In ancient times, the prime minister and general, one was the largest official among the civilian officials, the other was the largest official among the military attachés, if these two kinds of officials returned to their hometowns, who was bigger than the local county orders?
If you look at their real power and official rank, it is obvious that the city and county orders are larger. In ancient times, the county order was the official of the seven products, managing one side of the people, and the officials who returned to their hometowns would no longer have real power in their hands, nor did they have a grade, even if they could continue to enjoy the imperial court, but from these two points, the county order was still larger.
As a local official, the county order is the "head" of the local administration at the county level, and has jurisdiction over the civil affairs, finance, and judiciary of the entire county. However, it should be noted that from the Eastern Han Dynasty, Liu Xiu deprived the county commander of the military power in order to strengthen the central government. As a result, county ordinances are no longer responsible for military matters, and only the state and county levels have military power.
Theoretically, county orders can manage the officials who return to their hometowns within their jurisdiction, but in fact, the status of officials who return to their hometowns in ancient times is relatively special.
In ancient times, prime ministers and generals did not stipulate a retirement age, and there were many reasons for them to return to their hometowns, some of them were too old and weak to be competent for heavy work, so they proposed to return to their hometowns, like Liu Yong; some were to avoid power struggles, such as Tao Zhugong was a successful person who "told the old man to return to his hometown"; others were tired of official life and hoped to return to the "rivers and lakes", like Tao Yuanming, who took the initiative to resign from his official post and live a pastoral life.
These officials did not completely disassociate themselves from the imperial court when they returned to their hometowns, and would recall them to work if the emperor needed them. For example, because King Zhao was defeated by the Qin army many times, he thought of re-appointing the veteran general Lian Po and sent emissaries to the door to offer condolences, and as a result, he left a story of "Lian Po is old, and he can still eat or not".
Although the officials who returned to their hometowns did not work in the court, they would still be worried about the emperor, so if the county order involved these officials when handling the case, they would generally report to the superiors, and finally the court sent a commissioner to deal with it.
This was the case of Xu Jie in the Ming Dynasty, when xu jie reported to the old man and returned to his hometown, his sons committed crimes, but the local county officials did not directly deal with the case, but were handled by Ying Tian Inspector Hai Rui and Bing Xian Guoxi, and Hai Rui was also dismissed because of this case.