System Of Ming Dynasty Tributes

The local tribute system served as an ancient Chinese mechanism in which the local governments paid local products or valuable items such as antique/jewelry with free of charge to the central government and the emperor. The similar system of local tribute emerged pretty early, whilst it was in early stage of Han Dynasty when the system in real terms came into being following the separation of tribute from tax. In Tang Dynasty, the system got mature and got ever developing till the Ming and Tsing Dynasties along with the history. This paper conducts a research on the local tribute system of Ming Dynasty and, taking Shandong region as the example, gives an intensive elaboration on the common characteristics and some personalities in Shandong concerning the local tribute levying in Ming Dynasty.The local tribute system of Ming Dynasty developed basing upon the systems of previous dynasties, at the very early stage of Ming Dynasty, the categories and quantities of the tribute items were already clearly provided by the royal government. The free items provided by the local governments to the royal family and central government were generally called "tribute material" with two more specific names of "tribute items" and "material"; afterwards came several other names such as "extra levying" and "arbitrary levying", which imposed a greater burden to the people. As the social economy kept developing, at the middle and final stages of the Ming Dynasty, the local tribute with the form of silver got general and prevailing. With regard to the variety of the local tribute items of Ming Dynasty, it was substantially great mainly including textile, medicine, daily necessaries, food & drink, art & craft, rarely-seen bird / animal and poultry, copper, iron, leather and paper. As for the management upon the tribute items, the Ministry of Revenue took charge of the local tribute levying and management in Ming Dynasty. As for the origin of local tribute items, there were mainly three namely governmental purchasing, registered households' or special tribute-payers' supply and yield of official handicraft industry. The local tribute would be levied according to the amount of land or the different administrative division. The local tribute items would be transported by 2 special units—unit of horse & boat and unit of delivery. As for the storage and use, the local tribute items would be stored at two royal warehouses and the warehouse of Guanglusi-a governmental unit which was in charge of the royal food & drink in order to meet the demand of the royal family for various items. The local tribute items were mainly used by the royal family for its daily life, sacrifice and largess.In Ming Dynasty, Shandong was an important province which provided strong tax & finance support to the central government. The local tribute system was another form of duty of Shandong to the central government as well as the royal family. The local tribute items paid by Shandong in Ming Dynasty mainly concerned medicine, leather, poultry & animal, feather, stone, metal and daily necessaries. By referring to the statistics of local tribute levying in some municipalities and counties of Shandong in Ming Dynasty, we can conclude some characteristics concerning the local tribute system in Shandong of Ming Dynasty as followed: relatively limited categories, most tribute items being its own local products or handicraft industry yields, the phenomenon of converting the tribute into silver, the large quantity of local tribute and the privilege of tribute reduction & exemption enjoyed by the Kong(family name of Confucius) family in Qufu, Shandong.The local tribute system in Ming Dynasty aggravated working people's burden, severely disordered the normal local economic and social activities and hindered the economic progress and development in Ming Dynasty to a certain extent. At the same time, we should also notice the proactive and pragmatic significance of the local tribute system. However, upon the comparison of the two aspects of significance of this system, its negative significance is clearly and greatly bigger.