The Magistrate's Tael: Rationalizing Fiscal Reform in Eighteenth Century Ch'Ing China - Hardcover

Zelin, Madeleine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520049306 ISBN 13: 9780520049307

Verlag: University of California Press, 1984

Inhaltsangabe

Madeleine Zelin shatters the image of China as a backward empire wracked by corruption and economic stagnation, thrust into the modern world when the western gunboats arrived in the 1840s, by providing an account of the indigenous evolution of the Chinese state. The Magistrate's Tael makes it possible to judge the impact of the West on modern China's development.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Madeleine Zelin is Professor of History and East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University.

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"An extraordinary feat: the best institutional study based on archives ever to have been done in the China field. It will set the standard for a generation of researchers."—Philip A. Kuhn, Harvard University

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"An extraordinary feat: the best institutional study based on archives ever to have been done in the China field. It will set the standard for a generation of researchers."—Philip A. Kuhn, Harvard University

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The Magistrate's Tael: Rationalizing Fiscal Reform in Eighteenth Century Ch'ing China

By Madeleine Zelin

University of California Press

Copyright © 1984 Madeleine Zelin
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0520049306


1—
The Roots of Fiscal Instability

In the annals of late-imperial Chinese history, few emperors have achieved the fame of the second Ch'ing ruler, K'ang-hsi (1661–1722). His legendary humanity and benevolence as a ruler were given ample expression during a reign that lasted sixty years. Although the final decades of K'ang-hsi's rule were tainted by one of the most celebrated succession crises in China's long imperial past, he is best remembered as the emperor who brought peace to the land and restored conditions in which good government and the pursuit of learning could flourish. Little known or discussed is the negative legacy that K'ang-hsi bestowed on the empire. Yet the way in which this legacy was handled was to have a tremendous impact on the future of the Ch'ing dynasty and the development of the Chinese state.

When the K'ang-hsi emperor died in 1722 he left a state treasury containing only 8 million taels of silver.1 This sum, equal to about 27 percent of the central government's total annual tax revenues,2 could in no way be compared with the empty treasuries and royal indebtedness of K'ang-hsi's eighteenth-century European counterparts. Nevertheless, within the context of late-imperial Chinese economic thought such a figure was to be deplored. This was a political system that worshipped the balance of expenditure against

income and considered central-government reserves essential lest man be unprepared for the ravages that nature could bring.

Depleted treasuries were certainly not new to China. In fact, their existence was so common that they played a central role in the traditional "dynastic cycle" explanation of the collapse of imperial regimes. When the talents and virtue of the imperial line were declining, when officialdom was becoming corrupt, and when the pressure of population growth was beginning to strain the resources of both the land and the state, it was expected that the imperial coffers would shrink. The previous Ming dynasty had presented a classic case of fiscal strain, resulting in increased surtaxes, popular resistance, growing military expenditure, and finally, inability to cope with foreign invasion. However, in 1722 the Ch'ing dynasty was not dying. On the contrary, there had been no major internal disorder since the defeat of the Three Feudatories and the pacification of Taiwan in the 1680s. Under the devoted sponsorship of the late emperor, scholarship and the arts were once again approaching the high standards of previous dynasties. For the most part, almost eighty years of Manchu rule had won for the alien conquerors the confidence and loyalty of China's native population, especially the important scholar-gentry elite. To stimulate the economy and rehabilitate the areas devastated by nearly a century of rebellion and warfare, both the dynasty itself and private entrepreneurs were engaged in large-scale land reclamation and resettlement. Reforms were also being undertaken in administration and fiscal policy. The vigor of the dynasty was demonstrated even in the succession crisis, for the empire survived unscathed and even strengthened. The factionalism that surrounded the various princely contenders remained limited to small coteries of supporters and did not spread to engulf the entire bureaucracy. The emperor who emerged from the contest, Yung-cheng, was an independent, energetic, and able ruler whose achievements as monarch far outweighed the questionable means he may have used to accede to the throne. Clearly, this was not an era of imperial degeneration and declining official morale.

The strains on imperial finances had, in fact, been reduced since the early years of Ch'ing rule. At that time, even in areas firmly under imperial control, popular sentiment against the newly imposed barbarian authority continued to be reflected in tax resistance and arrears.3 Forty years passed before the whole of China was pacified and could be relied on for regular tax payments to the

imperial treasury. In the areas most affected by warfare and rebellion, notably Szechuan, it was not until the mid-eighteenth century that productivity, and consequently tax remittances, reached the levels realized during the Ming dynasty.4 However, none of these problems are comparable with the burdens imposed on early Ch'ing finances by the initial commitments of their conquest. Military expenditures used up most of the state's revenues during the early decades of Manchu rule. According to one estimate, of the 15.7 million taels spent during the first year of the Shun-chih reign (1644–61), over 13 million taels went toward military supplies and soldiers' pay. Furthermore, total expenditures exceeded the annual income of the court by almost a million taels.5 Under these conditions, little was spent by government on public works or the general welfare.

State revenues did increase by the end of the Shun-chih period, to almost 30 million taels by Shun-chih 17 (1660),6 though part of this new income had to provide for the increased expense of governing an expanded territory. One important element in these expenses was the payments made by the state to support the Three Feudatories which grew out of Manchu efforts to subdue parts of the empire's southern provinces. The Chinese generals sent to accomplish this task established instead quasi-independent satrapies which nevertheless continued to require provisioning and revenue support from the central government. During the Shun-chih reign that grant grew to 5 or 6 million taels per year. By the time of K'ang-hsi this sum had doubled and came to encompass about one-third of the annual income of the Ch'ing state.7 Thus, although the dynasty recognized the need to counteract official corruption and tax evasion, the main obstacle to fiscal stability during the years of Manchu dynastic consolidation was excessive expenditure, especially military expenditure. Once peace was restored in the realm, the expectation was that fiscal balance would be restored and that the size of the state's coffers would match the glory of the regime in other spheres.

When the Yung-cheng emperor came to the throne in 1723, that dream of a vigorous and prosperous empire seemed on the verge of realization. More than a generation had passed since a major military expedition had added its burden to the state treasury8 and the Manchu court itself was notoriously frugal, being loath to make the same mistakes as its profligate predecessor.9 When the new emperor looked at his father's treasury he did not revel in the accu-

mulation of 8 million taels, but was concerned about revenues several times that amount that should have been there but were not. Their absence was not the result of a dynasty spending beyond its means, but of a fiscal administration in which taxes that ought to have been sent to the central government were being dissipated elsewhere. Moreover, the Board of Revenue treasury was not the only one exhibiting shortages. The fiscal independence of the other government ministries in Peking, an inheritance from the Ming, had also left its mark. Even a cursory examination brought to light deficits in the stores of almost every treasury in the capital, in addition to serious discrepancies in central-government accounts.10

In some respects the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of California Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1984
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0520049306
• ISBN 13: 9780520049307
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 392
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar