부산대학교 도서관

This essay explores the features of local public fiscal management in the Ming Dynasty by investigating the structure and evolution of local public funding in Jiangxi Province. Tax levies for local administration (lijia) already appeared in Jiangxi under the Jingtai reign (1449-57). The responsibility for collection lay entirely with the tax captains (lizhang), with the government having no control over the financial data at the grass-roots level. Between the Zhengde (1505-21) and Jiajing (1521-67) reigns, however, the fiscal tentacles of local government penetrated deep into the grass-roots levels of society, using population and grain production to calculate household assets and equally allocate the local administration levies, which was the basis for local public finance. But it was not until the 15th year of Jiajing (1536) that the main elements of public funding were incorporated into the 'Local Taxation Rules and Regulations,' as the local public finance system began to be consolidated, with accounting and monetary arrangements falling under the purview of local government public fiscal supervision. After examining the actual allocations for official reception expenditures, ceremonial expenditures and transportation expenditures of the day-to-day local administration, we find that in the various local government offices in Jiangxi, there was still a large number of public expenses that were 'self-financed' by the office personnel such that the fiscal burdens that accompanied corvée labor were heavy. Under the circumstances, even though community heads and neighborhood households in the precincts were paid, their works were not entirely free of the characteristics of corvée service, because the government put the quota limits on public expenditures and thus the payment could not always reflect the worth of their work. And so, the commutation of public funds into silver did not necessarily replace the old fiscal system that relied on corvée service. The simultaneous use of both cash transactions and corvée service remained a distinctive feature in fiscal management in Ming local government. The Single Whip reforms were designed to eliminate the hidden burdens of local government finance and to eradicate the mediating function of the office personnel in the corvée system, as a means to centralize and control the finances of the empire, but these measures clashed with the vested interests of those in local government. And so, local governments did not completely abandon the 'cash payment plus corvée service' style of fiscal management, and this was the primary reason for the persistent condition of 'the whip beyond the whip.'