The Research Of Zhejiang’s Local Financial Structure Transition In Ming Dynasty

Financial system is the theoretical expression of the way of a state power’s absorbingand using of the social resources, while the transformation of financial system means themode changing of the state power towards the public affairs management, that is, the systemof the state has changed in some sense. This study chooses the changes of the local financialstructure of Zhejiang Province in Ming dynasty as its subject, aiming to provide a localexperience for analyzing one system reform, and thereby, trying to analyzing the operationmode of financial structure during Ming dynasty in the tax fiscal system. Base on this, thisstudy is trying to reinterpret the significant meaning of financial history on one system reform,thus providing a possibility for the in-depth analysis of financial system transformation inMing Dynasty. The current studies describe the process of the local fiscal transformation inMing dynasty in the perspective of the impact of social economic development on the originalreal financial system. Some scholars have questioned this theoretical description, but there arestill a few empirical analyses on this. The current study on the fiscal revenue of ZhejiangProvince has showed that the operational idea on tax fiscal system has played an importantpart since the early Ming dynasty until Jiaqing, and it is the Anti-Japanese War happened inthe late Jiaqing that has the real impact on this system. At that time, the change of militarymobilization system, a great amount using of the mercenaries, and the explosion of thesoldiers’ pay have caused a great demand of the government to the silver as currency, givingbirth to the monetization of fiscal system. This transformation needs our rethinking on theoperation principle of tax fiscal system and the meaning of financial history on one systemreform.In the first chapter of this study, I discuss the problem of the balance of paymentstructure of the positive revenue, focusing mainly on “tax” in tax fiscal system. It could befound that there was no large scale silver reducing in the positive land tax until the middle ofJiaqing period. Physical payments still remain as the main body of financial expense, onlysome particular items of the system had been changed to be amortized. However, the centralgovernment had specified the various applications of local preserved grains from the earlyMing dynasty. Local government were not allowed to change the mode of payments exceptfor the use of official salary and educational salary on the purpose to retain enough reservation. To this point, the development of social economy and the increase of silver stockplayed the role as the premise, but not the direct reason, of the transformation of tax. It can bedescribed that the tax transformation from rent to silver, which emerged in the middle and lateZhengde Jiaqing period of the Ming Dynasty, was directly resulted from the changedpayments on the national defend war and garrison salary. To this point, national demand is thedirect reason of the tax transformation from rent to silver. Local governments were not able tocomplete such transformation without the central government’s unified command. As aconsequence, the tax in the tax-and-servant financial system indicates a physical idea. Thecountry had to retain significant amounts of physical substance, especially standby grains, onthe purpose to ensure national security. However, such idea was pushed to the extreme in theearly and middle period of Ming dynasty, and then was greatly changed under the pressurefrom external environment. Relevant researches manifest that the corvee silver was used forthe Silver Honesty System and educational subsidiary. Generally, the silver was not used forcorvee although some other items of silver such as weave silver were added into the conceptof corvee silver. The emergence of silver servant cannot be viewed as monetization of servantsystem because most of the administrative human resources were called up by direct serviceor employment. It is important to distinguish monetized selection and servant duty whenunderstanding the issues of corvee system in Ming dynasty. It was a set of qualified selectionsystem which was evaluated when local governments sent servants. The burden of corvee wasqualified as silver and personal assets were qualified as farm land. The comparison of the twoprocesses indicates that the individuals with certain assets can burden corvee withcorresponding grades. However, such process cannot be viewed as a complete turn fromcorvee to silver payment because the civilian’s families did not pay the silver and paid otherpeople to serve for themselves in most of the time. The government’s ultimate demand wascorvee but not silver. The completion of selection and corvee pattern in corvee system couldonly be viewed as self-adjustment inside the system but not the break to previous originalsystem. The transformation of military mobilization in national defend war was the directmotivation of the change from corvee to silver. The make-up of corvee system completelybroke through the original operation mode and enforced the change the idea of gaining fiscalrevenue from corvee.The analysis also can be traced from the changes of balance of payment structure of various governmental expenses. The governmental expenses were bearded by the retainedBaochao in local governments. However, the fiscal revenue in such aspect completed run offwith continuous vicious devaluation. As consequence, the burden of fiscal revenue began tobe bearded by corvee. Furthermore, the regulated governmental revenue system grew up inHongzhi and Zhengde period, and also with the grow-up of miscellaneous expenditure silversystem, began to deal with local governments’ expenditure. The miscellaneous expendituresilver actually could be used in two patterns: the national clarified items such as fete, imperialexaminations, and compensation were paid by the government, it was mostly converted fromthe deflation of Baochao; the other part were daily expenses and reception payments, whichwere called payment silver, were not directly collected from silver but were provided by thecompradors. The nature of the concept was the same as corvee and belonged to the servantwith fiscal revenue burden. The expenditure of miscellaneous expenditure silver were in adisordered position in either direct collection or provision by compradors. The centralgovernment and chief secretary had clarified the uses of various expenditure. The paymentsfrom fete and imperial examinations were categorized as fixed costs so the compradors hadlarge flexibility. Local governments could use the silver in accordance with actual demandsand within certain quota. The expansion of local finance imposed critical burdens to civilian’sfamilies. Local governments had to turn to the servant pattern with compradors because oflow budgets, although they repeatedly proposed suggestions and measures on silvertransformation system. Equality law by Pang Shangpeng continued the existing silvertransformation idea with the difference of increasing budget quota and absorbed a largenumber of reasonable but unlawful items into local fiscal revenue and finally completed thereform. The establishment of monetized fiscal system means the benefit of the developmentof market economy. On the other hand, this dissertation is more inclined to judge the systemin accordance with national application and resource efficiency, and also with national controlpower to the society. Monetized fiscal system solved the military pressures in Ming dynasty inshort term. However, high marketization of fiscal system in military resource support is withpotential risks and is more likely to lead to the overall collapse of fiscal system.