Early Qing Taxes And Corvee System Reform And Its Drawbacks

Because of the society turmoil at the period between Ming and Qing dynasty, the finance of newly Qing dynasty was almost on the verge of collapsing. What the government of Qing to do was to get the supportings of the public. Furthermore, with the accomplishment of the target of uniting the whole country by Qing armies, the social order became much better, but because the ruler of newly Qing lacking experiences for controlling the whole country, and their taxes and corvee system was not very perfect, the rulers were confronted with a hard nut to crack, that was how to ensure the collection of head tax.The first measure what the rulers of Qing took was "never adding tax". This certainly complied with the development of society at mat time, but with the contrast of the figures of households and total population over the years, we find the population so-called 24,621,324 is not the quotation from beginning to end, and the trend of population adding was still quiet weak, the head tax was still a heavy burden for people and the problem of evading tax was still serious, so on the base of this, the rulers of Qing started to take the second important reform, that is "Tan Ding Ru Mu"."Tan Ding Ru Mu" cancelled head tax alleviated the relationships of personal attachment and ensured the national tax income, but the trend of heavy tax was still serious. In accordance with the amount of tax of every province after "Tan Ding Ru Mu", the problem of tax adding existed still the chief bearer of heavy tax, the problem of going into exiling is still unsolved.This paper attempts to unmask the exploiting nature of the feudal ruling system by study the reform of tax and corvee system of newly Qing ? pierce the disguise of the humanity justice and virtue of the feudal rulers and help people to recognize the intrinsic quality of the feudal society.