嘉禾吏民田家莂「丘」再攷

Abstract

The vast numbers of Sun-Wu era bamboo slips discovered at Zoumalou 走馬樓 in Changsha in Hunan in 1996 have gained attention as an important key to understanding the social system of that era. This study focuses on the large-sized wooden slips that are documents concerned with payment of taxes, and are known as "Limin tianjia-bie" 吏民田家莂. Using the records of the fields therein, l have considered the meaning of the term qiu, 丘, which was used to indicate the location of taxpayers. There are two designations for fields in the tianjia-bie documents, ting 町 and mu 畝. An analysis based on the comparison of the two terms reveals that the former, ting, is a unit representing the number of fields, and the latter, mu, is a unit representing the size of the fields. Given this distinction, an examination of the size of the fields in light of their number in each bie shows the area of each field. Size varied from bie to bie. Next, comparing the area of each field in a single qiu, it became clear that large and small fields were not combined in a qiu, and that large and small fields were concentrated in separate qiu. Given this reality, it is clear that qiu were greatly influenced by topography. Furthermore, working on the hypothesis that differences in topography were related to the period of qiu formation and examining the characteristics of the names of the qiu, I have confirmed that qiu with large fields were developed relatively early, on low-lying lands, while qiu with small-sized fields were developed later on hilly lands. Moreover, I point out that in the regions that were developed earlier pre-existing communal patterns had been artificially reapportioned when the qiu were established. Furthermore, an examination suggests two qiu with special characteristics, the Puqiu 檏丘 and Jiyouqiu 己酉丘 that this artificial reapportionment accompanied the reconstitution of local society. We can conclude from the above that the qiu that appear in the tianjia-bie documents were artificially constituted administrative organizations and not naturally occurring settlements or a pre-existing social organizations.