese official.
Oct 21, 2014 10:47 AM
Answers · 1
I think it was the law that officials could not serve/work as an official in their home state. Source http://www.learn.columbia.edu/nanxuntu/html/state/ The Rule of Avoidance and a Vision of Empire Recognizing that officials existed in these two "skins" -- one of official identity and one of local identity -- the bureaucratic system was organized to prevent, whenever possible, people from acting in their official capacity in such a way that it would unfairly benefit their home province. This was done through the "rule of avoidance," which stated that an official could not serve in his home province or even in a province adjacent to his own province. Officials also served in each position for a relatively short period of time (usually three years) before rotating to a new position. One might argue that when people are rotated out of their positions too soon they are unable to really understand what is going on in the area in which they are serving, but the benefit is that they never become too attached to one place or too supportive of interests that applied only to that place and not to the empire as a whole.
October 21, 2014
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