Читать книгу Asia Past and Present - Peter P. Wan - Страница 52

Tang’s prosperity and stability owed much to its land and tax systems. Early Tang had a law for the “Equal Distribution of Land.” It gave a peasant family “user’s rights” to a grant of land based on the number of people in the family, while upholding the principle that the emperor holds ultimate title to all lands. A portion of the peasant’s land grant was designated to growing food grain, and it had to be returned to the state when the individual died. Another portion was for growing mulberry trees, elm trees, or flax; this land could be passed on in the family, or sold in the event of a death in the family. Aristocrats would receive large land grants that were inheritable and tax‐exempt. Lower‐level officials received land grants that would pay for their salary and office expenses.

The government required a peasant family to pay taxes and provide labor service in proportion to the land grant it received. It could demand 20 days of labor service per year without paying. If it needed more, it must reduce taxes in proportion; but it may not, under any circumstance, demand more than 30 days of labor service per year. Later, a new law allowed a peasant family to pay cash in lieu of labor service. This allowed a peasant to remain on the land continuously in order to keep in pace with the rhythmic cycle of agricultural production. Early Tang law taxed the person, but it was later changed to taxing the land. A tax law based on the person required the government to exert itself to tie the peasant to the land. A tax law based on the land gave the peasant more freedom to relocate to find virgin land to till, which would benefit both him and the government.

To make the land and tax laws work, the government had to have full and accurate information on the population and the land. So it undertook the compilation of a “household registry (census)” and a “land registry.” With this information in hand, the government knew whether an aristocratic family was holding more land than allowed by law, and whether a peasant family was misreporting able‐bodied adults as children or old people in order to avoid paying taxes in full.

To collect, organize, and keep current so much information was a daunting task. The fact that the Tang government bureaucracy was able to accomplish the task demonstrates its ability to organize a huge staff of highly skilled and disciplined men to work over a period of many years to achieve a goal. Succeeding dynasties and other Asian governments would try to duplicate the system with varying degrees of success.

These land and tax laws were well suited to the realities of Early Tang. Long years of war had shrunk the population, leaving large tracts of farm land unclaimed and uncultivated. This gave the emperor a free hand to distribute these abandoned lands to his supporters and landless peasants. But as time passed, conditions changed, and the system fell apart. Powerful families took possession of estates of ever‐increasing size, and passed them on within the family. This left the government with an ever‐shrinking reserve of land to distribute to an ever‐increasing peasant population. Consequently, the government had to give up the system.