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An Analysts of the Land Tax Burden in China, 1650–1865

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Ts'ui-jung Liu  and
John C. H. Fei
Ts'ui-jung Liu
Affiliation:
Academia Sinica
John C. H. Fei
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Abstract

The weakness of the Ch'ing land tax system is manifested in the gradual reduction of the tax burden. This weakness can be traced to two practices: that of commutation and a fixed tax quota. A model is provided to analyze these practices and their impact on the tax burden. The empirical data of Su-chou and Sung-chiang prefectures are used to implement the theoretical analysis. It is found that the tax burden was reduced enormously, about 50 percent by 1830. The article includes one table, five figures, and one appendix.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , June 1977 , pp. 359 - 381
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1977

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References

1 A glossary of Chinese terms and names used in this article is available in duplicated form from the authors.

2 For details of the tsu-yung-tiao and the chiin-t'ien systems, see Twitchett, D. C., Financial Administration under the Tang Dynasty (Cambridge, 1963), chs. 1–2. 359Google Scholar

3 For a recent discussion on this topic, see Wang, Yeh-chien, Land Taxation in Imperial China, 1750–1911 (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), pp. 110–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Buck, John L., Land Utilization in China (Nanking, 1937), ch. 2. Buck classified eight crop regibnsGoogle Scholar.

5 In the theory of money, before the age of a metallic standard a commodity possessing the Following properties is most likely to be selected as “money”: 1) divisibility, 2) durability, 3) homogeneity, 4) discernibility (familiarity), and 5) stability in quantity. That rice, more than any other commodity, has all these properties can be inferred from the fact that during the Sino-Japanese War (1937–45), rice was chosen as the standard of value for many transactions, including compensation for civil servants, as the formal monetary system was disrupted by inflation.

6 Under rare circumstances the government might require the special products of a region to be used for purposes of tax payment.

7 That the tax burden of Su-chou and Sung-chiang areas was the heaviest in the country has been well known since Ku Yen-wu noted it in his jih-chih-lu (Daily notes), vol. 10. Some authors have tried to clarify the reason for this: see Chou Liang-hsiao, “Ming-tai Su-Sung ti-ch'ü te kuan-t'ien yü chung-fu wen-t'i” (The government land and its relations to the heavy tax burden in the Su-Sung areas in Ming times), Li-shih yen-chiu (Historical studies), 10 (Oct. 1957;, 63–75; Chi-hua, Wu, Ming-tai she-hui-ching-chi-shih lun-ts'ung (Studies on socio-economic problems of the Ming period; Taipei, 1970)Google Scholar, first two chs. in Part I, pp. 17–73. According to the latter, the tax quota of Su-Sung areas together amounted to 13.68 percent of the countrywide total during the Ming period (p. 45). Since the early Ch'ing tax quota was adopted from that of the later Ming, the situation remained the same. See Su-chou fu-chih (The gazetteer of Su-chou prefecture; 1853 ed.), 12: 18b–33b.

8 The abandonment of the earlier system of tsu-yung-tiao prevailing in the early Tang dynasty was due directly to the lack of accurate population statistics, which made it administratively difficult to tax on the basis of population. The continuing emphasis on the compilation of land statistics, however, culminated in the Yü-lin-t'u-ts'e (Fish-scale maps and books) in the early Ming.

9 Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Modern Library ed.; New York, 1965), pp. 769–78Google Scholar.

10 The decree is recorded in Ch'ing Sheng-tsu shih-lu (The veritable record of K'ang-hsi period, 1662–1722), 249:14b–16a.

11 This process began in 1716 and finished in 1745. See Ch'in-ting ta-Ch'ing hui-tien shih-li (Precedents of the collected statutes of the Ch'ing dynasty; Chia-ch'inged.; 1801), 123:llb–16b.

12 In a given locality the tax quota could be changed if some parts of the cultivated land became wasteland due to natural calamities; if newly reclaimed land became subject to tax; or if the administrative unit boundary were changed.

13 Our brief sketch of the historical outline of the land tax system is a familiar story recognized by traditional historical analysis. The essential message conveyed by historians is threefold: 1) unreliability, especially underestimation, of the ting data as a measurement of adult males; 2) from a long-run historical perspective, the tax base in traditional China had finally shifted from a tax on people to a tax on land; 3) the land tax system using land area as its base was rather inflexible and hence a basic cause of corruption. See Ho, Ping-ti, Studies on the Population of China, 1368–1953 (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), ch. 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Yeh-chien Wang, Land Taxation in Imperial China, chs. 2–3.

14 See Hu-pu tse-li (Regulations of the Board of Revenue; first compiled 1776, rpt. of the 1865 ed.; Taipei, 1968), 19:8b.

15 As diagrammatic proof of this result, we have

p = OM/OQ, r = OM'/OQ hence

g= (p-r)/p = (MM'/OQ)/(OM/OQ) = MM'/OM = 1 - OM'/OM = 1 – AB/A1B = 1 - BC/BQ.

On the other hand

v = AB/OM' = BQ/OQ, then

vg = (1-BC/BQ) (BQ/OQ) = BQ/OQ - BC/OQ = CQ/OQ; therefore

u = 1 - vg = 1 – CQ/OQ = OC/OQ.

16 See n. 7.

17 In the language of econometrics, what we have shown in this section is the “identification” of the six parameters that are essential for our analysis. “Identification” is to infer the values of the parameters from their observable magnitudes (in our model, A, Q, R, S, and p) under the assumption that the observable magnitudes are indeed produced in a system that can be described by the model structure.

18 The years for which we have data are indicated by the rows of Table I. Values for other years in Figure 5 are derived by interpolation.

19 The similarity of time patterns exhibited for the two prefectures can in most cases be supported by that of t h e smaller administrative units, namely, the counties of t h e two prefectures.

20 The yield of rice per mou in these prefectures was approximately 2 shih during the Ch'ing dynasty. In the late seventeenth century, according to Ch'i Fu, an able male could cultivate 12–13 mou of rice paddy; the annual output from that amount of good land was about 30shih and from poor land about 20 shih. See Ho Ch'ang-ling, comp., Huang-ch'ao ching-shih wen-pien (Essays on statecraft during the Ch'ing dynasty; 1827), 26:20a. In the nineteenth century, according to Tseng Kuo-fan, the yield per mou was from 1.5 to 2 shih. See Huang-ch'ao cheng-tien lei-tsuan (Classified documents of the Ch'ing dynasty; rpt,; Taipei, 1969)Google Scholar, 8:4a. And according to Lin Tse-hsü, in the south during the normal years the yield per mou was 5 shih of unhusked rice, which equaled 2.5 shih of husked rice (ibid., 1:9b). During the Ch'ing period, only one crop of rice was produced annually in Kiangsu province. See Su-chou fu-chih (1883 ed.), 12:33b.

21 For the details of this movement, see Hsia Nai, “Tai-p'ing t'ien-kuo ch'ien-hou Ch'angchiang ko-sheng chih t'ien-fu wen-ti” (The land tax problem of the Yangtze provinces before and after the Taiping Rebellion), Ch'ing-hua hsüeh-pao (The Tsing Hua Journal), 10 (Apr. 1935), 409–74.

22 In 1825 T'ao Chu, governor of Kiangsu, proposed to the central government that the shipment of government grain should take the sea route. See Ch'ing Hsuan-tsung shih-lu (The veritable record during the Tao-kuang period, 1821–1850), 84:26a–27b; also see Sung-chiang fu hsü-chih (1884 ed.), 13:5b–6a. For the details, see Ho Ch'ang-ling, Chiang-su hai-yün ch'üan-an (The complete documents of sea transportation from Kiangsu; c. 1830).

23 Ch'üan Han-sheng, “Ya-p'ien chan-cheng ch'ien Chiang-su te mien-fang-clüh-yeh” (The cotton industry in Kiangsu before the Opium War), in the author's Chung-kuo ching-chi-shih lun-ts'ung (Studies on Chinese economic history; Hong Kong, 1972), pp. 626–27.

24 Ch'üan Han-sheng, “Mei-chou pai-yin yü shih-pa shih-chi Chung-kuo wu-chia ke-ming te kuan-hsi” (American silver and the price revolution in eighteenth-century China), in ibid., pp. 475–508. Cf. Wang, Yeh-chien, “The Secular Trend of Prices during the Ch'ing Period, 1644–1911,” The Journal of the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 5 (1972), 354Google Scholar.

25 Ch'ing Shih-tsu shih-lu (The veritable record of the Shun-chih period, 1644–1661), 6:9b–10b.

26 In 1725 an amount of 300,000 taels for Su-chou and 150,000 taels for Sung-chiang was reduced permanently. Again, in 1737, a total amount of 200,000 taels for the two prefectures together was reduced. See Su-chou fu-chih (1883 ed.), 12:34a-35b, 38b-39a.

27 Ch'en Ch'i-yuan, Yung-hsien-chai pi-chi (Notes of Yung-hsien-chai; rpt.; Taipei, 1960), 6:8a. Also see Su-chou fu-chih (1883 ed.), 12:51b-52a; and Pao Shih-eh'en, An-wu ssu-chung (Four works of Pao Shih-ch'en; 1846), 25A:30a.

28 In 1780 the stock of silver in the treasury of the Board of Revenue reached 70 million taels, which was the largest amount ever accumulated during the Ch'ing period. See Ho Chang-ling, Huang-ch'ao ching-shih wen-pien, 27:29a. But this stock of silver gradually drained out as, in the 1830s, the government began to find it difficult to keep fiscal balance. See Hsieh, Chu, Chung-kuo ts'ai-cheng wen-ti (The fiscal problems in China; Shanghai, 1934), pp. 70–72Google Scholar.

29 After the Taiping Rebellion the tax reduction movement resulted in the decrease of tax quota for the Yangtze provinces. These reductions, however, were in the nature of temporary relief and could not be regarded as evidence contradictory to a trend for higher taxes, as seen from the upswing of the u-curves that started 30 years earlier.

30 For example, see George, Henr'y, Progress and Poverty (New York, 1966 rpt), pp. 413–14Google Scholar.

31 For the history of likin see Yu-tung, Lo, Chung-kuo li-chin-shih (The history oflikin in China; Shanghai, 1936)Google Scholar. Also see Lieh, Ho, Li-chin chih-tu hsin-t'an (A reinvestigation oflikin; Taipei, 1972)Google Scholar. For a discussion of surcharge on land tax during the last decades of Ch'ing period, see Yeh-chien Wang, Land Taxation in Imperial China, pp. 61–66; for changes of tax structure, see p. 80.

32 See Oshima, Harry T., “Meiji Fiscal Policy and Agricultural Progress,” in Lockwood, William W., ed., The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan (Princeton, 1965), pp. 357–81Google Scholar. Also see Oh kawa, Kazushi and Rosovsky, Henry, “The Role of Agriculture in Modern Japanese Economic Development,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, 9 (Oct. 1960), 61–62Google Scholar.

33 Ch'üan Han-sheng, Chung-kuo ching-chi-shih lun-ts'ung, pp. 477–78, 510; Liu I-cheng, “Chiang-su ko-ti ch'ien-liu-pai-nien-chien chih mi-chia” (Price of rice in Kiangsu during a period of 1600 years), Shih-hsüeh tsa-chih (Journal of History), 2 (Sept. 1930), 5–8; Hsia Nai, “T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo ch'ien-hou,” p. 469.

34 Yeh-chien Wang, “he Secular Trend,” p. 362, chart 5.

35 In 1645, the second year of the Ch'ing dynasty, the government first announced that the tax quota of the Wan-li period (1573–1620) in the late Ming should be adopted. Although we have some data for this year, they are excluded from Table 1 because they are incomplete in their coverage.

36 Thus an interval (for example, 1656–1710) is shown whenever the data revision of the Fu-i ch'üan-shu occurred for different counties and different years, or when the data needed were available in different years. It should also be noted that the Fu-i ch'uan-shu was also revised in 1775 and 1795. The statistics of the tax quota (Q) for Su-chou prefecture, however, are not available. Although the data of 1818 are available for Su-chou, the calculation of indicators of tax burden reveals them to be the same as those of 1830; thus these data were not used.

37 In fact, for each type of land there are subclassifications for the purpose of taxation. For the number of grades of land in the 18 counties of the two prefectures see Su-chou fu-chih (1824 ed.), vol. 11 and Sung-chiang fu-chih (1817 ed.), vol. 22.

38 For example, see Sung-chiang fu-chih (1663 ed.), 7: lb-2a; Sung-chiang fu-chih (1817 ed.), 21:40a-43b. According to Wang Chen, land already cultivated is called shou (i-keng yiieh-shou); see Nung-shu (Book on agriculture; rpt. of Ssu-ku-ch'üan-shu chen-pen; Taipei), 2:4a. For taxation purposes, shou was usually used as an opposite of huang, which meant cultivated land that had become wasteland. But the huang was not exempted from taxation; instead, its quota was reduced to a certain amount to be borne by the cultivated land. For an explanation of this, see Chiang-ning fu-chih (1811 ed.), 14:3a. For example of tax quota of these categories (for example, shou p'ing-mi and huang-p'ing-mi), see Su-chou fu-chih (1824, ed.), 8:17a, 40b.

39 The historical origin of t he term p'ing-mi is found in records during the 1430s when governor Chou Ch'en initiated a program of tax equalization. His method was to allot equally the amount of rice charged for wastage during the process of transportation, known as hao-tni, to each original unit of tax quota in rice, known as cheng-mi. The total of hao-mi and cheng-mi was given the name of p'ing-mi and became the basic tax quota. This practice was carried on through the Ch'ing dynasty. See Chou Liang-hsiao, “Ming-tai Su-Sung ti-ch'ü,” p. 70.

40 The details of allotment can be found in some local gazetteers; for example, Su-chou fu-chih (1824 ed.), vol. 11.