Tang Dynasty Government's Food Needs And Fiscal Economy

The influence of the Tang government's demands for grain on the national economy and the people's livelihood was an important question for discussion. It has been paid close attention to by the researcher of the Tang's history since the 20th century, and obtained great achievement, while it is still researched deeply. The author of this dissertation attempts to analyze costing and benefit of financial measures available to the government such as the grain tax system, the costing of water-transportation grain, Hedi expenditure, "farms reclaimed for agriculture chiefly by garrisoned troops" and "plot of agricultural land run by the authorities", and by taking the relationship among government demand for grain, finance and economy as an example, deals with the influence of the Tang government's demand for grain and government intervening policy on the development of society and economy at that time in detail. She expects that it will benefit the further study on the problem. There are four chapters in this dissertation.Chapter 1, the influence of the Tang's Grain Tax Policy on Finance and Economy. By a quantitative analysis, the author considers that the whole burden level of the taxpayer wasn't high under the quota man tax system ,the rate of burden of output value of the families and men tax and tenancy system each was about 2%> 3.7% (not including all kinds of additional items ); then they were about 3%^ 4.5%, if the additional items was added in the early period of Tang dynasty. On the one hand, this kind of quota tax system having nothing to do with the number of land by the taxed man was of the function of encouraging the taxed man to enlarge the area of the cultivated land and stimulated the restoration and development of agriculture in some period. On the other hand, because of the different tax rate between the agriculture and the handcraft-commerce, a lot of agricultural population was shifted to the non-agriculture. In the early Tang dynasty, agricultural economy took on the trend of restoration and development step by step, prosperity during the Kaiyuan-Tianbao, at the same time, the problem of escaping families tended to be serious. This two kind of economic trends had extreme relation to the defect of man-tax system itself and the difference of tax rate.In the late Tang dynasty, the whole burden of the taxpayer was heavier than the early period's. In the early year of the Jianzhong, the two-tax system reform was carried out, the rate of burden of output value of the two-tax Hudou (784 4- ) and the grain-money rent of the two-tax of tax-payer each was about 4.8%> 6.2%(not including all kinds of additional items ),which increased by 2-3% than the early period's. This kind of increase was mainly formed in the Dali (.^Uj) period. The two-tax Hudou imposition system was a fair tax system that collected land tax according to property, burdened in the light of ability-to-pay ?It helped improve the unfair phenomenon of unequal tax and lighten the burden on the poor tax-payer. Under the economic situation of expensive money -cheap goods, the kind of tax system took advantage of relieving the actual burden on the taxpayer. But, in the late period of Tang dynasty, TanTao(|$iJ$!j) of the two-tax Hudou and the difference of industrial tax rate intensified the uneven of industrial tax burden, and thus made industrial development lose balance. That is to say, agriculture developed inefficiently while commodity economy did quickly.Chapter 2, the influence of Dispatching and Transporting of Tax-grain on Finance and Economy in the Tang Dynastyæ¡Ÿentering attention on Water Transportation Expenditure from Jiangnan. In order to meet the demands for a huge sum of collective grain, the government allocated numerous funds for dispatching and transporting of tax-grain. By estimating, under the regular condition, the expenditure of Jiangnan's taxed grain by water was about two-three hundred, at least seventy-eighty Wen( ^C ) per Dou( 4- ). During the Kaiyuan-Tianbao (Jf'TC^aD period, the yearly total expenditure t...