淸初の土地丈量について : 土地臺帳と隠田をめぐる國家と鄕紳の對抗關係を基軸として

Abstract

The Qing government ordered a cadastral survey of the empire to be carried out during the Shun-zhi 順治 period, aiming at comprehensive control of the land registers, but in the face of financial difficulties there was no alternative to settling for a survey which was designed only to correct the tax registers and increase taxes. The reason for the difficulties of tax collection was tax evasion (kang liang 抗糧) on the part of local gentry, landlords, and clerical functionaries, which had become a routine thing. The third nationwide land survey, ordered in 1663, was an indication of the deep contradictions between the state and the local gentry centering on tax collection. The state attempted to seize control of the land registers and of unregistered lands (yin-tian 隱田), but the local gentry were unwilling to relinquish either of these to the state and ignored the deadlines that were set. Later on, in the middle of the Kang-xi 康煕 period, surveys of one county at a time are notable, land registers being composed in this case for limited areas. But after the middle of Kang-xi surveys of entire provinces were prevalent. In the 1690's the zi-shou chou-jang 目丈--抽丈 method of surveying became widely established. In adopting this method, however, the state was obliged to grant de facto re-cognition to unregistered lands. The reasons for this include the separation of the local gentry from the process of production, the relative improvement in the status of the direct producers, the dian-hu 佃戸, widespread rent resistance (kang zu 抗租) on the part of the tenants which made for instability in rent collection, and also the state's inability, to force collection (or increase) of taxes. What came to the fore here, as an instrument of rural control based on compromise and co-existence between the state and the local gentry was the di-ding yin 地丁銀 system. The state, on behalf of the gentry and the landlords, guaranteed the tenants payment of rent by violence, and the gentry undertook to pay their taxes to the state ; but as the compilation of land registers might have given the state unilateral power to increase taxes, it was perhaps for this reason that they were not compiled.