The Revenue Question Of Pawnbroking In Qing Dynasty

There are few researches into the problem of Chinese ancientpawnbroking. The academe usually quote Japanese scholar Anbujianfu's(安部健夫)conclusion about pawnshop-number; also, the academe lets alone the systematic studyon the rate of pawnshop-tax. Therefore, this study has made up the insufficiency whichthe predecessors study to a certain extent. In this paper, the author selected four mainaspects connected with pawnbroking in Qing dynasty as the research objects, makinguse of historical material such as the archive of China, chorography, memoir, especiallyprobes into the pawnshop-tax of North China area in late Qing dynasty, through historyand statistics method, in order to enable the reader to have a basic understanding ofpawnshop-tax.In detail, this paper is separated into the following six parts:The first part is the introduction. The learning history and the deficiencies arebriefly introduced: the predecessors often investigated pawnbroking from aspects suchas pawnbroking's origin, development, function, organization, management, but paidless attention on tax-rate. Something closely linked to pawnshop-tax and the tax-rateshould also be researched in detail. At the same time, the author explains this paper'ssignificance and indicates the questions which must be paid attention to.Second, this part mainly involves to the development scale and theregion-distribution characteristic. First the author compares the pawnbroking withya'hang(牙行) as well as the pawnshop-number to show the development scale ofancient pawnbroking. Next, through analyzing the change of pawnshop-numberbetween different regions as well as provinces, the author draws a conclusion: At about18 century, pawnbroking moves gradually to prosper in the south, but Beijing andShan'xi are preserving the original development momentum in the north.Third is the importance of pawnbroking in social economy in Qing dynasty. Thispart mainly conducts two aspects: firstly, the author analyses the relation betweenpawnbroking and common people's life, and the benefit of the ruling class, and thestable money market, in order to explain pawnbroking's vital role to the social economy; Secondly, the author illuminates the important effects of pawnshop-tax in the nationalfinancial expenditure through its multiple functions.In the fourth part, the author does a textual research about the tax-levelorganization through lots of chorography.Fifth, the amount of pawnshop-tax in different time of Qing Dynasty. This is oneimportant part of this article. In this part, the author rests on the limited material andselects four-group data to make a comparison. Accordingly the author puts forward herbasic concept, and carries on the analysis of some questions.Sixth, the change of the tax-rate in different time of Qing Dynasty. This also is oneimportant part of this article. Here, the author mainly aims at a historical incident tomake a causes and effects exploration, and pointes out the influence on the socialeconomy and the lives of the people which the decision had brought.Finally is a summary of the full text. Here, the penman pointes out theenhancement of tax-rate, such as pawnshop-tax and contract-tax and so on, which isdecided by social condition of the day.