This book attempts to describe, analyze, and interpret the structure and functioning of local government at the chou and hsien levels in the Ch'ing dynasty. The chou and hsien were the units of local government that actually carried out administration and dealt directly with the people. An understanding of how they functioned can tell us much about how the populace was ruled in imperial China. Yet no systematic and comprehensive work on this subject has ever been published in Chinese, Japanese, or in any Western language. The few available studies on Chinese government have dealt either with the central government or with provincial government, which merely exercised a supervisory function over the administration of local government.