Abstract:

The contest for heavenly mandate and legitimacy is an important feature of the Three Kingdoms Period. In order to declare their legitimacy, the States Wei, Shu and Wu not only used the ceremony of abdication, sublimed fetes and other etiquettes, but also took advantage of the symbolization in their local administrative plans. The thirteen-state system had been performed for a long time in the Eastern Han Dynasty. In the 18^th year of Jian'an(213 C.E.), CAO Cao changed the local administrative system from thirteen-state to nine-state with reference to Yu Gong in order to increase his influence as the state governor of Jizhou. During the period that the Han Dynasty was replaced by the Wei, CAO Pei, to declare that the Wei power inherit the legitimacy of the Eastern Han Dynasty, restored to the thirteen-state system and continued the actual enfeoffment in the Eastern Han Dynasty, locating fiefdoms in certain areas under administration. In the early years of the States Wu and Shu, the Emperors also "restored" to the thirteen-state system of the Eastern Han Dynasty to declare their legitimacy. However, the territories of the States Wu and Shu were smaller, so that some virtual "states" and "fiefdoms" were established outside their boundaries. The different ways to embody the order of Tianxia in local administrative systems in the Three Kingdoms Period set paradigms for the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Sixteen Kingdoms Period.

Key words: thirteen-state system, legitimacy theory, governor of a prefecture, feudal territory