宋代における役法と地方行政經費 : 財政運營の一研究

Abstract

As recent studies indicated, the financial administration under the Song dynasty was highly centralized. All the regular tax revenues, whether sent to the capital or retained for local expenditures, was managed by the State Finance Commission 三司. The part for local expenditures was almost all spent on salaries for the bureaucracy and army. Therefore, it hardly covered the expenses of local administration which was provided by obligatory local service 差役. Wang An-shi 王安石 carried out a drastic reform of local service called the Hired Service Policy 募役法, which was a part of his New Policies. As a result, the service obligation was commuted to payments in cash known as the Service Exemption Tax 免役錢, and the hired local sub official posts were created. The excution of the Hired Service Policy clarified the levy concerned with the local service, and put it under the control of central government through fixed amount taxation based on budget and regular financial reports. This implied that the "financial system consisting of the Court of Agricultural Supervision 司農寺 and the Ever-Normal Granary Intendancies 提擧常平司 which was in charge of the financial affairs concerned with the New Policies worked together with the established system of the State Finance Commission and the Fiscal Intendancies 轉運司, and hence formed a new system of state finance. This fact can be discovered by examining the local administration expenses. For instance, the source of local public construction expense changed under the New Policies. Before the policies, the local governments could levy irregular taxes and press men into service if need be. After the policies were implemented, the local governments were obliged to pay the expense by themselves. However, they were not free to spend the local administration expenses under the control of central government through the circuit intendancies 監司. The Hired Service Policy could not improve the lack of local administration expenses since the early Northern Song. Because of the shortage of local expenses, the men in village service 郷役 were subject to heavy burdens of local expenses in the Southern Song. The local administration expenses closely connected with the local service were always provided and used on the basis of local autonomy. From this point of view, there is some resemblance between the system of financial administration under the Song dynasty and that under the Tang dynasty.