The Role Played By County Official Of Gansu Province In Qing Dynasty-on The Emphasis Of Tongzhi’s Reign

County, which is the basic unit of administrative regions in Qing Dynasty, itsofficial plays a significant role in the performance of state power. No governmentalorganizations were set below the level of county according to the setup of the regimeat the time, as a Chinese saying goes,“Imperial power keeps away with county”.Therefore, the county-level officials have always been called people’s officer orterritorial officer. At the7th year of Emperor Kangxi(1668), Gansu was set out ofShaanxi as a formal province. It had been discoverd that a lower threshold within thecounty official appointment policy was exerted by central government duringTongzhi’s reign, by focusing on the analysis of their class origins, native placesdistribution and term of office recorded by Jin Shen Quan Shu.Due to the narrow ethnic policies of Tongzhi’s reign, the Shaanxi-Gansu HuiRevolt, which involved in each county in Gansu, broke out in1862and was notrepressed by the central government after a decade until1873. During the revolt,the most majority of the county officials devoted themselves to the defense of theiradministrative regions, they had been actively mobilizing local militia and conductanti-rebellion actions but still, a very few county officials abandoned their towns andpeople, escaped for their own lives. The Revolt brought Gansu great impacts on itspolitics, economy and culture. Nonetheless, the County Officials in Gansu once againplayed a positive role during the post-revolt period. They made great efforts to restoresocial order and rebuild infrastructure, which had exerted a far-reaching influence onthe development and governance of Gansu and left precious practical experience ofgovernance for aftertime reference.