Chapter 6 Section 5. Rent and Yong Modulation and Two-tax Law in the Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty continued to implement the land equalization system.In 624 AD, the Land Equalization Order was promulgated, and the rent regulation of the previous generation was developed into rent regulation.It is stipulated that young men (21-60 years old) and middle-aged men (18-20 years old) shall receive one hectare (100 mu) of land.40 acres of fields are available to the sick and disabled.30 mu for the widow, and 50 mu for the head of the household.2/10 of the granted land is Yongye land, which can be inherited by descendants.Within three years, 50 mulberry trees, 10 elm trees and 10 jujube trees should be planted per mu, which are not suitable for the areas of the above varieties and can be replaced by other fruit trees. 8/10 is for the mouth to divide the land, and it will be returned to the country and given to others after death.In a wide township with a large area and a small population, industrial and commercial people also receive land, which is half of that of farmers;The land equalization system in the Tang Dynasty had the following characteristics: land was granted to men, and women were no longer entitled to land; the regulations restricting land sales were relaxed, and not only Yongye land could be bought and sold, but koufen land could sometimes be sold (such as when moving to Kuanxiang).In addition, slaves and maidservants no longer receive land, but only garden land (one mu for five families, and one mu for three families for ordinary people).On the basis of the land equalization system, rent-yong regulation is promulgated: every Ding pays two stones of millet per year, and the household adjustment follows the local production, silk, silk, and silk [shishi] each two feet long, and three taels of cotton.If you pay cloth, add 1/5, that is, two feet and five feet, and three catties of hemp.It is stipulated that every Ding serves 20 days a year and 22 days in leap years.If you don't serve corvee, you can take silk or cloth as a substitute, which is equivalent to three feet of silk a day, which is called Yong.If the government adds additional service, 15 days of additional service will be exempted from adjustment, and 30 days of additional service will be exempted from rent adjustment.Additional service shall not exceed 30 days.Yong in the Tang Dynasty officially transformed part of the labor tax into a tax in kind.

The Tang Dynasty also stipulated two kinds of property taxes in addition to the rent adjustment: one is the household tax.Household tax "pays tax with money instead of grain and silk, and determines tax with capital without asking personal status." ("Document Tong Kao·Tian Fu Kao III") The households in the world are divided into nine classes from the princes to the princes, and the four years in the Dali calendar (769 A.D.) It was stipulated that upper and upper households pay 4,000 Wen per year, upper and middle households pay 3,500 Wen, and upper and lower households pay 3,000 Wen; middle and upper households pay 2,500 Wen; , 700 Wen for lower households and 500 Wen for lower households.First-rank officials pay household tax according to the upper and upper households, ninth-rank officials pay household tax according to the lower households, and so on for the rest of the ranks.

The second is land tax.At the beginning, the collection was based on the number of acres of fields, and later changed to collection by households, and later changed to collection by acres of fields.When collecting according to households, the upper household shall have five stones, and then the amount shall be reduced in descending order.The standard for levying per mu of land is "two liters per mu tax".Commercial households with no land or less land are collected according to the system of five shi for the upper household tax, and the lower ones for the upper, middle and lower grades are collected in descending order.The household tax and land tax in the Tang Dynasty played a certain role in making up for the shortcomings of renting and mediocre regulation of the rich and the poor.

The land equalization system has been implemented for more than 250 years from the Northern Wei Dynasty to the mid-Tang Dynasty.If counting from the land occupation system, the system of granting land to Ding Fu has been implemented intermittently for more than 460 years.From Cao Cao's implementation of rent regulation in 204 AD to the complete abolition of rent regulation in 780 AD, there is a development history of nearly 600 years before and after rent regulation.The dominant taxation system during this period has two main features: First, to ensure the basis of state taxation by restricting land mergers and ensuring farmers' right to occupy and use small pieces of land.

Second, pay attention to equalizing taxes according to affordability.The Cao Wei levied land rent according to the number of acres, the Western Jin Dynasty levied household adjustments based on households, and under the land equalization system, levied rent adjustments based on husbands, all of which embody this principle. The basis of the rent adjustment and the rent adjustment based on the population as the object of tax collection is the land equalization system.All laborers can own a small piece of land and engage in productive labor, so it is possible to realize the levy on a dime basis.Once the land equalization system is destroyed and farmers lose their land again, it will be impossible to maintain this kind of rent and mediocrity system based on men.

The land equalization system means that the state distributes part of the unowned wasteland it owns to landless and landless farmers for cultivation.The state owns the ownership of these lands, and the land-receiving farmers obtain the right to use these lands.While implementing state ownership of unowned wasteland, the private ownership of landlord land is still preserved.As a result, the coexistence of feudal state ownership of land and feudal private ownership of land emerged.Although both are essentially feudal land ownership, there are huge differences and contradictions between these two forms of land ownership.On the one hand, the feudal state tried to limit the vicious expansion of landlords’ private ownership of land through the state ownership of land;The coexistence of the two can only be temporary, not long-term.The state-owned land system implemented by the land equalization system limits the development of land mergers to a certain extent.But the land equalization system does not violate the existing private ownership of land. Not only that, it also takes care of the interests of big landlords and bureaucrats in many ways.The land equalization system in the Tang Dynasty stipulated that nobles with titles and officials above the fifth rank could be granted 5-100 hectares of Yongye farmland according to their grades, and those with military merits could receive 60 mu to 30 hectares of land.After these lands are granted, they become their private property.The preferential treatment of bureaucratic landlords allowed them to continue to expand their economic power, making it possible for them to annex a large number of peasant lands.The land equalization system in the Tang Dynasty further relaxed the restrictions on land sales compared with the previous land equalization system. Not only Yongye land could be sold, but also Koufen land could be sold when the people moved to Kuanxiang. The land opened the door to convenience.In addition, the feudal state is only the general representative of the landlord class. The reason why it implements the land equalization system is mainly because the development of land annexation has endangered the fundamental interests of the entire landlord class and the consolidation of the feudal regime.Once the social economy develops, the class contradictions ease, and the financial situation improves, the feudal state, as the general representative of the landlord class, will not only allow the development of land annexation, but the people in power will seize the state-owned land for themselves. Yes, become the main force of land merger.For example, Princess Taiping, the daughter of Empress Wu Zetian, had farms all over the fertile land in the suburbs of Beijing; Li Linfu, the prime minister of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty, occupied all the land around the capital; the eunuch Gao Lishi occupied 6/10 of the good land in the capital.By the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the land equalization system survived in name only.The land was merged and redeveloped.A large number of land-sharing farmers lost their land and became refugees, and some became tenant farmers of the landlords; either they had lost the ability to pay rent and mediocrity, or they were no longer controlled by the state and no longer paid taxes for the state.Although the big bureaucrats and big landlords occupy a large amount of land and exploit many tenant farmers, they evade taxes, or only pay rent for one household.After the Anshi Rebellion (755-763 A.D.), a large number of people were dispersed and died, which further promoted the concentration of land. The land equalization system completely collapsed.In 780 AD, Tang Dezong appointed Yang Yan as his prime minister and began to implement the reform of the two tax laws.

The two tax laws started a new stage in the history of tax development in China.The land tax system at this stage mainly showed the following two basic characteristics: first, asset tax began to replace the population tax; second, currency tax gradually replaced the tax in kind.Although this replacement process has been repeated many times, it has been carried out in the late feudal society of China, which is a trend in the development of the land tax system.Starting from the two tax laws in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, Wang Anshi’s reform in the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhang Juzheng’s implementation of a whip method in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and the land reform in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, this replacement was finally completed.

The two tax laws are the first to embody the development trend or changes mentioned above.The specific content of the two-tax law has the following aspects: the amount of output is based on income. According to the original fiscal expenditures of the country, the total tax revenue of the country is determined, and then the total tax is distributed to various places, and the people are collected from the people according to two types of taxes: household tax and land tax.The specific collection principle of household tax is: "A household has no owner and customer, and the house is the book; there is no middle class, and the rich and the poor are the difference." The household registration of the state and county where you live now pays taxes in the place of residence.The standard of taxation is no longer based on size, but according to assets. Regardless of size or middle-aged men, they are all taxed according to their wealth, that is, according to the amount of assets they own.Those with more assets pay more, and those with less assets pay less.Change the taxation based on Ding (household) in the past to taxation based on assets.Businessmen have to pay taxes in the state and county where they do business. The tax rate is 1/30, which is roughly the same as the tax burden of local residents.The land tax is collected according to the number of acres of land cultivated in the year before the implementation of the Two Tax Law.The two taxes are paid twice a year in summer and autumn. The time for paying the summer tax does not exceed June, and the autumn tax does not exceed November.

The Two Tax Law simplifies the tax system, consolidates rent adjustment and various miscellaneous taxes, collects them uniformly, reduces tax items, concentrates payment time, and facilitates tax payment procedures.The "non-class account" was also abolished. Not only the officials had to pay taxes, but also the floating customers and merchants had to bear the two taxes, which expanded the scope of tax payment and increased the tax revenue of the country.The two-tax law is taxed according to assets, which is more suitable for the affordability of the people after the disintegration of the land equalization system. When most of the land has been concentrated in the hands of the big landlord class, and the majority of farmers have lost their land, if the rent is levied on the basis of Ding and household It is extremely unfair, and it is becoming more and more difficult to ensure that the treasury has sufficient revenue.However, taxation is based on assets. Large landlords who own a large amount of land pay more taxes, while farmers with very little assets pay less taxes.

There is another important provision in the Two Taxes Law, that is, the tax per mu of land (including the land tax of renting two stones of millet and paying two liters of millet per mu) still pays grain and rice, while the part of the rent adjustment that should be paid in kind such as cloth, silk, cotton, etc. is converted into money. sign.The land tax of the land occupied by general merchants that is not included in the number of cultivated fields is also paid in cash.In addition, after the original mediocrity was merged into the two taxes, it was changed to tax instead of labor, and the people could pay for labor, and the labor tax was also turned into currency tax.In this way, the two-tax law changed a large part of the tax in kind into a currency tax.

The change of the two tax laws from tax collection to money collection was the result of the prosperity of the social economy and the remarkable development of the commodity currency economy in the Tang Dynasty.This reform conforms to the historical trend of social and economic development, and at the same time, it will inevitably promote the development of commodity money economy.Taxation in currency was only implemented in some areas before Yang Yan proposed the two-tax law.The two-tax law pushed it to the whole country, accelerated the process of transforming from tax in kind to tax in currency, and expanded the scope of the role of tax in currency.In order to pay taxes, farmers must sell their agricultural products and exchange them for currency; the rural natural economy, which has always been self-sufficient, must be directly connected with the market to expand the scope of commodity production.This will inevitably accelerate the disintegration of the feudal natural economic foundation.So, this is a hugely progressive tax reform. However, although the commodity currency economy in the Tang Dynasty developed considerably, the feudal natural economy still dominated.The commodity economy has not yet developed to the extent it should be, and the conditions for finally replacing the tax in kind with monetary tax have not yet fully matured.Because of this, although the two tax laws set taxes in money, when they are levied, they are often paid in kind.Due to the subsequent fall in prices, farmers often needed several times the amount of silk to pay the full amount of the two taxes, which increased the burden on the people.In the first year of Emperor Mu Zong's Changqing (821 A.D.), Yang Yuling, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, was adopted, and the two taxes were stipulated that "both are easy to pay for cloth, silk, silk, and silk, and rent and tune are paid regardless of money." "Food and Huo Zhi").As a result, the tax in kind was reinstated. The incompleteness of the two tax laws is also reflected in the fact that miscellaneous taxes have not been abolished.When the Two Taxes Law was promulgated, it was stipulated that in addition to the two taxes, no more money should be levied.But soon the states were ordered to increase the two taxes by 200 cash for every thousand cash.During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907-960 A.D.), this kind of arbitrary levy became even more serious.The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms still adopted the two-tax law.But in addition to the two taxes, there are additional taxes of various names.For example, from Houliang to Houzhou, the common people had to pay saving money in addition to the two taxes, in the name of compensating for the loss in the process of grain collection.Beginning in the later Tang Dynasty, the so-called consumption of sparrows and mice was collected again, using the excuse of the loss of stored grain.In the Later Han Dynasty, it was stipulated that when the common people paid money to the government, 80 Wen was regarded as 100 Wen, and when the government paid money, 77 Wen was regarded as 100 Wen, which was called Shengmo.In addition, the additional taxes levied along with the land tax include farm equipment money for farmers' self-made farm tools, koji money and cowhide tax for people's koji and wine making. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the central government still had three provinces and six ministries, and the one responsible for managing finance and taxation was the Du Branch (called the Ministry of Households in the Tang Dynasty).There are Duzhi Department, Warehouse Department, Household Department, and Finance Department under it to manage tax collection affairs respectively.In the Tang Dynasty, prefectures and counties had Sihu Caoshen Military and Sicang Caoshen Military, while counties had Sihuzuo and Sicangzuo responsible for taxation.In the township, hundreds of households set up lis, and some lis in the li are responsible for tax collection.After the Anshi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty, the local taxes were divided into three parts, one part was reserved for local use, the other part was handed over to the Taoist envoys for their own use, and the rest was handed over to the central government. State" system.The Bi Department in the Ministry of Punishment is responsible for the supervision and review of taxes and expenditures, and the treasury management system is also more complete.