Hubei Tithing System And Rural Society In The Period Of The Republic Of China (1932-1949)

The core theory of this article is social control theory and the studying point of this article is the relation between nation and rural society. What this article fully investigates is that how the Tithing system was carried out in Hubei Province in the period of Republic China. What the purpose of this article is figuring out how national power expansion influenced the society, through discussing the relation between national power and rural society.After September18th Incident, National Government used the Tithing system again in order to enhance the control of grassroots society because of domestic trouble and foreign invasion. In1932, the government of Hubei Province formally carried out the Tithing system within the provincial range. National Government tried forcing all kinds of social population into the Tithing organization in name of carrying out the Tithing system. At the same time, National Government restrained people's behavior by Bao-Jia protocol and Bao-Jia convention. In the period of suppressing the bandits and new county system, security office and insurance office were set up one after another. In this way, national power was sure to reach the grassroots directly. From "four-in-two system" to "three-in-one system" then to "four-in-one system", National Government was deepening the function of it and the persons who carried it out had more and more administrative power towards the grassroots.The government of Hubei Province gave great importance to choosing Bao-Jia monitor. According to the system, the monitor was supposed to be elected by the voters but it would increase the danger of losing control of rural society. So in fact, the monitor was appointed by the upper political power. Although the government thought it very important, others didn't think so. The common people saw the position as poor errand and wouldn't bother to accept it. Gentries wouldn't condescend to accept the errand. As a result, the working staffs of the system were young men whose quality was under the average level. The training of these staffs was almost in vain.To maintain the local public security was one important purpose of resetting the Tithing system. In order to deal with the disorder of the society, an important content in the Tithing system was joint guarantee and joint punishment of which the implementation was difficult. To grasp the local people's flow and their details, National Government implemented the registration for population change and national identity card system. Population management shifted from the static one—taking household as a unit to the dynamic one—taking person as a unit, and the efficiency was improved. The Bao-Jia in the period of Republic China was different from that in Qing Dynasty, which was more than the joint guarantee.A large amount of money was needed steadily and continuously not only for the local administration but also for the local army force. However, the government of Hubei Province didn't work it out very well so apportionment became the main means of collecting money. To raise tax revenue the government put its efforts in carrying out The Land Report, which made the government and the masses alienated and opponent. To revive the rural areas and improve the life there, National Government encouraged cooperative movement and implemented rent reduction policy. Cooperative loan gave limited relief to the farmers but their burden was heavier. Because the working staffs had different economic conditions, they played different roles in the process of reducing the rent.After carrying out the new county system, the Kuomintang tried to melt Bao-Jia into the autonomy and set up the assembly for the masses. The assembly, the most elementary political department for the masses to express their wills, had the administrative power and also was restrained by it. But the government in the county and country, only concerning partial and local interests, used the power to manipulate the assembly, so the autonomy degraded to another organization serving for the politics. In the process of expanding national power in name of Bao-Jia, the religion in the country was hit to some extent. In the practice of managing the country, the Bao-Jia monitor burdened to handle the most disputes. But limited by his personal prestige and status, the monitor was born to be disabled to handle these things.The management relied greatly on elementary political power during the Nanjing National Government period. To make it last that government could control the rural society, the Bao-Jia monitor was endowed with more and more administrative power. Because the Kuomintang regime excessively took resources from the civilians, the working staffs of Bao-Jia were semi-official, and the monitor of Bao-Jia has low quality, the conflict between officials and civilians became acute and greatly damaged the government's legality in the eyes of the masses.Since National Government reset the Tithing system, national power has been trying to extend to the basic units of society all the time. But sometimes the working staffs of Bao-Jia resisted and prevented this extension because Chinese rural society was structured by the complex self-centered human relations and farmers were practical and rational. They alienated national power's influence to the rural society and caused difficulty in integrating the rural society. It was not completely successful for the national power to melt into the rural society in name of Tithing system. The government had no means to get absolute control of Tithing system. In reality, its control showed obvious imbalance in religion and periodicity in time. The truth was that Tithing system didn't become the forceful tool for the government to control rural society. That the system itself had flaws was the main reason for its failure. At the same time it reflected the complexity and difficulty in governing the Chinese rural society.