[Footnote 8: The author has sought to trace the political and military aspects of this cycle in _Government in Republican China_, cited. There are numerous works on the subject from the economists' point of view. Outstanding are the books by John Lossing Buck, R. H. Tawney, J. B. Condliffe, Karl Wittfogel, Ch'en Han-seng, and the articles by Norman Hanwell (chiefly in _Asia_, _Amerasia_, and _The Far Eastern Survey_).] The detailed legislation adopted by the National Government in war time is given in Appendix I (G), and Chiang K'ai-shek's own explanation of the new system in Appendix III (C).[9] One might explain the general plan quite simply in terms of inter-connection between the central government and the millions of households. The _pao-chia_ system is one of mutual aid and mutual responsibility between households and groups of households, under government supervision. It has appeared in China from time to time since the Ch'in dynasty (221-203 B.C.). If used for welfare purposes, it amounts to a recognition of the pluralistic character of Chinese society by the government, and the happy utilization of the family pattern. Applied for police purposes, it is well suited to repression and terror. Thus, today the National Government is applying the _pao-chia_ system (in relation to its whole scheme of local government) as a measure of progress and reform, while the Japanese encourage the same organizations in occupied China as a device for despotism and exploitation. [Footnote 9: Below, p. 324, and p. 388.] Expressed in law, now being applied in fact, the _chia_ is a group of six to fifteen families (households), and the _pao_, a group of six to fifteen chia. The hsiang is formally composed of six to fifteen pao; actually it approximates what is loosely termed a community in the United States (_e.g._, a city ward, a single suburb, part of a rural election district). The _ch'ü_ is the rough equivalent of a township. The _hsien_ (district; county) is the fundamental unit of the traditional China-wide bureaucracy. Hence the missing steps are not those between the _hsien_, near to two thousand in number, and the central government. The gaps occur between the half-billion Chinese and their two thousand _hsien_. The following chart shows the broad outlines of the system:[10]