Grain Tax Commuted by Imperial Order, 1658

The order

十五年戊戌，三月，奉旨改折漕粮。

Translated: In the fifteenth year, wuxu, in the third month, an imperial order was received commuting the grain tribute.

In the third month of 1658, the fifteenth year of the Shunzhi era, an imperial order commuted the grain tribute. The gazetteer gives neither the rate of commutation nor the year from which it was to run, nor the area it covered.

The origin of the matter

The gazetteer then traces the matter back:

先是，知县闵派鲁于十二年，因合邑绅衿里民李蔚、萧秉乾、胡文美等，条陈复折，

Translated: Previously, in the twelfth year, the magistrate Min Pailu, on the petition of the gentry and commoners of the whole county, Li Wei, Xiao Bingqian, Hu Wenmei and others, who set out the case for restoring the commutation,

The text of the Kangxi edition of the Lishui County Gazetteer, juan 1, "Annals of the County", as consulted here, breaks off after this sentence; the annals entry itself gives no outcome, which is supplied below from juan 4 of the same gazetteer.

The outcome: commutation on the Gaochun model

The annals entry breaks off after the petition, but its outcome is supplied by juan 4 of the Kangxi gazetteer, "Taxation":

顺治八年，高淳已准永折，本邑于十二年，知县闵派鲁据合邑绅衿里民李蔚、萧秉乾、胡文美等条陈包赔虚粮之苦，申详诸上台，蒙抚院张公缮疏会题，下部议，覆于十五年三月奉旨，依议准照高淳一例改折。详载《邑纪》及《永折新书》。

Translated: In the eighth year of Shunzhi Gaochun had already been approved for permanent commutation, and in the twelfth year the magistrate Min Pailu, on the petition of the gentry and commoners of the whole county, Li Wei, Xiao Bingqian, Hu Wenmei and others, who set out the hardship of paying tax on empty quotas, reported it to the higher authorities; the provincial governor Lord Zhang memorialised it and it was referred to the ministry, which replied that in the third month of the fifteenth year an imperial order was received approving the commutation on the Gaochun model. The details are recorded in the Annals and in the Yongzhe Xinshu (New Book of Permanent Commutation).

So in the third month of 1658 an imperial order approved the commutation "in perpetuity" (permanent commutation into silver) on the Gaochun model, with the proceedings recorded in the Yongzhe Xinshu (the same class of work as the Complete Book of the Commutation).

The Guangxu edition of the Lishui County Gazetteer, juan 6, "Taxation: Remission and Relief", also records: "In the third month of the fifteenth year an imperial order was received commuting Lishui's grain tribute."

The Qing Caoyun Quanshu, juan 2, "Grain Quotas: Remission and Commutation", is an independent record outside the gazetteer line: "The annual grain tribute quota is four million shi, fixed in the sixth year of Shunzhi; save for the standing permanent commutations, no commutation is permitted — but Gaochun and Lishui, whose submerged fields carry more quota than substance, were approved in the fifteenth year of Shunzhi for permanent commutation to ease the people's hardship, and no other place may cite this as a precedent." The same work, juan 24, adds: "Gaochun and four other prefectures and districts, and Lishui, which was subsequently approved for commutation, contributed 864 taels in equal assessment." Both passages confirm, from the standpoint of a documentary work on institutions, that Lishui was approved for permanent commutation in 1658 and that it was an exceptional case — "no other place may cite this as a precedent."

Relation to earlier commutations

This was not the first commutation of Lishui's grain tribute. In 1622, the second year of the Tianqi era, it had been approved "in perpetuity", and in 1625, with the capital's stores short, the county "no longer commuted it" (see the entry for that year). The "restoring the commutation" petitioned for in 1655 presumably means a request to bring the commutation back; whether it renewed the earlier arrangement of the Tianqi period cannot be judged, the text consulted here being incomplete. The compilation of the Record of Equalised Corvée by the same magistrate Min Pailu in 1655 is recorded in the entry for that year; both matters fall within his term of office.

Uncertainties

First, the text is incomplete: the entry for 1658 breaks off after the account of the petition, and its outcome is supplied from juan 4 of the Kangxi gazetteer (commutation on the Gaochun model) rather than from the annals itself. Second, the gazetteer does not record the wording of the 1655 petition or how it was deliberated. Third, the sources consulted here give neither the rate of commutation nor the method of collection.

Fourth, a search across all seven source layers found that the Qing Caoyun Quanshu, juan 2 and juan 24, also records "Gaochun and Lishui … approved in the fifteenth year of Shunzhi for permanent commutation" and "Lishui, which was subsequently approved for commutation", an independent source outside the gazetteer line confirming the institutional fact of Lishui's permanent commutation in 1658; the rate and the deliberations remain unrecorded elsewhere, so confidence remains medium.