Abstract: During the more than 2,000 years from the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Ming and Qing Dynasties,the registered population of China was within twenty million to sixty million,with a basic arable area of eight hundred million mu and one thousand and five hundred counties.It was a small county system with some smaller systems of organization.Relying on county administration,political influence of the imperial power reached everywhere of the country.This fact proves that the assumption “The Emperor’s Power is Never Descended bellow the County”,proposed by western scholars,is totally groundless.

Key words: imperial autocracy, clan autonomy, feudal system, the system of prefectures and counties in ancient China, small county system, village system