Land Tax Levied In Guangxi In The Qing Dynasty And The Farmers’ Burden

Land tax is the main body of fiscal revenue during the Qing Dynasty, and it’s very important to farmers’ live. This thesis is from the perspective of the feudal land tax collection and regional socio-economic interaction, combined with historical biographies, information on local history and some inscriptions. It analyzes some historical documents on the evolution of the development of feudal land tax collection in Guangxi in the Qing Dynasty, including the operation, collection agencies, and farmers’ burden and combed for issues such as socio-economic impacts of Guangxi. Due to the difference of local economy development, Guangxi land tax had its own characteristic, but the basic tendency of land tax collection still cohered with the central stipulation. Land tax collection was not only a simple tax affairs activity, but also mixed with the economic problem, the political issue and many others social questions.This thesis contains there parts. They are introduction, main body and conclusion.The introduction introduces the thesis’s originates, significance, research technique and the innovations and the deficiences, and then mainly reviews and analyzes the present academic circles to the Qing Dynasty payment of taxes problems, especially the land tax question research results, and correlates the standard definition of research time, geographical scope, land tax and other concepts.The main body of the thesis includes five parts:In the first part, the author finds that the land tax mainly drafts from agriculture, and elaborates the vital role of natural environment and the social condition to the agricultural development. From the climate, water resources, terrain and soil in Guangxi as well as natural disaster, the thesis has analyzed the natural environment to Guangxi agricultural development. Guangxi agricultural development in Qing Dynasty mainly depended on labor force and the cultivated area investment. The Guangxi population in Qing Dynasty and the cultivated area accounted for a low percentage in the whole country, but its tendency increased unceasingly, and it was very important in Guangxi’s agriculture development.In the second part, the author not only reviews the collection system evolution of Guangxi land tax in Ming Dynasty before Qing Dynasty, with detailed analysis of Guangxi land tax collection development. In the early years of Qing Dynasty, the chaos caused by war led that Guangxi land tax dropped unceasingly. In the middle of Qing Dynasty, Guangxi land tax collection tended by the stability and advancement. In the later period of Qing Dynasty, along with business tax and some other likin tax starting, although the land tax income dropped in the financial proportion, but it still was the important constituent of Qing Dynasty finance tax revenue.In the third part, the Qing Dynasty Guangxi land tax collection is analyzed from the multi-angle of view, mainly from the operation mechanism, the area as well as the central committee and the place relations and so on. The author thinks that the Guangxi land tax levies in Qing Dynasty is not to be balanced in different areas. The national land tax collections are all different in the different government offices, and this situation is mainly decided by various local economy development. In the financial relations, the central committee is the core of the system, the areas obeyed to the central.The fourth part is from the Qing Dynasty Guangxi land tax volume and the land tax additional tax collection situation to analyze the relation between land tax collection and the farmer, crosswisely comparing Guangxi and other areas’land tax income in the same period, longitudinally comparing with the situation in the Republic of China time. Considering the Qing Dynasty Guangxi land tax volume and the land tax main additional tax consume collection were low, farmers’burden is light. But farmers’burden in land tax mainly came from official’s corrupting practices and the privilege to the landlord.The fifth part describes the influence of the land tax collection to Guangxi society in Qing Dynasty. The less land tax collection has many hands influence to Guangxi development. On the one hand, the land tax was low, so the official was easy to form the embezzlement in order to maintain the normal administrative function and to make up the insufficiency of atonement allowance, affecting the local administrative style and achievements of local officials. On the other hand, because of the fund insufficiency, education, hydraulic engineering, bridge path construction and other local non-profit organizations developed with difficulty. But the land tax burden objectively is lightly advantageous to enhance farmer’s production enthusiasm, to promote agriculture development, and in particular, the cultivated area had an unceasing expansion during this time.The conclusion part has further induced the special details of the land tax collection in Guangxi and the characteristic which displayed in this process, reflected on the land tax collection in the flaw, and dealt with the farmer issue to Contemporary China the model significance to carry on the elaboration.