Multifarious Tax System Of Ming Dynasty

Tax system plays a vital role in the development of a nation. For a long time Chinese dynasties put their focus on agricultural tax. Until Sung and Yuan dynasties government began to enhance the administration on commercial tax. They sat up the specific departments and assigned officials to handle and supervise the collection of the commercial tax. The tax that they collected was called "Ke Cheng" at that time which meant multifarious tax. It is in such background that Ke Cheng system was developed. The Ke Cheng system worked well but after the mid-Ming period, the system decline gradually until no one understood what Ke Cheng was in Qing period.Ming Dynasty is the turning point in the development of Ke Cheng system. The central government ordered that multifarious tax should be handled by the local government. It led to the integration of the Ke Cheng system into the local government fiscal system and therefore understanding the evolution of the Ke Cheng system could let us know more in deep of the Ming fiscal system.More and more local records were published in these recent years. This paper tried to utilize those local records when studying the Ke Cheng system. The uses of these new historical sources hope can provide a new perspective in understanding the fiscal system of Ming dynasty.Institutionalism as an important school in economic studies provides us many tools to analyze the economic system. This paper would try to use some of the institutional method especially the transaction cost theory to explain the evolution of Ke Cheng system in Ming dynasty.The Ke Cheng system in Ming dynasty is just a part of the whole system. So this paper could only say as a beginning of the studies and hope it can arouse other scholars to involve in the discussion and research of this forgotten system.