Province (Themiclesia)
A province (郡, guns) is a type of local administrative unit in Themiclesia. In modern practice, they are typically less-urban areas, economically rural, but may contain small towns. As a local government, it possesses powers over social services, transport, sanitation, education, and culture, within the confines of national statutes, and some powers are shared with village councils and committees. The nominal head of a prefecture is a viceroy appointed by the central government, but executive and legislative powers are always vested in democratically accountable individuals or organizations, which may vary in name or structure from province to province.
History
Tsins
The word guns, translated into Anglian as "province", is etymologically a *s- derivative of ghur (尹) meaning "to control, govern" in the verbial sense, and "lord, lady" in the nominal. ghur is attested early in Themiclesian history as a general title of political elite, including the royal consort, who is regularly called hwang-ghur (皇尹), "glorious lady". But guns appears to be a later borrowing from Menghe, as the -r and -n endings had merged as -n there, and as the character is always written with a determiner, which is a practice more common in Menghe Mengja than in Themiclesia.
The earliest known provinces is considered to be the North Province and South Province, dating to 281 CE under Patriarch ′An of Tsins (安百), who was declared the Hegemon Lord after his father had received the homage of the four states in 256. The land that constituted these provinces had belonged to some barons that rebelled between 277 and 280. The rebels were defeated, their lands confiscated, and ′An proceeded to arrogate more control over the military powers of barons appointed to replace the rebels. They were directed to share those powers with a "commandant" (㷉) as royal representative. Two more provices, Inner Province and Outer Province, appeared late in the 3rd century, corresponding to the east and west of the Tsins realm, but the chief officer was a not a commandant but a viceroy (守).
It is a matter of debate if the a viceroy's roles were substantively different than a commandant's. Some scholars believe there was no difference at all, since available historical information suggest that both kinds of officials were in change of military affairs, but others note that the subsequent evolution of provincial governance required both a viceroy and commandant, arguing that they were not only distinct, but complementary. Martin (1968) argues that commandants had jurisdiction over only baronies and hence military affairs, while viceroys oversaw certain royal manors and workshops, thus giving them purview over finance; he asserts that taxation records from baronial villages in a commandant province were forwarded to the Exchequer directly, without the commandant's intercession, while those in a viceregal province submitted to the viceroy. Lately, however, evidence contrary to both of Martin's observations have been reported, re-opening the debate amongst scholars.
In ceremonial terms, a viceroy outranked a commandant in the royal court's seating plan, and only viceroys were addressed as "lord". It has also been calculated that commandants were replaced after only two years on average, while viceregal terms of office lasted 14 years on average, though the paucity of known tenures (22 commandants, 7 viceroys) and historiographic biases compromise the informativeness of this statistic.
In medieval historiography, it has been widely thought that the phrase qur-qrep (君邑) found on early bronze inscriptions represent an early implementation of provincial governance, and subsequent practices were derived from it. This argument rests upon the notion that the qur-qrep represents a lord's personal land that, due to their absence from it, must be governed remotely, entailing the appointment of a representative. This position was subsequently rejected in the 17th century on the grounds that, philologically, qur cannot be exegeted as guns, and because the Themiclesian province is much similar to its Menghean-dynasty analogue and is even written the same way. They concluded that the Themiclesian province was a derivative of the Meng-dynasty province.
However, this conclusion has also been re-appraised by modern historians, on the grounds that many details of provincial governance in Themiclesia is not directly analogous to that of the Meng-dynasty province, and some characteristics, such as relationship between the commandant and baron, are probably reflections of Themiclesian political realities rather than a pure import from the Meng dynasty.
Sung and Rang
In the Sung period, the four provinces of the Tsins empire were retained in place.