Lishui's Grain Tax Commuted to Silver in Perpetuity, 1622

Background

Lishui had long sought to have its grain tribute commuted to silver. The Kangxi edition of the Lishui County Gazetteer, juan 1, "Annals of the County", records under 1600, the twenty-eighth year of the Wanli era, that after a dam was built at Guangtong the water above it had no outlet, drowning more than 80,000 mu of rich lakeside fields; the quota tax was apportioned afresh each year and every township bore the loss, so that the local men Zhang Xiao, Xiong Zicheng and others sent a memorial to the throne, pleading with tears that their grain tribute be commuted as in the case of Gaochun:

二十八年庚子，邑民张晓、熊子成等，以广通镇筑坝，上游之水无所泄，荡没沿湖腴田八万余亩，每岁额粮加派，各乡民苦赔累，具疏叩阍，泣请漕粮改折如高淳例。

Translated: In the twenty-eighth year, gengzi, the local men Zhang Xiao, Xiong Zicheng and others, because a dam had been built at Guangtong and the water above it had no outlet, drowning more than 80,000 mu of rich lakeside fields, while the quota tax was apportioned afresh each year and the people of every township suffered the loss, sent a memorial to the throne, pleading with tears that the grain tribute be commuted as in the case of Gaochun.

Time and place

The matter belongs to 1622, the second year of the Tianqi era. The petition was initiated by the prefect of Yingtian Prefecture, Xu Bida, on the detailed report of the Lishui magistrate Zhang Ximing, and was then referred to the provincial governor Wang Xiangheng and the censor Yi Yingchang for joint memorial. The gazetteer does not give the month or day of the approval.

The petition

二年壬戌，应天府尹徐必达据知县张锡命详文，移抚院王象恒、按院易应昌会题，准溧水漕米永远改折，（合）［阖］邑戴之。事载《改折全书》。

Translated: In the second year, renxu, the prefect of Yingtian Prefecture, Xu Bida, on the detailed report of the magistrate Zhang Ximing, referred the matter to the provincial governor Wang Xiangheng and the censor Yi Yingchang for joint memorial, and it was approved that Lishui's grain tribute be commuted to silver in perpetuity, to the gratitude of the whole county. The matter is recorded in the Complete Book of the Commutation.

Consequences

The commutation was approved; the gazetteer says the whole county welcomed it, and it assigns the detailed record of the affair to the Complete Book of the Commutation. The commutation did not last, however. In 1625, the fifth year of the Tianqi era, the capital's stores ran short and commuted districts everywhere were made to lend their grain tribute back for one year. The gazetteer adds:

是年京储告匮，天下改折地方暂借漕米一年。溧水自是不复改折。相沿。

Translated: In that year the capital's stores were exhausted, and districts throughout the empire whose tribute had been commuted lent their grain tribute back for one year. From then on Lishui no longer commuted it, and this continued.

Grain was therefore collected in kind again, and this became the practice.

The origin of the commutation (Tianxia Junguo Libing Shu)

The petition for commutation arose because, after the dam at Guangtong was built, the lake water had no outlet, the lakeside fields were ruined and the void quota had to be made good. Gu Yanwu's Tianxia Junguo Libing Shu, in the article "The Origins of the Commutation of Grain Transport", recounts this in detail and provides background support for the gazetteer's account:

丹阳、固城、石臼三湖之滨，民多筑圩成田，地本洼下。国初于广通镇置闸，以时启闭泄水……至正德七年，又因苏常人民奏准加高三丈……于是涓滴不泄，湖水泛溢，圩岸崩圯，田成巨浸矣……

Translated: Along the shores of Danyang, Gucheng and Shijiu lakes the people had largely built polders into fields, on ground that was naturally low. Early in the dynasty a sluice was placed at Guangtong to open and shut with the seasons and release water… In the seventh year of Zhengde, at the petition of the people of Suzhou and Changzhou, it was raised by three zhang… so not a drop escaped, the lake water overflowed, the polder banks collapsed, and the fields became a vast flood.

The article also compares Gaochun and Lishui: "In Lishui the common grade of both official and private land is barely seven sheng per mu, whereas in Gaochun a single grade is assessed at over nine sheng." The article, however, is chiefly about Gaochun's commutation and mentions Lishui only for comparison; it does not record Lishui's own commutation of 1622.

The Guangxu edition of the Lishui County Gazetteer, juan 6, "Taxation: Remission and Relief", also records the matter: "In the second year of the Tianqi era Lishui's grain tribute was approved for permanent commutation" — agreeing with the Kangxi gazetteer.

Uncertainties

First, the commutation "in perpetuity" and its abandonment in 1625 stand side by side in the gazetteer; the practice changed in between, and this entry preserves both without choosing. Second, the Complete Book of the Commutation has not been seen, so its provisions and the course of the deliberations cannot be checked. Third, the gazetteer gives neither the rate of commutation nor the year from which it was to run.

Fourth, a search across all seven source layers found Lishui's "permanent commutation" of 1622 only in the Kangxi and Guangxu editions of the Lishui gazetteer (both from the county's single line of gazetteer compilation) and in the Complete Book of the Commutation (not seen); no direct record was found outside that line in the standard histories, the veritable records, the provincial gazetteer or the Tianxia Junguo Libing Shu (which records only Gaochun's commutation and compares Lishui's land grades, without touching Lishui's own commutation). As the direct record is confined to the gazetteer line, confidence has been lowered from high to medium.