A Reserve Granary Established in 1390

Background

Famine policy in the Hongwu entries of the gazetteer is mostly remission: rent remitted in 1370, autumn grain in 1372, both taxes in 1376, half the autumn grain on official land in 1381, and summer and autumn taxes in 1382. Beyond remission, relief against famine required permanent stores, and in the fifth month of 1390 the order to establish reserve granaries reached the counties.

What was done

二十三年庚午，五月，设各县预备仓。八月，遣老人赍钞收籴。 — Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer, 卷之一·邑纪·二十三年庚午

Translated: In the fifth month of the twenty-third year, reserve granaries were established in each county. In the eighth month, village elders were sent with paper money to buy grain.

The gazetteer records two steps: the granary was established in the fifth month, and in the eighth month laoren, village elders, were sent with paper money to purchase grain for storage.

The Da Ming Hui Dian, juan 22 ("Granaries II"), records the institution of the reserve granary: "At the beginning of the Hongwu era it was ordered that the counties of the empire should each set up four reserve granaries, where the officials should buy in and store grain against famine relief, to be managed by locally chosen men of years and honesty." The institution was thus four granaries to a county, managed by local "men of years and honesty" — the laoren of the gazetteer — with the grain bought at official prices. The code dates the measure to "the beginning of the Hongwu era", the gazetteer to the twenty-third year; the two stand side by side. The code gives the general rule only: it does not say how many granaries Lishui established, where they stood, or how much grain was bought.

Consequences

The purpose of the stored grain appears four years later: in the first month of 1394 an order was given to lend reserve-granary grain to the poor, so that relief took the form of a loan rather than a direct issue. In the second month of the same year Lishui also set up a tax office, a salt-certificate inspection office and the Dongba inspection station.

Further granaries followed. Under the Jiajing era the magistrate Wang Congshan built the Xiansi Granary, and in 1567 the magistrate He Yigui rebuilt the Bianmin New Granary, which the gazetteer says the whole county was grateful for, referring the reader to a Record of the Granary.

Uncertainties

First, the gazetteer does not say how many reserve granaries were established in Lishui or where they stood. The Da Ming Hui Dian gives the institution as four granaries to a county, but that is the general rule and cannot be used to suppose that Lishui had four; the phrase "granaries in each county" can be read either as a general order or as a decision taken county by county.

Second, neither the capacity of the granary nor the quantity of grain purchased is given.

Third, the gazetteer records nothing of the interest charged on the loans, the terms of repayment or any remission, and it does not relate the reserve granary to the later Xiansi and Bianmin granaries.

Fourth, on the date: the Da Ming Hui Dian says "the beginning of the Hongwu era", the Kangxi gazetteer the twenty-third year — the general institution on the one hand, the local event on the other, set side by side without choosing.

Fifth, on the seven layers of sources searched: the official websites layer, the published documents and lists layer, the academic layer (which yields only general studies of the Ming reserve granary, not usable for asserting local facts), the media layer and the maps and fieldwork layer yielded nothing directly on the granary of 1390 at Lishui; the classical-text layer yielded only the one item from the Da Ming Hui Dian. The core fact rests on two independent sources, the gazetteer and the code; the confidence remains medium, since the number of granaries, their sites and their capacity remain peculiar to the county gazetteer.