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A documentary Study of Chinese landlordism in late Ch'ing and early Republican Kiangnan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Yuji Mueamatsu
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Extract

In current studies of the problem of landlorḍism in twentieth-century China there is a fundamental conflict and contradiction between the interpretations of the socio-economic historians, whose major thesis is often the inevitable process of progressive weakening and eventual decline of the control of ‘feudal’ landlords over land and peasants, and the actual conditions and facts of contemporary Chinese history, in which the decay of landlord power seems to have been far from inevitable, and where such persons as P'eng Pai and Mao Tse-tung have had to exert great revolutionary efforts to forcibly destroy the landlords' dominance.

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Articles
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , October 1966 , pp. 566 - 599
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1966

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References

1 A great many scholars have helped and encouraged me in this study. I would particularly like to express my gratitude to the librarians of the institutions in which the manuscripts are preserved, and also to Professors L. S. Yang of Harvard and D. C. Twitchett of London, who have gone carefully through my English MS before publication.

2 My principal studies relating to this topic are as follows. For the sake of brevity, I refer to them in subsequent notes as Muramatsu (1), etc.

(1)‘Niju-seiki shotō ni okeru So-shū kimbō no ichi so-san to sono kosaku-seido—Kōso-shō Gokō-ken Hi-shi Kyōju-san kankei “Soseki-bensa-satsu” no kenkyü’ ‘A landlord bursary in the neighbourhood of Su-chou at the beginning of this century and its tenant-system—a study of the Kungshou-chan bursary of the Fei clan of Wu-chiang county, Kiangsu’, Kindai Chūgoku Kenkyū, v, 1964, 1–184.Google Scholar

(2) ‘Shin-matsu So-shū fukin no ichi so-san ni okeru jinushi shoyūchi no chozei kosaku kankei—Kōso-shō Go-ken Fu rin-ichi-san chilei-sōryō kankei bosatsu ni tsuite’ ‘Tax payment and rent collection by a landlord bursary of late Ch'ing Su-ehou—a study of the tax books of the Feng Lin-i chan bursary in Wu-hsien, Kiangsu’, Hitotsubashi Daigaku Kenkyū-nempō: Keizaigaku Kenkyū, v, 1963, 153–383.Google Scholar

(3) ‘Kokuritsu Kokkai Toshokan shūzō no “Gyorin zusatsu ” ni tsuite’ ‘On the “Fsh-scale books” possessed by the National Diet Library, Tokyo’, Hitotsubashi Daigaku Kenkyū-nempō: Keizaigaku Kenkyū, vii, 1964, 247–345.Google Scholar

(4) ‘Shin-matsu Kōnan ni okeru kosaku joken to kosakuryō no saichō ni tsuite—Kōso-shō Go-ken Han-shi Gisō, onajiku Go-shi Yokei-san no shōyu, shōran, soyū, jijō, sekkyaku, oyobi “shus-setsubisa” satsu no kenkyū’ ‘On the conditions of tenant cultivation and extraction of rent payments in late Ch'ing Kiangnan—a study of documents such as Chao-yu, Ch'eng-lan, Tsu-yu, Tsu-t'iao, Ch'ieh-ciao, and “Ch'u-ch'ieh pei-ch'a” issued by the Charitable Estate of the Fan clan, and the Yū-ehing tsu-chan bursary of the Wu clan of Wu-hsien county, Kiangsu’, Hitotsubashi Daigaku Kenkyū-nempō: Shakaigaku Kenkyū, v, 1963, 129–208.Google Scholar

(5) ‘Shin-matsu Min-sho no Kōnan ni okeru hōran kankei no jittai to sono kessan-hōkoku—Soshū Go-shi Yokei-san “Hōshō kakugō bisa” salsu no kenkyu’ ‘The realities of tax-farming and the balance of a tax-farming enterprise—a study of the Pao-hsiao ke-hao pei-ch'a account books of the Yū-ching chan bursary of the Wu clan’, Kindai Chūgoku Kenkyu, vi, 1965, 1–66.Google Scholar

(6) ‘Saikin gūmoku shita jakkan no Chūgoku jinushi-sei kankei monjo ni tsuite—Hafutsu-Yenkei Kenkyūsho shūzō no soyū sono ta’ ‘On some more Chinese landlord documents recently studied—such as the tsu-yu possessed by the Harvard-Yenching Institute and others’, Toyo Gakuho, XLVI, 4, 1965, 1–33.Google Scholar

(7) ‘Kindai-Chūgoku no jinushi monjo ni tsuite—sono shurui to seishitsu’ ‘On the landlord documents of modern China, their types and nature’ Hitotsubashi Daigaku Kenkyū-nempō: Keizaigaku Kenkyū, ix, 1965, 1–50.Google Scholar

(8) ‘Chūgoku kindai-ka no tochi-mondai’ ‘The land problem in the modernization of China’, Rekishi Kyōiku, XIII, 12, 1965, 1–12.Google Scholar

3 Until very recently, the only studies of the bursary institution apart from my own were those in Amano Motonosuke's Shina nōgyō-keizairon Tokyo, 1942, and Shina nōson zalcki Tokyo, 1942, and in the chapter on the tenancy system of the Chung-kuo ching-chi nien-chien 1934 1934, Nanking, 1935. [Readers may be interested to compare this documentary study with the classical field-study of a neighbouring district, K'ai-hsien-kung, published before the war by Fei Hsiao-t'ung in his Peasant life in China (London, 1939). Fei mentions the institution of the landlord bursary, which he calls a ‘rent-collecting bureau’, and which in K'ai-hsien-kung was called a chu rather than chan on pp. 188 ff. Fei is writing of a later period even than the latest of Professor Muramatsu's documents, when the process of breakdown had gone still further. As he says, ‘economic depression … has made rent a heavy burden on the peasant, and the income derived from rent much more vulnerable to the landlord’. The death of Fei Chung-shen, mentioned by Professor Muramatsu on p. 574, was shortly followed by a peasant rising in the Su-chou district, which was put down with much bloodshed.] Last year another article appeared dealing with the subject, Chou Ch'i-chung ‘Ti-chu chieh-chi ti lien-ho tsu-hsi—P'ing-hu tsu-chan lien-ho pan-shih-suo ti chi-chien tsui-cheng’ Wen-wu, 1965, no. 3, 6–7, 11.

4 In this study I employ the term ‘gentry’, in spite of the difficulties which this raises, in roughly the same sense as does Chang Ch'ung-li in his study The income of the Chinese gentry, Seattle, 1962.

5 Throughout the Ch'ing period (and indeed from the early years of the Ming) strict prohibitions were repeatedly promulgated by the central government against the existence of anyinstitution or persons acting as intermediaries in the payment of taxes between the actual taxpayer and the local authorities. However, the very repetition of such orders proves the futility of the government's attempts to enforce the principle which it called tzu-feng t'ou-kuei ‘personally wrapping and personally putting into the chest’. In actual fact there was a great deal of such intervention of third parties, which was known by the general term pao-lan Most of the edicts embodying such prohibitions point out the local influential families and gentry members as the chief culprits. I am of the opinion that the landlord bursaries were among the most confirmed offenders. In any case, whatever prohibitions the central government chose to issue, local officials were still forced to depend upon the goodwill and assistance of landlord gentry to collect their taxes.

6 See Muramatsu (1).

7 See Muramatsu (4) and (5).

8 See Muramatsu (2). The covers of the rent and tax-books from this bursary held by Tōyō Bunko give the name neither of the bursary nor of its owner elan. However on some is the note ‘Held by the Feng Lin-i bursary for future reference’. Feng Lin-i was, of course, the well-known scholar official Feng Kuei-fen (1809–74), on whom see Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing period, Washington, 1943; Huang Ts'ui-po ‘Ch'i-shih niench'ienti Wei-hsin jen-wu Feng Ching-t'ing’ Chung-shan Wen-huah Chiao-yü-kuan Chi-k'an, iv, 2, 1937, 96–116; Momose Hiroshi ‘Hyō Keifun to sono chojutsu ni tsuite’ Tōa Ronsō, ii, 1940, 95–122; and Muramatsu (2), 269–95.

9 See Muramatsu (6) and (7), particularly postscript 3 to the latter.

10 See Muramatsu (4).

11 See Ho Ping-ti, The ladder of success in Imperial China, New York, 1962, also Yang Liensheng ‘Ko-chū shih-taiti fu-k'ao lū-feiwen-ti' Ching-huah Hsüeh-pao, new ser., ii, 2, 1961, 116–28.

12 See Shimizu Morimitsu , Chūgoku zokusan seido kō Tokyo, 1949; D. C. Twitchett, ‘The Fan clan's charitable estate, 1050–1760’ (in A. F. Wright (ed.), Confucianism in action, Stanford, 1959) and ‘Documents on clan administration: i. The rules of administration of the charitable estate of the Fan clan’, Asia Major, NS, VIII, 1, 1960, 1–35; Niida Noboru, ‘Chūgoku no dōzolcu mata wa sonraku no tochi shoyū mondai’ in Chūgoku hōseishi kenkyū, 3, Tokyo, 1962, 683–740; Makino Tatsumi Kinsei Chūgoku kesōku kenkyū Tokyo. 1949. 121–34; Kondō Hodeki ‘Hanshi gisō no hensen’ Tōyōshi Kenkyū, xxi, 4, 1963, 93–138.

13 See p. 568, n. 3

14 The Tōyō Bunko possesses 24 volumes of rent-books for lands belonging to the Kung-shout'ang, Hung-hsin-hao, I-tai, and Chūn-hao, administered by the Kung-shou-chan bursary. All bear the bursary's name either on the cover or printed in the block centres (p'an-Jisin) of each page. Other rent-books in the Diet Library, Jimbun Kagaku Kenkyūjo, Kyōto, and the Harvard-Yenching Institute are in very similar form.

15 See Muramatsu (1), 27.

16 See Muramatsu (2), 305.

17 See Muramatsu (1), 27.

18 See Muramatsu (1), 30–1, and p. 179, n. 13.

19 This does not imply that absentee landlords whose principal business was in the cities deposited lands with bursaries because these were in the countryside. Most bursaries were not, but were established in a town like Su-chou (see Muramatsu (6), 14–18). The advantage which the bursary had to offer was that through the gentry-official status of its owner it was able to control and manage peasants even from its urban headquarters.

20 See Muramatsu (1), 30.

21 See Muramatsu (1), 32–34; Chen Yung-kuang, ‘Fei Chi-chien chia-chuan’ in T'ai-i-chou wen-chi 3; Chang Chung-jen ‘Fei chun chung-shen chia-chuan’ Chih-yūan pan-yūeh-k'an, 5; Wu-chiang hsien hsū-chih, 19; etc.

22 See Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing period, 950–3.

23 ibid., 880–2.

24 See Muramatsu (1), p. 180, n. 26. See also Kuo Hsiao-ch'eng , Chiang-su kuang-fu chi-shih included in Chung-kuo Shih-hsüeh hui (ed.), Hsin-hai ko-ming vii, 1–32.

25 After Fei Chung-shen's death, none of his three sons succeeded him as a landlord bursary owner. Two became engineers, and the other a university professor. See Muramatsu (1), 37.

26 See Muramatsu (1), 45–6

27 See Muramatsu (1), 74–7, 83–5 for examples. The problem of the rights, legal status, and so on of tenants is taken up below.

28 See Wu-chiang hsien-chih (Chien-lung ed.), 3, Ch'ang-chou hsien-chih (recut in 1765), 1, etc. It would appear that the district subdivisions of tu, t'u, and yü in this region underwent little change during the Ch'ing period.

29 See Muramatsu (1), 47–70.

30 See Muramatsu (4), 129–41.

31 See Muramatsu (4), table 1, p. 145. Full texts of 12 tenancy contracts are reprinted in the same article, pp. 133–40.

32 See Muramatsu (1), 70–3.

33 See Muramatsu (1), 71.

34 See Muramatsu (1), 85–8.

35 In most cases a tenancy contract had to be mediated through a third party intermediary, and assured by guarantors. Bursaries often depended upon the recommendation of the headmen of embankments (yü-chia ) etc., to recruit good reliable tenants (chao-tien ) Nevertheless, fundamentally the contracts were still free. Actual concrete mention of the system of land tenure involving dual ownership (i-t'ien erh-chu ) which was characteristic of the Kiangsu area, and is described in Fei Hsiao-tung's classic description of a neighbouring county (Peasantlife in China, London, 1939, 174 ff.) is not found at all in any of these rent-books or land books. But there were very many cases in which the person who signed the tenancy contract (ju-ch'i ) was not the same as the cultivator or cultivators (chung-mou ), who were presumably his subtenants. Moreover, it was possible for a person to be at one and the same time a formally contracted tenant, and also a subtenant and actual cultivator of other lands whose contracted tenant was another person.

36 See Muramatsu (1), 73–85.

37 See Muramatsu (1), 74–7.

38 See Muramatsu (1), 83–1.

39 See Muramatsu (1), 88–93.

40 See Muramatsu (1), 91–2.

41 See Muramatsu (2), 135–8.

42 The ‘land books B’ employ only one term for acquisition, chih-te , which can mean either purchase or mortgage, since later some of the lands were sold off (shou-ch'u ) and others redeemed (shu-ch'u ). For details on disposal by sale (shou-mai ) redemption (hui-shu ), and partial cession (hsi-ch'u ) see Muramatsu (2), 255–68. The ‘land books B’ record lands acquired between 1866 and 1870. The records of disposals by sale or redemption cover a far longer period, from 1866 to 1910. It seems probable that the land book is incomplete. See Muramatsu (2), 174–6.

43 See Muramatsu (2), 281–95.

44 See Muramatsu (2), 295–304.

45 See Huang Ts'ui-po , ‘Ch'i-shih nien ch'ien chih wei-hsin jen-wu Feng Ching-t'ing’ Chnng-shan Wen-huah Chiao-yü-kuan Chi-k'an, iv, 2, 1937.

46 There are three sets of such books entitled: (1) Wu-i ko-tu-tu ts'ao-mi tsung-ts'e compiled about 1870; (2) Ch'ang-i wu-jun ts'ao-mi tsung-ts'e compiled about 1868–9; (3) Ch'ang-i wu-jun t'ien-tan ts'e dated 1894, together with some other volumes of the same type which have lost their covers or titles. See Muramatsu (2), 138–46, 176–208.

47 See Muramatsu (2), 324–77.

48 See Muramatsu (2), 307–18.

49 See Muramatsu (4), 141–2.

50 See Muramatsu (6), 1–9.

51 See Muraraatsu (6), 3–9, and photographs 1–4. The site of the bursary storehouse or the place where payment is to be made is always clearly stated on the tsu-yu. For example, ‘Rent is to be paid over at No. 250, east of T'ao-huah-wu, inside the Ch'ang-men gate (of Su-chou)’ or ‘Rent will be accepted at the bursary gate in Chang Ssu-liang hsiang lane at the east end of Yin-ma-ch'iao bridge’. The bursary storehouses and granaries of the Fan Charitable Estate can be seen on the plan of the clan buildings in Su-chou reproduced in Twitchett, Asia Major, NS, vm, 1, plate 2

52 The promise of discount was not always honoured, or at least some of the tenants who paid up promptly actually had to pay more than those who reluctantly paid rent after being called upon to do so by the rent collectors. Although it was stated that after the expiry of the time-limit the payment of rent in full would be demanded without mercy, in practice this could not be enforced. On the basis of my recalculation of the data in the rent-books, it is clear that the bursary clerks always treated carefully, and often underestimated, the rents due from substantial tenants holding a number of plots, such as Ling Wu-i mentioned above. Povertystricken tenants who were really incapable of paying in full within the time-limits were also carefully watched, and treated considerately. They were given credit, allowed extension of the time-limit for payment, and their rent underestimated to lighten their burdens. For my detailed calculations see Muramatsu (1), 102–16.

53 These documents, entitled Ching-yü-t'ang li-chi are possessed by the Jimbun Kagaku Kenkyūjo, Kyōto.

54 These, entitled Fan-shih i-chuang jih-shou are possessed by the National Diet Library.

55 See Muramatsu (1), 150–1.

56 See Muramatsu (1), 148–56.

57 See Muramatsu (1), table 20, pp. 138–9, and table 21, pp. 142–4.

58 See Muramatsu (1), 135–47.

59 See Muramatsu (4), pp. 149–163, where I reprint in full the texts of the available letters.

60 Presumably the runners came from the county yamen in whose jurisdiction the lands lay. The register of warrants of arrest of the Yü-ching tsu-ehan bursary of the Wu clan mentions not only runners from the local authorities mentioned in the text, but also those from Wu-hsien (Wu-ch'ai )- It thus seems that the bursary's lands were scattered over the fu of Su-chou, and in the three counties of Ch'ang-chou, Yüan-ho, and Wu-hsien.

61 See Muramatsu (4), 183–6. See also Naitō Kenkichi Rikuiu seigo chūkai reprinted Tokyo, 1960, 41, and Hsiao Kung-chuan, Rural China: imperial control in the nineteenth century, Seattle, 1960, 63–6.

62 The Ch'u-ch'ieh pei-ch'a register mentioned in the text gives (on p. 50b) the following rates of remuneration paid to runners from Ch'ang-chou county in the winter of 1897. One runner going alone by land 425 cash per diem; a pair going by land 750 cash; fee for taking one tenant into custody, 600 cash; fee for putting one tenant in a cangue, 490 cash; accommodation for one runner per diem 60 cash. For further detail, see Muramatsu (4), 190–1.

63 Among the documents from the Yü-ching tsu-chan in the Diet Library was found a bill requesting the payment of such jun-chih consideration of two silver dollars for the runners bearing the official tablet entitling them to collect rents (chui-tsu-p'ai ). This bill was addressed by a certain Wan Ch'ing-hsüan of the Office of Rites in the yamen of Su-chou fu, to a graduate named Wu En-eh'ing, who must have been the owner of the bursary, and the shih-yeh or clerks of the bursary, at its office in She-chia hsiang lane, Su-chou. See Muramatsu (4), p. 163, and document no. 68.

64 See T'ao Tzu-ch'un Tsu-ch'üeh 1a-4a lla, 12a-b, 14a.

65 See Amano Motonosuke, Shina nōson zakki (p. 568, n. 3), chapter entitled ‘So-shū no kosaht-seido’ .

66 See table 6 above, also see Muramatsu (1), 150–1.

67 See Muramatsu (1), 159–60.

68 See Woodhead, H. G. H., A journalist in China, London, 1934, 24; Naito Kenkichi, Rikubu seigo chūkai, 104.Google Scholar

69 See Muramatsu (1), 170–4.

70 See Muramatsu (4), 142, (6), 25.

71 See Muramatsu (4), 186–95.

72 ibid.

73 See Muramatsu (4), 193–5.

74 See Muramatsu (4), 177–80.

75 See Muramatsu (4), 186–8.

76 Several surnames, such as Wang Yü Chou Ch'eng etc., repeatedly appear in the documents as sureties. These must be the names of local elders or headmen who went surety not only for the payment of taxes, but also for the payment of rent within the prescribed time-limit.

77 The precise meaning of pi is obscure. But it seems to mean ‘to call a local headman to account’. See Giles's dictionary, p. 1092, under .

78 The meaning of fa-t'ou men is also unclear. The interpretation given was suggested by Professor L. S. Yang.

79 See Muramatsu (1), 196–9.

80 This book has no title. The block-centre of each page is inscribed Cheng-tsu ts'e

81 See Muramatsu (6), 22–3, and documents from the Ching-yü tsu-chan in the National Diet Library.

82 See Muramatsu (6), 22–3.

83 See Niida Noboru, Chūgoku hōseishi kenkyū 2. Tochi-hō: Torihiki-hō, Tokyo, 1960, 277–321.

84 See Muramatsu (3), especially 247–50, 252–61, 267–73, 278–9, and 317–23. The reasons for my belief that some of these Yü-lin t'u-ts'e are private compilations made by landlords or bursaries are as follows. First, the numbers of the ch'iu embanked areas in which the land-strips are listed are not consecutive, and are often very discontinuous. This would certainly mean that the listing of land-strips in these books is not exhaustive but selective. Next, the amounts of rice given against each plot are often as large as one shih per mou. This can hardly represent tax, but would on the other hand make sense if interpreted as rent. See Muramatsu (5) on this problem.

85 See the works of Amano Motonosuke and Chou Ch'i-chung cited above, p. 568, n. 3.

86 See Muramatsu (5), 3–21.

87 See Muramatsu (5), 27–30.

88 For my detailed argument on the reasons for selecting this particular property as representative, see Muramatsu (5), 38, 51.

89 See Muramatsu (5), 38–61, for a detailed analysis of these figures.