赤木 崇敏

As one device for maintaining its imperial order, the Tang Dynasty set up a communication system based on the official documents. The collection of Tang period official documents dating through the first half of the eighth century, which were unearthed from Central Asia, provides us with precious information about the document administration and the administrative mechanism of Tang Dynasty. The research to date has focused on categorizing the formats of the unearthed documents in correlation to the official formula code (公式令) and analyzing their typology and function. However because the code itself outlines document format consistency and coherence under ideal conditions, this research has left open the issue of how the system functioned (or did not function) in actual administrative agencies. Moreover, the research tends to concentrate on document administration of the central bureaucracy, especially that of drawing edicts and disseminating them downward, while leaving the clarification of how documents were handled on the local level virtually untouched. This article examines the. formats, functions and routes of Central Asian collection in order to reconstruct the overall image of document administration in Turfan region as follows. 1. From the facts that 1) three documents formats specified in the code, 解式,移式,刺式 were substituted with other noncode formats 牒式,帖式,状式 and that 2) an additional format 申式 as a request for reply to符式 was added to the documentation flow in Turfan, the ideal document administration norms set by the Tang central bureaucracy did not trickle down to local administrative agencies, which rather set up their own documentation schemes in accordance with regional needs. 2. Since Turfan was mainly a military stronghold with many army installations, its administration involved a complicated system of both civil and military involvement in local affairs, the Turfan prefectural government (県) plays an important role to supervise the subordinate organizations (Assault-resisting Garrison 折衝府 and Defense Command 鎮守軍 etc.) as regards conscription, management of census registration, control of traffic facilities, and document administration. 3. Historically, document administration at the local level in terms of format and function has the common feature in the Song period of posterity. The Song documentation system succeeded to not the official formula code of Tang, but rather emphasized simplification of the existing documentation system.