The Qing government's nationwide reform of the Ding Yin system began at the end of Kangxi's implementation of "never increase the amount of tax when the number of people grows", that is, fixing the amount of Ding. In February of the fifty-first year of Kangxi's reign (1712), an edict was issued:
"I looked at the number of editors and examiners of the governors' memorials in each province, but did not fully report the increase. Today, Haiyu is at peace. For a long time, the household registration has become more and more numerous. If the number of people is increased according to the current population, it is really not feasible. Although the number of people has increased, the land area has not been increased. The provincial governor should be ordered to record the number of people in the current money and food roll, and do not increase it. The reduction will always be a fixed amount. No money or food will be collected for the children born after them. The actual amount will be found out during the compilation and review, and a new inventory will be compiled and reported accordingly: " Later, the number of reviewers was set as a regular number according to the grain collection list in the 50th year of Kangxi's reign; the new additions were said to be the result of prosperity breeding people and never adding taxes." This regulation was issued to the whole country in the form of a "Longevity Edict" on Emperor Kangxi's 60th birthday on March 18 of the following year. In the fiftieth year of Kangxi's reign, there were more than 24.62 million registered people in the country, and more than 3.35 million taels of silver were levied.
Emperor Kangxi implemented the policy of "never increasing taxes as the number of people grows". As he admitted in the edict quoted above, it was actually a helpless recognition of the reality that it was impossible to collect a tax based on the actual number of people. . His intention is also very obvious, which is to alleviate the acute social conflicts caused by the dingyin issue and stabilize social order by not increasing the ding tax; at the same time, he wants to ensure that the vested ding tax revenue will not continue to be affected by the population. Flee and risk losing. However, simply fixing the number of people and declaring that the number of people will never be increased will not solve the problem of money. Although the new policy no longer increases the total amount of Ding tax, it still levies Ding on a per capita basis. Therefore, the various drawbacks inherent in the Ding silver system and the various problems caused by it can only remain. In the fifty-fifth year of Kangxi's reign (1616), the imperial censor Dong Zhisui wrote in a memorial about the issues after the implementation of the new policy: "There will never be any additional gifts for the new generation of people. The emperor is grateful for the great kindness of the people's livelihood, and he will continue to add more. But now that there are more people, The Ding system is also different in various provinces, states and counties. Some people start from Ding, and some start from Ding. The method of Ding is the best, but ignorant people often want to sell land, but they sell it. Ding Cun. In the year when Ding Cunren was appointed, the wealthy and large households concealed their orders and did not report them, while the small households and poor people were all included in the edition and had no land to pay taxes. They were all under the supervision of Ding. Those who live in the fields are enjoying their leisure, and those who are poor and helpless are left to work. Since they have to serve themselves, they will be taxed again. If they run away, they will have to pay for their losses, and the national taxes will be in vain. , Nowadays, the number of people is too high. "It can be seen that the problems of editorial fraud, wealth inequality, people fleeing, small money compensation, and the absence of national taxes are all the same, and nothing has changed. In some places, the chief official also used his power to openly increase taxes on the poor, "cutting out the flesh of others to mend his own sores." As a result, although the total tax burden has reached a fixed level, the income of the poor has been reduced. The actual tax rate is still increasing.
Not only that, new abuses have also occurred in editing and review. Since the new policy has fixed the number of dings, a question arises: What should we do when the number of people in the ding register dies and there is a vacancy? In this regard, the method agreed upon by the Ministry of Household Affairs in the 55th year of Emperor Kangxi's reign was: "To make up for the old vacancies by adding new people through compilation and examination." First, the number of people in the household would be used to make up for the shortfall. If there is a shortage, then the person with the same armor and the same figure who has more food will make up for it." However, this is difficult to achieve in practice. No one is willing to use his own penis to patch up the penis of others. The result can only be that the household is the same as the household and the first is the second, regardless of whether they can afford it. "There is a small number in Shanxi Province. "When a household is tired, it is said that every household is tired and tired." As time went by, a very unreasonable situation arose: "The number of Eding descendants varies, and one Ding may be accommodated by dozens of hundreds of Ding; for those who are extremely rare, one Ding may be inherited by one or twenty Ding, and it is difficult for the household to fully accommodate them." ".
However, the policy of "never adding taxes to the population" does have its positive significance in solving the problem of population. After the implementation of this policy, the Ding tax will no longer increase, and the state and county regulations on increasing Ding will cease to be implemented. This will undoubtedly have certain benefits for the vast number of poor people who have no land and little land. This one.
Second, and more importantly, historically, "nurturing people and never adding taxes" emerged as a necessary step in the reform of allocating people to land to solve the problem of small and medium-sized banks more thoroughly. , although it does not solve the problem in itself, it paves the way and prepares the prerequisites and conditions for the solution of future problems.
In the case where the amount of ding is not fixed and "the amount of ding is increased and the tax is increased accordingly", the number of ding silver depends on the number of people, and the relationship with the number of people cannot be severed. Therefore, it is difficult to implement the allocation of ding into the land; even if it is implemented, it must be repeated regularly. Editor, it is impossible for the two to have a stable combination, as mentioned in the previous section. However, the situation will be different after "never adding talent to the population". At this time, the Ding tax was already a fixed amount and had nothing to do with the number of people. Therefore, for the Qing government, levying this income on people and levying acres of land were the same thing. , it’s just a matter of which method is more in line with one’s own interests. In the fourth year of Yongzheng's reign (1726), Tian Wenjing, governor of Henan Province, said in a memorial to the province's diners: "Ding and grain are both official supplies of the imperial court. It is feasible to distribute them to people and to distribute them to the land. However, it is not feasible to distribute them to people." How can the burden of many poor people be spread out on the ground and the taxes and servitude be equalized? In the prosperous times, the number of people will never be increased, and there will be a certain amount of money, and it will be easier to lose according to the land." It was precisely because of such prerequisites that the large-scale spread of people into the ground in the Yongzheng Dynasty could be implemented.
4. The comprehensive launch of the reform and its final completion
The large-scale implementation of the reform was during the Yongzheng period, but it was officially put on the agenda of the Qing government in the fifth year of Kangxi. Fifteen years (1616). At that time, during the new editing period, the imperial censor Dong Zhisui saw that "nurturing people and never increasing taxes" did not solve the problem of Ding Yin, so he went to the bookstore to request that Ding be allocated. According to "Jiangnan Tongzhi": "In the fifty-fifth year of Kangxi's reign, Dong Zhishu, the imperial censor, asked to count the ding silver and distribute it according to the mu. The Ministry of Household Affairs replied: 'The land per mu and the ding in each province, state and county are different, and the system is based on the locality. It's been a long time since we agreed, so we can't change it. If someone wants to buy or sell land, and Ding should start from the land, the land will also be lost to the buyer. "According to the decree," Dong Zhipu blocked it. The idea of ??running a stall was put on hold. However, due to this proposal, Guangdong Province was allowed to levy the entire province's "dining silver according to the land acres of each state and county" that year. Guangdong was the first province in the country to implement the province-wide mediocre system with the approval of the Qing government, and this marked the beginning of the national reform of mediocre practices.
In the first year of Yongzheng (1723), not long after the new emperor came to the throne, the problem was raised again. In June of that year, Huang Bing, the governor of Shandong, argued that the poor people "were unable to lose to the generals" because of the uneven distribution of ding and silver. He asked for support to follow the example of "doing ding and silver everywhere" in some counties in Zhejiang and imitated it in Shandong." And please order the five northern provinces to comply with it as one body." In July, Li Weijun, the governor of Zhili, also went up to the court to request a share of the quota, and at the same time submitted a request for an edict. Emperor Yongzheng initially held a negative attitude towards this request to change the ancestral system, and Huang Bingzhe was severely reprimanded by him. But when Li Weijun came to the end, his attitude changed and he no longer firmly opposed it. He just said, "This matter can be postponed for a while. It seems appropriate to make it more formal in Henan during the harvest years and when the people are safe and secure, so that they can familiarize themselves with the pros and cons." "Perfect effect." Later, the Ministry of Household Affairs responded and asked for approval based on Li Weijun's report. To be prudent, I will discuss it again with the Nine Ministers. However, Jiu Qing's discussion was hesitant, which angered Emperor Yongzheng, who issued an order to "act according to the discussion of the Ministry of Household Affairs". In this way, after some twists and turns, the decision to reform was finally made. In October of that year, Li Weijun formulated specific measures and received approval. The following year, the entire province was under direct control.
Since the second year of Yongzheng's reign, reforms have been carried out across the country. In the seventh year of Yongzheng's reign, Fujian (the second year), Shandong (the report was approved in the third year and implemented in the fourth year), Yunnan (the report was approved in the third year and implemented in the fourth year), Zhejiang (fourth year), and Henan (the report was approved in the fourth year and implemented in the fifth year). Implemented), Shaanxi (reported in four years, implemented in five years), Gansu (reported in four years, implemented in five years), Sichuan (reported in four years, implemented in five years), Jiangxi (five years), Guangxi (reported in five years) Provinces such as Jiangsu (approval in five years and implementation in six years), Anhui (approval in five years and implementation in six years), Hunan (approval in six years and implementation in seven years), and Hubei (seven years) After Guangdong and Zhili, they also approved and implemented the taxation system one after another. The "unification of land and taxation" basically became a unified tax system across the country. Later, in the twelfth year of Qianlong's reign (1747), Ding Yinyun of the Taiwan Prefecture of Fujian entered Guanzhuang's countryside to expropriate it. In the 42nd year of Qianlong's reign, twenty-nine prefectures, departments, prefectures, and counties including Guiyang, which were still divided into levies in Guizhou, changed their policy to "levy on a per-acre basis." The last remaining province, Shanxi Province, began to reform in the ninth year of Yongzheng's reign, with prefectures and counties as units. It continued intermittently until the Guangxu Dynasty. Although it faltered, it was finally completed. Jilin, Fengtian and other places outside the border also implemented it during the Guangxu period.
In the process of apportioning ding in various places, in addition to Minding silver, population taxes such as Tunding silver, Zaoding silver and Jiangban silver that are still levied on the population in some places are also collected at the same time or later. Spread into acres of land. After that, there was no longer any population tax in the law.
Of course, there are still some local and temporary recruitment of corvee service in various places, but this is only a residual form of the corvee system. In the Qing Dynasty, various dynasties continued to sort out and reform the various types of corvee levies. The general spirit was to eliminate redundant servitude, change labor service to hired service, change the levy of labor service to the household or ding in exchange for silver, and change the levy of grain to all employees. The land taxes and levies were assigned, that is, the taxes and levies were merged. In principle, all local labor services after the tenants were assigned to the land were recruited according to the acres of land.
With the implementation of the system of "employment quotas", the original once-in-five-year personnel review is no longer meaningful and "only feeds the small people and adds to the expense." In the fourth year of Yongzheng's reign (1726), Li Fu, the governor of Zhili, asked Shangshu to reorganize and review Baojia. In the fifth year of Qianlong's reign (1740), he ordered "to stop the compilation and review, and to make a register based on the Baojia and Ding amounts." The census of "big and small men and women in the country" based on the Baojia registers was started, and the number was appended to the end of each year's official records of each dynasty. However, at that time, some provinces still had "salt banknote collection", so the editing and review did not stop entirely. In the thirty-seventh year of Qianlong's reign (1772), at Li Han's request, he issued an imperial edict again, and finally stopped the compilation and review of books nationwide. "Of course, only the Caowei Institute compiles and reviews every four years." In this way, the last symbol of the slave labor system that restricted the personal freedom of peasants in the feudal country also disappeared from the legal system.
5. Different approaches to reform in various regions and their pros and cons
The local reform is approved by each province and carried out independently. There is no unified national implementation plan. Therefore, although The content is unified (the land and the ding are unified, the ding silver is paid into the land tax, and the levy of the dingkou is cancelled), but in terms of specific methods, each province has its own characteristics, and the differences between the prefectures, prefectures, and counties in the province During the period, many provinces are also different. Judging from the scope of the stall calculation, there are those based on the province's stalls and some within the prefecture's counties. Judging from the calculation standards, there are those who pay one tael of silver for the land, one stone for the grain and rice, and one ding of silver for one acre of field. Different types of dingyin (mining dingyin, tundingyin, zaodingyin, renamed dingyin, etc.) are either collected together or allocated separately to each type of land. The different practices are all determined by factors such as the land and grain situation in each place, the landowner's ability to bear the increased burden due to land allotment, and local historical traditions. That is to say, the implementation of land allotment only requires uniformity in content. Specific methods are adapted to local conditions and do not insist on uniformity.
The practices of various provinces can be roughly divided into two categories: one is the eight provinces of Zhili, Shandong, Shaanxi, Gansu, Jiangxi, Hubei, Yunnan, and Guizhou, which calculate the payment for all provinces and have different payment standards. The apportionment methods of various types of Dingyin are mostly unified across the province; the other category is in the ten provinces of Shanxi, Henan, Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, Fujian, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Sichuan. The apportionment is calculated on the basis of prefectures and counties, and the calculation standards are as follows: The various ways of apportioning Ding Yin are not uniform. They vary not only from province to province, but also from place to place within the province, making the situation more complicated. The following is a description and analysis of the situations in these two types of provinces.
Through all provinces, each province will be calculated. The so-called provincial-wide apportionment means that the total amount of dingyin per province is evenly allocated to the land tax per mu of land in the province, and a unified apportionment rule is implemented throughout the province. Since the original Ding Liang situation is different in different parts of the province, after doing this, the Ding Yin burden in each place will inevitably change.
For example, in Zhili, in the second year of Yongzheng's reign, the province-wide unified allocation of ding was based on "each place was given one or two dings of silver per person, two qian of ding of silver, and seven cents of odd". As a result, the dingyin burden of each prefecture and prefecture changed as shown in the following table. ：
Table of changes in the burden of post-mortem payment in the ten prefectures and five prefectures of Zhili Province. Unit: Changes in the burden of post-mortgage payment in the two prefectures and Zhili prefectures. Shuntian Prefecture 36264.7626903. 77-9360.99 Yongping Prefecture 26783.2414357.44-12425.80 Baoding Prefecture 42789.5238996.49-3793.03 Hejian Prefecture 39016.7534311.45-4705.30 Tianjin Prefecture 8278.3717183.69+8905.32 Zhengding Prefecture 46735.7844876.55-1859.23Shunde Prefecture15923.0034232.08.+18309.08Guangping Fu 40202.9151558.211355.29 Daming Fu 47188.4156760.58+9572.17 Xuanhua Fu 11327.254530.25-6797.00 Yizhou 5113.085773.66+660.58 Jizhou 31460.6326380.1 2-5080.51 Zhaozhou 15408.5618922.38+3513.82 Shenzhou 20097.3916153.13-3944.26 Dingzhou 13582.0613915 .14+333.08 Total 400171.7404854.9+4683.2 Kangxi - benevolent to his subjects, lenient punishments, Aixinjueluo Xuanye, Kangxi emphasized the need to practice "benevolence" to his subjects. The word "benevolence", "Mencius: Full Heart" says: "Benevolence is a human being." Confucianism has the concept of "a benevolent person loves others". Some people say that the word "love" is a modern word, while others say it is a Western word. In fact, "The Analects of Confucius·Yan Yuan" has "Fan Chi asked about benevolence", and Confucius replied: "Love people." "Book of Rites·Ai Gongwen" records Confucius's words: "In ancient times, loving people is the most important thing in government." Therefore, "benevolence and love are the most important things." " is the basic political concept of Confucianism. Kangxi inherited the Confucian concept of "benevolence" in governance and practiced it in the process of governance. Kangxi repeatedly issued orders to stop land occupation; he also exempted money and grain 545 times, totaling 1.5 billion taels of silver. He provided disaster relief, set up charity warehouses, and cared about the suffering of the people. He announced: Since the fifty-first year of Kangxi (1712), "the prosperous times breed people, and there will never be any more wealth." Later Yongzheng implemented the "dividing people into the land", and China's long-standing people's silver was exempted. Its positive effect is to reduce personal dependence, and its negative effect is to stimulate population growth. The population reached 300 million during Qianlong's reign, and exceeded 400 million during Daoguang's reign. Tag: Miscellaneous Notes .