On Reform Of Tea Regie Law In Song Dynasty

It has been a long history since certain commodities were sold exclusively by the government in search of financial income.The earliest regie appeared in Kingdom of Qi in the period of Chunqiu where Guan Zhong imposed regie on common salt,which initiated regie system.This legal system was applied by almost all feudalistic rulers of every dynasty afterwards.In Tang Dynasty,benefits earned from such kind of monopolization had been playing more and more important role in the government income along with the development of commodity economy.and meanwhile the system of regie had also been futher developed and perfected.Tea became one of the proprietory articles at that time.In Song Dynasty,which was established through chaos and wars arisen in the period of Wudaishiguo, centralization of state power was strenthened.Measures taken according to this situation had resulted in redundant army,staffs and expenses,which caused the high financial cost and led to poverty and weekness of the nation.In order to increase financial income and enhance national defence strategy,Song dynasty followed Tea Regie System settled by Tang Dynasty and made some innovation over that basis.In the earty Song,the system of tea regie was that officials purchased tea and merchants sold them.This method is called Jiaoyin Standard.The government set certain officials to supervise households producing tea.Then tea regie was fulfilled by monopolised purchase of tea in full amount from those households.The tea purchased was shipped to Six Proprietory Article body which was called Liuquewu at that time and Thirteen Tea Purchase Spot which was called Shisanshangchang then that were both set up along the river.Merchants paid money and silk which might be considered currency at that time to the Proprietory Article body in the ancient capital city and then in return obtained the so-called Jiaoyin,a kind of voucher for tea purchase and finally went to Six Proprietory Article body and Thirteen Tea Purchase Spot to get tea.The Tea Regie System in Northern Song Dynasty is well-known for its frequent changes in prescription,which was typical of that of Southeast Tea.This situation occurred in the third year of Yongxi period when merchants submitted provenders at rimland in exchange of Jiaoyin to receive Southeast Tea.That system might be regarded the first significant reform of Law of tea in Song Dynasty.After that,this system and the other one in which merchants sold government the goods that are required at rimland switch from one to another, especially for the switch between Three Merchandise Law and Ready Money Law, which led to several changes of Law of tea.Not until the implement of Trade Law in the forth year of Jiayou period,did the Southeast Tea Law become stable.Besides the frequent changes of law,another feature of Tea Law reform was that the prescriptions were quite different according to various districts.In the early years of Song Dynasty,Southern Tea was monopolised while Sichuan Tea and Guangnan Tea could be traded freely though forbidden to sell overseas.However,in the year of Xining period,Southern Tea was allowed to come into market while Sichuan Tea was monopolised on the contrary and horse was used as a medium in the purchase of tea.To sum up,the evolvement of Southeast Tea Law and Sichuan Tea Law belonged to different systems and had nothing to do with each other.Also within Southeast Tea Law,there still existed distinctions of Huainan Tea and Jiangnan Tea.La Tea and Shuimo Tea had their unique styles,too.The characteristic of Tea Regie Legal system reform in Northern Song Dynasty reflected the rulers' flexible tea regie policy that adjusted measures to seasons and local conditions.Such policy on one hand helped the rulers give prompt reply to challenges appeared,but on the other hand it caused hidden trouble of the tea laws,which trapped Tea Regie Law for a long time in the mid Northern Song Dynasty.After the frequent changes of Tea Regie Law in early and mid Northern Song Dynasty and the amortization arisen by Jiayou Trade Law,Cai Jing in late Northern Song Dynasty reformed Tea System and established Chayin Method by which tea sales were monopolised with a medium called Yin.The government no longer controlled the produce of tea but realized the exclusive sale of tea through the enabling right of tea stamps.This method was renowned for its strictness and it is also quite simple and practical.It not only ensured the governmental income from the sales of tea,but also enhanced the transaction of tea.It can be considered apotheosis of successful ancient legal system of exclusive sale of goods,which profoundly impact the law of tea in the past dynasties afterwards.To make a comprehensive view of the reform of Tea Regie Law in Song Dynasty,we may sense that economic law must respect and spontaneously exert rule of value to recuperate the limits caused by the regulation of market itself and that legal reforms should respect the stability of law and be prudently operated in a long run and that legal construction should take into consideration the uniformity of legal system,which has to guarantee not only the identity of jurisprudence both horizontally and vertically,but also the unification of the interior logic of legal system.Such essential experience is significant for the real-life of nomocracy construction in China today.