The Tea System Of Late Tang Dynasty

The main content of this article is to analyze the tea system from Tang Dezong to Tang Xuanzong. Including tea tax, the reasons of taxing tea, the monopoly of tea economy, the reason of the failure of monopoly system,and the effects of tea tax.Tea tax is a new tax item appearing in Tang Dynasty, which has some characteristics of the times. In this article, we will take time as the clue, and analyze the political,economic and social conditions of the Tang Dynasty before taxing tea, and then answer the question why Tang Dezong started to tax tea. After analyzing the reasons of taxing,we will discuss the debate of the time of taxing tea,and analyze the method of collecting tea tax. Then we will analyze the adjustment of the tea system implemented by Muzong,and make a conclusion of this adjustment. The third part of the article is to analyze the system of formulated by Wenzong. In the period ruled by Wenzong, the system of tea had been changed many times. First of all, the system changed from tea tax to monopoly of tea economy. But the political changes had caused some social discontent, then Wenzong had to restore the old system of tea. However, in order to increase the tax revenue, Tang government started to strengthen the controlling tea economy after Wenzong renewed taxing tea. The last part of the article, we will introduce the situation of taxing tea, and then analyze the effect of strengthening supervision of tea economy for Tang Dynasty, tea merchants and the society circumstance of Tang Dynasty.In this article, we not only analyzed the system of tea system, but also try to study the economic situation of the late Tang dynasty. Including the system of tea tax, the collapse of "system of controlling merchant",the monetary crisis caused by the financial shortage problem,the situation of development of tea economy of late Tang Dynasty,and these problems how to affect the trend of social and economic of the Tang dynasty. Why would the government of Tang Dynasty change the system of tea from the tea tax into tea monopoly system, and why would restore taxing tea, and why change the tax rate of tea several times.If together all these problems,we can find the attitude of government to the tea tax. And how the repeatedly changes of the system of tea and tea rate influence the tea merchants.And the tea merchants will how to cope with these conditions.These problems can not only show the late Tang Dynasty the system of tea and system of tea economy, but also can reflect the economic structure of the late Tang Dynasty on the aspects of political, economic and social development, and then analyze the significance of the structure of Chinese history.Tax tea is a small economic problem,however,it is a new tax item in the Tang Dynasty, so it has a special significance for studying. The emergence of a system must have its deep reasons,and it may have some influence of later generations. Since the tea tax appeared in the period of Tang Dezong,and had been followed by later generations.At the same time, by the tea tax appeared, the problem brought by taxing tea had been also repeated in the later generations.All these worth question are the signification of studying the system of tea of Tang Dynasty.