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明代中葉後太倉歲出銀兩的研究
The Annual Expenditure of Silver Taels of the T'ai-ts'ang Vault after the Mid-Ming Period
並列摘要
After the middle of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) the central government disbursed silver taels mainly from the T'ai-ts'ang Vault of the Ministry of Finance. This study (see table 2) shows that the amount of silver taels increased year by year. Normally speaking, during the years between the 1490's and 1520's, the annual expenditure by the central government was more than one million silver taels; it increased between 1528 and 1547 to around two million silver taels; the following seven decades (1548-1617) it ranged between three million and five million silver taels. In the last twenty-six year period of the dynasty, during the war against the Manchus, the annual expenditure of the first thirteen years ranged between six million and ten million silver taels, and during the second thirteen years between eleven million and more than twenty million silver taels. Disturbances on the frontier and along the coast became serious after the mid-Ming period. During the Chia-ching reign (1522-66), while the Tartars encroached upon China's northern border, the Wo-k'ou pirates plundered her southeastern coastal provinces. During the Wan-li reign (1573-1620), there were three expeditions between 1592 and 1600, two of them being for the suppression of domestic rebellions, while the other, the most costly, was to aid Korea to resist Japanese aggression. In the last twenty-six years (1618-44), the Ming government had to wage war with the Manchus in the northeast, suppress the rebellions of the national minorities in the south-west, and uproot popular uprisings in many places. All of these military actions caused a vast outflow of silver taels. Of the annual expenditure from the T'ai-ts'ang Vault, normal regular military expenses occupied a remarkable percentage (see table 6), between 60% to 80% before the Sino-Manchu War. But in times of extraordinary crises, such as the Sino-Manchu War, the already high percentage of the annual expenditure devoted to military expenses increased considerably. Therefore we can conclude that the total amount of annual expenditure grew in proportion to the increase of military expenses. Although the annual expenditure increased since mid-Ming, it did not progress arithmetically. The index numbers of the annual expenditure (see table 3) show that the increments are unequal and the undulatory movements are irregular and abnormal. This is because the wars occurred at irregular dates. In case of emergency or at the height of the battle, the government usually had to pay more in military expenses, thus swelling the total amount of annual expenditure. In the last century and a quarter of the Ming dynasty, we discover records for forty-six years noting both the annual revenue and expenditure of the T'ai-ts'ang Vault in silver taels (see table 7). Only in seven years did the government have a financial surplus. The large number of deficit years is due to the withholding and exemption of taxes among the local areas and the allotments from the annual revenue to the Court and Ministries of Works and Military Affairs on the one hand, and, on the other, the rise in soldier pay and allowances, the increasing expenses for purchasing and transporting provisions, ammunition, cotton uniforms and other military supplies, and the great expenditure for maintaining and constructing fortifications. The Ming government annually sent a vast sum in silver to the military posts along the border to pay for the soldiers and to purchase grain, food, straw, beans, cotton, cotton clothes and ammunition in the northern provinces, thus increasing the market demand for consumption goods and stimulating commercial prosperity. Stepped up recruiting created a great need for grain and cotton cloth. Therefore, to earn more money, the farmers in the north cultivated additional marginal lands in order to produce more grain and the workers in the industrial districts alongside the Yangtze River spun and wove more cloth. The merchants bought from the weavers or farmers cloth or grain and transported them to the frontier. This caused silver taels to be circulated everywhere in China. Unfortunately the everlasting wars forced the government to spend a great amount of silver taels on the wasteful military campaigns. If this could have been largely invested in industrial enterprises, agricultural development, etc., the Ming economy would have been more productive and the nation could have been strong enough to resist any invaders. This study is the companion piece to an earlier article on the annual revenue of the Ming dynasty. (See ＂A Study on the Annual Revenue of Silver Taels of the T'ai-ts'ang Vault after the Mid-Ming Period＂ in the Journal of the Institute of Chinese Studies of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Vol. V, No.1, 1972.)