As pointed out in the previous answer, this Chinese character“州” in pictographic writing refers to the land in the middle of rivers, representing the basin of a river. The earliest book to use it to divide Chinese land was “Yu Gong” in the Book of Documents（《尚书·禹贡》）, whose name means “The Report of Yu（禹） to the Monarch”. Yu（禹） is a legendary ancient tribal leader in China, appointed as a flood control official by the leader of his tribal alliance, and solved the problem of floods that troubled everyone. He was elected as the next leader of the tribal alliance due to such achievements, and his son initiated China’s first monarchy with family inheritance. However, there is currently no evidence to prove that this book was written by him. He lived in the 20th century BC and is very old, making it difficult to believe that his works have been passed down. The existing book is generally believed to be a pseudonymous work that appeared around the 8th to 6th century BC.
This work divides the land where Chinese people live into nine parts, and each part can be roughly understood as a water conservancy management area with distinctive geographical features, just as Americans today divide their land into the north, south and west.
In 221 BC, Emperor Qin Shi Huang（秦始皇） unified the main territory of China and divided it into 36 juns(郡), the right side of the word ‘郡’ is “阝” represents a piece of land with a city, while the left side represents its pronunciation. The original meaning was land with officials. In the era before Emperor Qin Shi Huang（秦始皇）, various countries in China established Jun（郡） along their borders. These lands were not passed down from generation to generation to a particular noble, but were guarded by a noble appointed by the monarch. who has the power to replace them at any time. the prefect of Jun(郡) named Taishou（太守）,“太” means “great”, “守” means “defender”. Now Qin Shi Huang（秦始皇） established such a system throughout the country, personally appointing these chief defense officers.
100 years later, by the time of Emperor Han Wu（汉武帝）, there were already over 50 Jun（郡） in the country, making it difficult for the emperor to personally manage so many chief defense officers. So he remembered the book “Yu Gong” again and divided these more than 50 counties into 13 regulatory areas according to the principles in the book (some states were divided into two parts). Each region sends a Cishi（刺史）. “刺” meant “stab”, In ancient Chinese, its meaning was that the monarch killed his subjects, and then extended to supervise the work of his subjects. “史” meant officials responsible for handling documents, so we can translate “刺史” as “Supervisory secretary”.
“Supervisory secretary”. is the emperor’s full-time envoy, whose main job is to supervise the work of the chief defense officers and does not bear actual administrative responsibilities. In the Han Dynasty, there was no concept of official rank, and the comparison of official positions mainly relied on salary. The salary of the supervisory secretary is 600 “石” per year, which means he can receive approximately 300 bushels of grain per year, while the salary of the chief defense officer is 2000 “石” per year, which means an income of 1000 bushels per year. Therefore, although the supervisory secretary can supervise the work of the chief defense officer, the area under his jurisdiction is also larger than the area under his jurisdiction. But his income was lower, which in the Han Dynasty meant a lower rank. The use of lower ranking officials to supervise higher-level officials and granting greater power to lower ranking officials was the favorite political trick of ancient Chinese emperors.
In 195 AC, the situation changed again, and the then Emperor Hanling(汉灵帝) abolished the supervisory secretaries of each zhou(州) and established another official position – Zhoumu（州牧）. The meaning of “牧” is grazing. In pre Qin classics, grazing cattle and sheep is often used to metaphorically govern the people. In ancient China, emperors often referred to themselves as the guardians of the heavens, who grazed the people in the capacity of their representatives. So we can translate this official position Zhoumu（州牧） as the governor of the state.
Emperor Hanling(汉灵帝) was an emperor worthy of condemnation. His greed was rare in the world, and he carried out terrible exploitation of the people. His famous saying was “A thousand fish in the river is not as good as one fish in my hand”. So a religious leader used his religious organization to carry out the first premeditated uprising in Chinese history, and overnight, rebel forces appeared simultaneously in 28 Jun(郡) in the east. Although the emperor ultimately suppressed the uprising, he decided to abolish the supervisory secretary and establish a governor in order to eliminate the remaining rebels The governor is a true leader who has absolute control over the politics and military within the state, rather than a supervisory role. Chief defense officers must obey the governor’s orders.
After Emperor Hanling(汉灵帝) went to hell, a full-scale civil war began, which was the famous Three Kingdoms period（三国时期） in Chinese history. After 90 years of war, a new dynasty unified the whole country, which was the Jin Dynasty（晋朝）. But his ruling group quickly deteriorated, and after only 30 years of peace, a full-scale war broke out again. Afterwards, this period was known as the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Sixteen Kingdoms period（东晋与十六国时期）. Sixteen warlords and barbarian regimes emerged in the north (without discrimination, I just can’t find a suitable word to refer to those northern nomadic tribes), while the south was the struggling Jin Dynasty（晋朝）. Afterwards, it was known as the Southern and Northern Dynasties period（南北朝时期）, and this long conflict lasted for nearly 300 years.
The long-term war has once again brought changes to the map. Due to more wars in the north, nobles and people fled to the south. They cultivated the subtropical jungle at that time, making the Jiangnan region vibrant, so they established a new state. In addition, the Jin Dynasty（晋朝） established Foster Jun(侨郡) in the south, it means refugees who fled from the north were allocated a piece of land according to their original hometowns.
For example, in this picture, the red circle represents the original Yuzhou（豫州）. Due to the Jin Dynasty（晋朝） lost the land in the north, this area has been left to its enemies, and those who fled have been placed within the purple circle. The Jin Dynasty（晋朝） established the Southern Yuzhou(南兖州) here.
Finally, in order to reward their generals and exaggerate their own prestige, the rulers constantly divided their territories and established new Zhou(州) and Jun(郡), some of which are unbelievably small.There is only one country（县） under Dongjing Jun（东泾郡）, the population is only 191 households, and there are 4 counties(县) under Xinxing Jun（新兴郡）, but the total population is only 112 households.
The Southern dynasties during the Northern and Southern Dynasties period（南北朝时期） lost nearly half of their territory in 50 years. But it went from 23 zhous(州) to 50 zhous(州). The Northern Qi Dynasty established 97 zhous(州) and 160 Juns(郡). 360 counties. After national unification and a round of mergers, there are still 210 zhous(州), 580 Juns(郡)., and 1124 counties.