The Study On Dushuijian In The Northern Song Dynasty

Dushuijian was an important water conservancy administration in the Northern Song Dynasty. The reason why Dushuijian was set up is that, in the Northern Song Dynasty, the high-intensity of the flooding issue brought a great pressure to the government. The Dushuijian was founded in1058, it followed the organizational structure of the previous dynasty, which was perfectly organized. Under the Dushuijian, there were two divisions:the South Dushuijian, and the North Dushuijian. Under the South and the North Dushuijian, there were Di’ansi and the Hesaosi. The Northern Song government constantly adjusted its organizational forms depending on the conservancy situation. The officials of the Dushuijian have a low grade and they were frequently replaced and appointed by those individuals who were experienced in controlling rivers. There were a series of rewarding measures for evaluating conservancy officials by the Northern Song government to guarantee the performance of the conservancy work. Dushuijian was in charge of controlling rivers and making conservancy construction plans, evaluating and assessing the possibility of the plans which are proposed by conservancy officials of different levels. In the process of the governing work, the Dushuijian was in charge of supervising the construction, checking hydrologic situation and reporting to the government and oversighting the water conservancy officials in order to guarantee the quality of the conservancy work. Dushuijian made remarkable achievements on conservancy and positively influenced on the conservancy system in later dynasties. However, in the middle and late period of the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a conflicting between the Dushuijian and the Forwarding Magistrate for the conservancy governing rights. And the study of the Dushuijian also sheds light on understanding the disadvantages of the Northern Song political system such as unclear duties and responsibilities, overlapping organizations and the low administrative efficiency.