What was the position of the ancient fire officer? What does it have to do with the night watchman?

With the popularity of many costume dramas on TV and big screen, things related to ancient people's lives, such as ancient clothing, diet, language and cultural customs, have become hot topics. We all know that there were many hierarchies and official positions in ancient society. For example, the Fire Officer is an official post established in ancient times to prevent fires, and it is also the predecessor of the Watchmen who often appear in film and television dramas.

First of all, the fire officer is an official position established in ancient times to eliminate fire hazards. According to relevant ancient books, in the Shang Dynasty, because slaves were dissatisfied with the rulers, they set fire to granaries at night. Electricity has not been invented in ancient society, and cooking and lighting all need open flames, especially when lighting tools such as candles are used at night, which is prone to fire if you are not careful. So in the Western Zhou Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago, an office was set up to supervise the fire administration? Fire ban? . At that time, the official positions in charge of fire administration in Zhou Dynasty were divided into Gzero, Si Xuan and Si Xiang, and the scope and contents of these three official positions were different. Therefore, different officials hold different positions, among which Gong is the fire administrative officer in charge of the palace, Si Xuan and Si Xiang are the fire administrative officers in charge of the scope outside the palace.

So, the fire officer is the predecessor of the night watchman. During the Zhou Dynasty, Si Xuan, apart from the officials in charge of banning fires in the palace, mainly beat bronze bells when patrolling outside at night, mainly to remind people to pay attention to fire prevention, while Si Sui was responsible for fire prevention outside the city walls, such as catching people who set fires in the wild and investigating their responsibilities according to law. It can be seen that the main job of ancient fire officials is to eliminate fire hazards. And I gradually evolved into a watchman with the change of dynasties. The night watchman is a patrolman who appears at night. I will beat the gong with a mallet regularly to remind the people to pay attention to fire prevention and theft. It can be seen that the main work contents and responsibilities of watchman are similar to those of fire officers, and both of them were included in administrative ranks in ancient times, equivalent to ancient civil servants.

Finally, from the evolution history of The Watcher from the Zhou Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, we can see that ancient people attached great importance to risks, and ancient society had high awareness of fire control and public security.