The original article was published in Studies in Chinese History, No. 2, 2024
Please cite the source
▼
Re-discussion of the function of household posts in the Song Dynasty - the application for the examination of household posts is awarded
Text / Dai Jianguo
Distinguished Professor of the School of History, Capital Normal University
Abstract: The newly discovered manuscript of Cheng's household posts in Fuxi, Huizhou is of great value for the study of household posts and book systems in the Song Dynasty. As far as private economic activities are concerned, their basic function is to pay taxes rather than determine land property rights. The household post is awarded with the tax push, and each thing is posted. Under special circumstances, the use as the initial certificate of land property rights is a derivative function of the household post, which is obviously different from the basic function of the household post frequently used by the people. After the Southern Song Dynasty Shaoxing passed through the border, it vigorously promoted the anvil base book, but it was not abandoned and not used, and the household post and the Southern Song Dynasty have always been and have not been replaced. The procedure for applying for the issuance of household posts is that the purchaser of the land must purchase two fixed posts from the government, fill in the information on the sale and purchase of the land and the tax payable, and exchange them for an official document after approval by the government, which is called the household post. After the tax is handled, one is kept on file for future reference, and the other is issued to the households. The amount of tax on the account is not calculated by the government, but agreed between the buyer and the seller. Consignees from other counties apply for household registration through the county government of the county where they live, so as to prevent Hao You from evading the land and avoiding servitude. These regulations are an important measure in the implementation of the enslavement system.
Keywords: Fuxi Cheng's household post should be cut tax anvil base book household post household post application awarded
Books and documents are indispensable and important materials for the study of the tax differential system in the imperial period of China, and have always been valued by the academic community. The socio-economic documents handed down in the Song Dynasty are extremely scarce, which brings many difficulties to the study of the social and economic history of the Song Dynasty. Recently, scholars have found two copies of land transaction contracts in the Jiading period of the Southern Song Dynasty and a copy of the household post of Kaihua County in the first year of Baoqing (1225) in Xiuning County, Anhui Province, which is in the collection of the Shanghai Library. The discovery of this new material is of great value to the study of the household post and book system in the Song Dynasty, and cannot but arouse the attention of the academic circles.
Regarding the Song Dynasty, many scholars have discussed, basically clarified the origin, change and historical role of the household post from the Tang Dynasty to the Northern Song Dynasty, and affirmed the positive role played by the household post in the economic life of the Song Dynasty. However, scholars do not agree on the nature of the household post document and whether it was abandoned in the late Southern Song Dynasty, and there are great differences. Regarding the nature of the household register, there are "tax payment notices", "property tax certificates", "property rights certificates", "fifth-class property books", and there are also "household registration certificates and household registrations of the main household". Most scholars believe that after the implementation of the anvil base book system in the Shaoxing Economic Boundary of the Southern Song Dynasty, the household post was replaced by the anvil base book and gradually withdrew from the historical stage. However, the Liangzhejiang East Road, to which Kaihua County belongs, is the central area of Shaoxing and Jiading to implement the meridian boundary and the implementation of the anvil base book, and the discovery of the copy of the household post document in Kaihua County is obviously a counter-evidence to the above view. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to re-examine the subject of household posts in the Song Dynasty, especially the implementation of household posts in the Southern Song Dynasty. Understanding these problems will help to further understand the land tax management system in the Song Dynasty.
1. Analysis of the manuscript of Cheng's household post in Fuxi, Huizhou
This copy of the household post is one of the 14 contract documents of the three dynasties of the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties included in the "Gaoling Ancestral Tomb Origin Record" of the Cheng family in Fuxi, Huizhou, and the household post is also associated with the Xiuning County customs transfer document and two copies of the land purchase contract, which has been discussed by scholars, but there are still some problems to be solved, and some supplementary discussions will be made here.
Let's first look at the "Xiuning County Household Introduction" related to the household post:
Huizhou Road, Xiuning County
Today, I sent someone to go to the corner of the official document
Quzhou Kaihua County took care of Cheng Shangshu's housekeeper Wang Sheng, begged Guan Township to set up households to collect taxes. Still begging for the leader. The right leaning is sent to the person, and this is allowed
Command shall not be violated.
On the fourth day of the first month of the first year of Baoqing, the company opened the book of the company
Membership is limited to 20 days.
Officials detained
The "transfer of customs" involved in it is the official announcement method of the Song Dynasty, also known as "customs transfer". For example, in the twenty-first year of Shaoxing (1151), there was a tax dispute between the Linjiang army and Yunzhou, and the Linjiang army "moved to Junzhou in a tired way" in order to solve the problem. Xiuning County and Kaihua County belong to different administrative regions, the former belongs to Huizhou and the latter belongs to Quzhou. The permanent residence of the head of the household is in Xiuning County, and the land property is in Kaihua County, and the household post must be issued by the government where the land is located. Regarding the "introduction" of "household citation", it is a form of official document of the government, called quotation post. For example, the cloud of "Zuoyi Zizhen": "The miscellaneous households are in arrears of taxes, etc., and the officials command the people who urge them, and they clearly say it in the quotation post." In the first year of Kaiqing (1259), Hu Taichu, the governor of Tingzhou, "Invitation to the General Layout of Zhuxiangyu" cloud:
Today's post asks someone to be the general manager of a certain county and a township, and issue a joint customs report on the incident, which must be given to the poster. …… There should be a meeting, and a post. …… It should pursue the official affairs of the meeting, urge the supervision of official property and physical examination and other matters, and have the responsibility of the deputy and the chief of the guarantee, and it is not allowed to involve the general manager with lawsuits.
Xiuning County's Guanhui manuscript conforms to the above-mentioned Song Dynasty document operation system. The "Cheng Shangshu Mansion Cadre" involved in the introduction of the household was a common servant of large families in the Song Dynasty, and was often appointed by the master to handle the affairs of the grange. Let's look at the content of the transcript of the account post:
Licheng Zhushan Zhixian household post
According to Cheng Shangshu's house, Wang Shengcheng, the county magistrate of Zhushan, said that yesterday he came to the county seat of Hsinchu Mountain, bought the county's Chonghua Zheng Cheng and other mulberry land, begged to cut the property tax, set up the county governor of Zhushan, lost it year by year, and begged to give the household post to take care of the matter. If it is awarded, it must be given to those who are to be taken care of by the household
Cheng Zhushan county household
1. Cut the soil name of Zheng Chenghu Gaoling second-class flat mulberry land two corners 11 steps, and the second-class flat mulberry land B Mo (mu) triangle ten steps, the two corners of the fire man base 53 steps, together the production of money seven wen, silk three inches, salt nine spoons three copy, silk one inch and two points. Add four runs and five hundred and eighty texts.
1. Cut off the remaining tax collectors and pay 10 mu (mu) of Maoshan on the side of the grave, and the average tax of the border is two inches, and the tax has been folded to four inches and two cents.
The right to the household post, Fu Cheng Zhushan County house cadre Wang Sheng, according to the loss.
宝庆元年十月 日帖 户帖 官印
Judging from this household post, there are two main contents: the delivered land property and taxes. This is consistent with the content of the household posts recorded in the Song Dynasty documents. In the first year of Xuanhe (1119), the Song government summoned people to ask for tenants of Tianhuangtian and other official fields in Xizhou County, Zhejiang. The rent of official land is the same as the tax on private land, and it is essentially a tax paid to the state. Comparing the content of this account post with the copy of the above-mentioned account post, it can be found that the content of the two is the same except for "looking".
"Licheng Zhushan Zhixian Household Post" was awarded in response to Cheng's "begging to cut tax property". The two main contents of the household post are all beginning with "cutting a certain household", indicating who is cutting the field, how much money is produced, and the end of the sentence "the right to the household post, pay Cheng Zhushan Zhixian house cadre Wang Sheng, according to the loss", "according to the loss" is the fundamental purpose of the household post. Judging from this account post, although there is a field content, there is no field property direction, and the information is very brief. In other words, the core purpose of the issuance of the household certificate is not to serve as a certificate of household registration, and the role of the household registration certificate is only incidental, and the tax on the transfer of income must inevitably involve the owner of the household, and the buyer naturally wants to establish a household. This is in line with the function of household posts in the Song Dynasty recorded in other documents. Jingde's "Farmland Edict" of the Northern Song Dynasty contains: "Those who have not been incorporated into their own households for the purchase and separation of residences and returned tenants shall be provided and lost by each (out) household. The purpose of the post is to provide for the loss of taxes. In the fourth year of Zhenzong Tianxi (1020), Zhaoyun "from now on, there are two taxes year by year, and he has ordered Zuo to check and inspect the number of new and old pipes." Those who have pawns and sell households, check and determine the old tax, and make the household post clear. After the pawn sale or the separation of the household, the amount of tax originally borne by the owner has changed, and it must be cut, so it is necessary to verify the amount of tax that should be cut and issue it to the household. This is consistent with the purpose of the post. It shows that the basic function of the account post is to determine the tax that should be cut, issue it to the taxpayer, and pay it according to the loss. In other words, the household registration is a certificate of tax payability, and in terms of private economic activities, it is mainly used for tax payment rather than property rights determination.
Cheng Sili, the buyer of the land, originally used Cheng Xuezheng in the name of the homebuyer. According to Feng Jianhui's research, Cheng Sili's father has never been an official, and Cheng Xuezheng is Cheng Sili's grandfather Cheng Zhuo, who was once hired as a Xuezheng in Benzhou. The application for the household post was in the name of his uncle Cheng Zhi County, Zhushan, that is, Cheng Ruqian, who had served as the magistrate of Zhushan County, Fangzhou. Feng Jianhui believes that the contract was signed in the name of Cheng Xuezheng "probably for the purpose of borrowing his status as an official gentry to obtain tax incentives for official households." In fact, this is related to the land restriction law of the official households in the Song Dynasty, that is, the land within the land limit can be exempted from errand labor, rather than tax incentives. The Song allowed the people of Chengyin to use their father's and ancestors' official products to buy land. It is common for relatives to use official information to set up a household. Cheng Ruqian once served as the magistrate of the county, and his official rank was higher than that of his grandfather Cheng Zhuo, who was the governor of the state, and with the shadow of his grandfather, the strength of the concession decreased because the number of people was greater than that of his uncle, which should be the fundamental reason why the name of the household post was changed to the magistrate of Cheng Zhushan County.
It is worth noting that the household post has the text "plus four runs and five hundred and eighty words" after the tax of "cutting Zheng Regret Household", which is what kind of money is not explained, which seems more abrupt. Some scholars believe that it may be material resources, "the household post should also have the function of pushing and cutting acres of land and material resources". This may be something that can be reconsidered. "General Examination of Literature" contains: "Service starts from material resources, material resources have ups and downs, and if the lifting is not dead, the law is served." Since Shaoxing, it is the most detailed system of pushing and cutting, pushing and arranging, and should sell the industry to the households, and push and cut taxes, that is, to push and cut together with material resources. However, if the material resources are transferred, they should be annotated in the material resources book, not on the tax promotion and cutting certificate, Song Renyun: "The material resources book for the cutting should be used." The material resource book is an official document, and the Cheng clan has no reason to keep it, so it is impossible to copy it during the litigation in the Ming Dynasty. Feng Jianhui believes that land transactions not only have to pay deed tax, but also have to pay taxes when the household post is changed and registered, which is called "fixed post money", which was later changed to "survey money". Unfortunately, he did not elaborate on this. The following is an analysis.
The purchase and sale of the land and the house have been cut and taxed, and there is indeed a surcharge to be paid - the survey money. As for the settlement money, it will be more detailed later. In the second year of Jiatai in the Southern Song Dynasty (1202), the code "Qingyuan Article Legal Affairs" contained the proportion of the survey money: "The property owner surveys the money, and the household pawns the field house in this quarter, and the price is a certain amount, and the total amount of money is collected for each time, and the total amount of money collected is 10 yuan, and the amount of money is counted." According to this provision, the amount of the survey money paid at that time was calculated based on the price of the land house purchased in the pawn, and the proportion was 1% of the transaction price of the land house. However, Li Xinchuan has different records about the proportion of the survey money: "In addition to the tax of the edict, ten wen per thousand survey money was collected (March of the fifth year of Shaoxing), and then three more wen were added, and the name of the general system was filled (April of the 17th year). Obviously, the ten articles contained in the "Qingyuan Article Legal Affairs" do not include the three articles added in the seventeenth year of Shaoxing. The proportion of the survey money shall be subject to the legal provisions contained in the "Qingyuan Article Legal Affairs".
This involves the "Deed of Buying Zheng Cheng Cheng Land" and "Deed of Buying Yu Jian Tax Mountain" related to the household post, and the land sale prices issued by the two copies of the contract are respectively "220 Guan Wen of the Official Council" and "300 Guan Wen of the Official Council". However, in addition to the land sale price issued, there are two paragraphs in the two contracts: "The price is 169 guan 4 wen, and the price is approved" and "the price is 200 and 30 consistent, and the price is approved". The so-called "硃衃語" refers to the text that the government uses a red pen to record. In the Song system, after the buyer and seller signed the contract, the buyer paid the transaction deed tax to the government, and the government approved and sealed it, which was called "casting the seal", and issued a receipt, called the "tax payment certificate", which was glued to the back of the deed. According to Li Xin's traditional calculations, the deed tax rate in the Song Dynasty was roughly 10.7%, and the deed tax was borne by the buyer. However, the prices of these two parcels were 76.8% and 77% of the original sale price respectively, which was obviously not the deed tax value. Feng Jianhui believes that this is the price of the actual transaction based on the tax incentives of official households. In fact, this involves the provincial system of the Song Dynasty. In their daily transactions, the Song people usually used seventy-seven coins as a mo, and seven hundred and seventy coins as consistent, which was called "consistent Wensheng". If it is a hundred full money, add the word "foot". The land sale price of these two contracts is "220 guan wen of the official council" and "300 guan wen of the official council", which is in the provincial system, and the official council is paper money. The word "province" was omitted after the word "wen" in the copy. The provincial Mo system is very common in the Southern Song Dynasty land sale deed, the National Library and other institutions have nine Southern Song Dynasty Huizhou land sale deeds, eight of which have the word "province" after the amount of the land price official meeting, and all of them are provincial Mo system. If the actual transaction ratio of 770 yuan is always calculated, the "price of 169 guan 4 [hundred] wen" and "price of 200 yuan" in the two contracts are the actual number of transactions delivered by the buyer to the seller.
The actual transaction price of the two real estate projects totaled 400 guan 400 wen, and the survey money paid at the rate of 1 percent should be 4 guan 40 wen, which is very close to the amount of "plus 4 guan 580 wen" in the household post, and the extra 576 wen may be the result of a slight increase in the proportion of survey money paid in the first year of Baoqing, after all, the war of resistance against Mongolia at that time urgently needed military support. If this speculation is correct, the "plus four runs and five hundred and eighty texts" in the account post should be the survey money. The price of the land purchase deed and the amount of "plus four guan 580 wen" on the household registration were added in the process of paying the land transaction deed tax and going through the procedures for pushing and cutting.
The copy of "Cheng Zhushan Zhixian Household Post" is from the hands of the Ming people, could it be forged by the Ming people? After the entry into the Yuan Dynasty, the word "household post" has become the exclusive name of the household registration document for registering the population and property, and there is no content of pushing and cutting taxes in the household post. In addition, it is also very different from the Ming Dynasty household posts. In the third year of Hongwu (1370), Taizu of the Ming Dynasty issued an edict of "registering the world's household registration and household posting, and the township, Dingkou, and name of each book". Therefore, it can be judged that the "Cheng Zhushan Zhixian Household Post" cannot be a forged document by the Ming people. These documents were first copied in the Ming Dynasty, and then copied in the late Qing Dynasty, and there were inevitably mistakes and omissions. Nevertheless, the content and system reflected in these documents are consistent with the system of the Song Dynasty, and the documents are credible, and their value is very precious and worthy of attention.
2. The household post after Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty and its relationship with the anvil base book
Based on this new material, combined with the documents of the Song Dynasty, this paper explores the possibility that the household posts after the passage of Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty were replaced by the anvil base book, and further analyzes the nature of the household posts and their relationship with the anvil base book. In the twelfth year of Shaoxing (1142), Li Chunnian implemented the meridian boundary law, and one of the important results was the widespread use of the anvil base book: "Although all the fields and properties have deeds in the past, those who do not come to the anvil base book today will be detained as officials. In the future, if the property is sold, the two families will go to the county to approve the anvil book and the deed. If the two books are not chiseled against each other, although there is a deed and a dry license, it will not be regarded as a transaction. The following year, Gaozong "promulgated his law in the world." The so-called "going to the county to approve the bank" refers to the procedures of pushing the tax on the land and transferring the tax originally borne by the seller to the buyer. The seller pushes the tax and the buyer receives the tax, which must be marked separately in the anvil book of the buyer and the seller. The household slip is the government's tax deduction certificate, and when going through the tax push procedures, it is natural to need the account post containing the tax amount. The post of "deed and post dry photo" mentioned in the meridian law should refer to the household post. The land must be registered in the tax and rent book with the household poster. Song Law, "The counties set the tax and rent cut and accept the book, and in case of cut, they immediately became the official note." Its book is placed in the county order hall and is kept in the cabinet, and it is changed every three years."
A careful study of the regulations of the Shaoxing meridian shows that although the meridian law attaches great importance to the creation and use of the anvil base book, it does not exclude or abandon the household post. In the sixteenth year of Shaoxing (1146), the Ministry of Household legislation stipulated:
When selling a field house, the township scrivener should push the tax rent, and the township scrivener should put it in the household deed, household post and tax rent book, and personally write the number of taxes and rents collected and the name of the township scrivener. The tax and rent book is written in Zhu, and the book is charged. If the village scrivener does not push the number of tax rents and the name of the person who sells the land and house in the household deed, household post and tax rent book, he shall be allowed to sue one hundred rods.
The legislation of the Ministry of Household once again mentions that there is a household registration document required for the registration of tax and rent collection in the tax book.
After the Boundary Law, although the Southern Song Dynasty vigorously implemented the anvil base book system, the damage to the books became more and more serious over time. Li Xinchuan said in the "Miscellaneous Records of the Chaoye and the Wild" written in the second year of Jiatai (1202): "Half of the basic books of Jinzhou County (anvil) do not exist, and the officials and wealthy people have the trouble of moving. After the loss of the anvil book, what do you rely on to go through the procedures for pushing and cutting? There is no doubt that the household post is an indispensable instrument, especially in those areas where the law of meridian boundaries has not been implemented, and the use of the anvil book is limited, so the household post still plays an important role. For example, in the thirteenth year of Chunxi (1186), Zhao Yanyu, the general commander of Huguang who had not passed through the border area, and other ministers said: "The Xiangyang General Judgment of the Near Committee Zhu Tong bowed to the truth under the wooden canal, and found that the households had a total of 914 acres and 23 acres of land, and the deeds, tax seedlings, and household posts were 181 acres and 39 acres of land. Another example is that in the sixth year of Jiading (1213), Chen Mi, the commander of Anxi County, Quanzhou, wrote "Anxi County Persuades the People to Make an Anvil Base Book", and advises the people of Anxi County to build an anvil base book. In the "Incident of Returning to the Embassy to Build an Anvil Base Book", he said that "the anvil base is thin today, just like someone making a household post", and also talked about the household post. These examples show that household registration exists in many regions and is still an indispensable and important instrument. The Cheng family's "Gaoling Ancestral Tomb Origin Record" copied the household post, signed in the first year of Baoqing (1225), from the above quoted Chen Mi "Hui Embassy Anvil Base Book Proposed Incident" mentioned in the household post, in time can form the evidence chain that still practiced the household post in the late Southern Song Dynasty.
To sum up, the Cheng's household post manuscript strongly supports the existence of the household post system in the late Southern Song Dynasty. Previously, scholars, including the author, believed that the household post gradually disappeared in the late Southern Song Dynasty and its function was replaced by the anvil base book, so it is necessary to revise it. The household post and the anvil base book are parallel to the world, and the Southern Song Dynasty has always been the same, and has not been replaced by the anvil base book.
Ge Jinfang pointed out that the basic function of the household post is to notify the households of the amount of tax payable, which is a kind of tax notice, and it also has some derivative functions, such as confirming property rights, which is used for official land tenants and field litigation. His characterization of the basic function of the post is generally correct. Now, according to the copy of the new household post, some adjustments can be made: the household post is the certificate of tax that should be cut, and its basic function is to be used as the determination of the tax of overcution. The household post is issued with the tax promotion, and each post is only the certificate of tax payable after a certain land purchase. Why is it a "letter of determination" and not a "notice"? This is because the tax on the household register is negotiated between the buyer and the seller themselves, and is awarded by the government. This issue will be discussed in more detail later. There is only a record of changes in land and taxes at a certain point in time, and there is no record of previous transactions, nor will future transactions be published, let alone records of transactions in other areas, which cannot reflect the overall status of the household's property and money, and is not a certificate of land ownership. Therefore, it cannot be used as a title certificate after the transaction under normal circumstances. After the issuance of the household post, in addition to registering in the anvil base book, it is also necessary to register the tax payable in the tax and rent book with the household post. The total amount of tax paid by households each year is not based on the household register, but is issued by the county government according to the tax and rent book. "Outline of Prefectures and Counties" Yiyun: "A large rate of county endowment, each household folds color, and must be subject to the total amount of taxes." For example, a certain household has a certain amount of yuan tax, collects a certain amount, pushes a number, and now totals a number, and then folds a certain thing." According to the "State and County Outline", the household post only shows the amount of tax after a transaction, and cannot cover all the taxes payable by a household.
In the second year of Chunxi (1175), Liu Banghan, the general of Huguang, said: "Hubei Prefecture and County should ask tenants to land the official land, and the returnees will see the cultivated land. It is mentioned that those who inherit official land are given household posts by the government as land certificates, which can be bought and sold. Commentators often use this as an example to discuss the nature of the property right certificate of the household post. It is worth pointing out that the household slips used as land title certificates are usually only applicable to the rental or sale of official land. This is because in general, the parties have to sign a contract for the sale and lease of land, but when the official land is leased or sold, the government does not issue a lease contract and a sales contract like a private person, but uses the user post to register the function of paying taxes. In addition, the property rights of those who have lost their books due to war, famine and resumption of business are also recognized by issuing household certificates. Scholars mostly believe that the household posts in these occasions are not used for the purpose of the original tax documents of the household posts, but are more like land deeds, which are a kind of property rights recognition issued by the official authorities. In fact, taxation is the main purpose of sending household posts, and taxation must first establish a household, and there is no specific head of household, how to collect taxes? Shenzong practiced the Fangtian law, and the edict "has a division to investigate the interests and disadvantages of Fangtian, cover it with soil color and fertilizer, the beauty and evil of other fields, and determine the amount of endowment, and the square is the account, and there is nothing to hide in the square foot; The post given by the household, and the size of the lift is left behind". It can also be seen that the purpose of issuing the account is to ensure that the amount of tax collected is not omitted. There are also scholars who confuse the functions of the land deed and the household post, and believe that the land deed and the household post both record the property tax. In fact, the land deed only records the location of the land, the number of acres, and the transaction price, and does not contain the land tax at all, and can only be used as a certificate of land property, which has countless examples in the "Qingming Collection". The household registration usually contains the number of acres of land and the amount of tax payable, which is awarded to households who have lost their books due to wars and famines, and can play a dual role in proving the head of the land and the taxable amount.
Scholars also often cite the historical materials of the sale of household posts in the fifth year of Shaoxing (1135) to prove that the household posts are property rights certificates. The "General Examination of Literature" contains the edict of November of the fifth year of Shaoxing: "Zhuluzhou and counties sell household posts, so that the people can issue the number of acres of land and land under their management and lose their straightness, and still go down vertically." But under this edict, Ma Duanlin also recorded: "When the army of Zhulu moved to the north of the Tunjiang River, the imperial court did not continue to dispatch, so there was an edict." It can be seen that the main purpose of selling household posts this time is to raise the funds needed for the war against gold, because to buy household posts, you must pay the survey money, which is an additional tax. It is worth noting that Ma Duanlin placed this historical material under the column of "tooth tax money", and it is obvious that he regarded the sale of household posts as a special kind of financial revenue and classified it as deed tax. The household post itself is only a tax certificate, and the collection of money for selling the household post is only a means of collecting money for taxation in extraordinary times.
In short, the use of the above-mentioned household posts, as scholars have pointed out, is mostly issued by the government due to various special reasons, when the households do not have property rights certificates such as land deeds. The household post plays the role of the land deed, which is a concurrent function derived from the household post, but it cannot replace the land deed by itself.
It is worth noting that the account posts issued under this special circumstance have a distinctive feature, that is, the account posts are used as initial proof of property rights. The acquisition of such an initial certificate is not the result of a transaction, but is given by the state as a fundamental document, and the total amount of land and taxes owned by the holder of the household registration shall be issued. It is obviously different from the one-time household slip that is frequently used in the course of daily land transactions, and the land property and tax issued by the latter are only the land property and tax payable from a certain land purchase, not the total amount of land property and tax owned by the household. Therefore, it does not mean that household slips can be widely used as property rights certificates in daily land buying and selling activities.
Some scholars believe that "the household post is the household certificate and household registration of the main household", and the main household only needs to rewrite the household post when trading land and property, and does not need to send a new post; If the customer buys the land and wants to set up a household name and be promoted to the main household, the household post will be issued. This could be discussed further. Every piece of land purchased by a mortal household must have a tax-paying account for the government in order to start paying taxes, because it involves the collection of taxes between the old and new landowners; However, in terms of household registration management, for the old main household, there is no need to set up a separate account for the new land property registration, as long as the land property information is added to the existing household registration: these are two different levels of management and cannot be confused. The issuance of the account post is the implementation of the tax payment measures based on the account, and the tax payment is the main fundamental purpose, and the establishment of the account is only marked with the name of the taxpayer. If the old owner adds land and does not send a new post, you can modify the old household post, and every time the main household buys more land and pushes taxes, it is subject to a household post record, and the household post will keep a record of the householder's previous field transactions and taxes, and it will not become a registration ledger for the past years? How is this different from an anvil book? If this is the case, it should be possible to trace the trajectory of the land transaction and become evidence of property ownership. However, in the "Qingming Collection", a large number of cases of land and property transaction disputes, there is no historical fact that officials cited user posts as evidence of property rights to determine the case. In judicial practice, household posts are not used as property rights and property tax certificates, which should be the fundamental reason why there is no trace of household posts in the Qingming Collection.
The next thing that needs to be discussed is how to view the function of the Southern Song Dynasty household post and its relationship with the anvil base book.
The Qingming Collection contains a large number of judgments in the late Southern Song Dynasty, covering a wide range of regions, and there is no record of household posts, but on the contrary, a large number of Tian deeds and anvil base books are cited as evidence in the judgment. Therefore, scholars often deny the use of household posts in the late Southern Song Dynasty on this basis. If it is said that the household posts in the late Southern Song Dynasty did exist, then how to explain the above phenomenon? Cao Yan of the Southern Song Dynasty may be able to solve this mystery by saying:
The writer of the deed, the ancestor of the transaction; The anvil is the ancestor of tax servitude. At the time, the legislation of the border has been firmly aware of the reason for the evils and has been established as the definitive conclusion on the criticism of the practice. If it is not approved, it will be ignored as a transaction, and even if there is a contract, it will not be used. His words are very strict, and his guards are well understood, so that those who are for the state and county should act cautiously, so why not. …… If those who do not approve the chisel are not allowed to trade, then the property owners will not lose their income, and if they do not approve the chisels, they will inevitably retire.
The provisions of Shaoxing Economic Circles with the supervision of the anvil book as the core are of paramount importance. As mentioned earlier, the deed includes the household post. In other words, if the sales contract is signed and the household registration is applied, but the "approval and chisel" procedures are not handled in the anvil book, the land transaction is not established. Although the Shaoxing Jingjie did not abandon the household post, as soon as this regulation came out, the household post was pushed to an embarrassing position: if the chisel was not approved, the efficacy of the household post was not recognized; Once the anvil base book is chiseled, the role of the tax certificate of the household post is generally over. This is particularly critical to understanding the relationship between the household post and the anvil base book. In other words, after the implementation of the anvil book system, the role of household posts has been weakened. However, the purpose of issuing a household post to a private household is to use it for pushing and cutting taxes, and there is usually a time limit from the issuance to the promotion and cutting of chisels, and after the time limit that should be pushed and cut, a household post will become invalid and lose its legal status. This does not mean that after the Shaoxing Jingjie launched the anvil base book system, the household post will be illegal from now on. For example, before the implementation of the anvil book system, the household post must be registered and approved in the tax and rent book before it can be regarded as completing the tax overcut and land property transaction, and it cannot be inferred from this that the tax rent book has replaced the household post. It should be pointed out that after the moving, the role of the household post comes to an end, and the validity of the sales contract does not lapse. As long as the buyer pays the deed tax in accordance with the law and stamps the seal, it is a red deed with legal significance and becomes an important certificate of land property rights, which can be confirmed by a large number of cases in the "Qingming Collection".
After the home buyer goes through the land tax push and mounding procedure, he obtains the corresponding land property rights. The "Qingming Collection" contains a judgment concerning the promotion and cutting of land tax after the fourteenth year of Jiading (1222), which is quite illustrative of this problem: "Luo Shan went to Yang Congtian and asked for a deed, paid it for business, and immediately established a Zou household, and returned it with Yang Cong's head Yang Zhao tax money of 453 Wen. …… A Zou also used his own money, will, and Yang from Deng Jiaping and other Tian No. 6, the price was fifty consistent, and the tax was ninety-seven wen. The total amount of the two taxes in Azou's own household is one in five hundred and fifty. …… It is not clear that the industry is entered. The "tax money" refers to the land tax borne by the households, and the "tax collection" refers to the fact that after the land transaction, the buyer and the seller go through the procedures for the land tax to be pushed and ceded by the government, and the seller pushes the tax to the buyer, and the buyer is the collector, so it is called "tax collection". The judge finally ruled that the plaintiff was the legal owner of the land property right on the basis that he had paid taxes and money. There is no mention of the household post in the judgment, and it is clear that the judge based his decision on the record of the cutting in the anvil book. The account post is only a determination of the tax on the reception, so it cannot be used as a proof of litigation.
The anvil base book is different from the household post, it is the general land property and tax register of the households, "the people avoid errand labor, often the property of a household is divided into several households, and the anvil base book is a false name to coerce the households into one household, and the production money is low, which can be seen at a glance". The difference between the anvil base book and the household post is that the anvil base book can provide complete information on the "number of land and property managed by the households" in the township, which can play a role in preventing the false name of the sub-household from evading the errand service. Once formulated, "from now on, where there is an analysis, production, and production family, take this as the ancestor, and immediately approve each item." It is not only a registration of the clearance of existing land, but also a record book of land transactions that occur on a daily basis thereafter. The anvil base book has the function of collecting the fields scattered in different areas of a household, and it is the household book of the field properties. At the same time, it is also a land transaction and its associated tax ledger, which has the characteristics of diachronic accumulation of land property and tax money. Therefore, its cadastral credential function is particularly prominent. Yuan Cai's "Yuan's Shifan" contains: "When people trade with their families, they should first rely on their teeth, ask for lots, anvil bases, and point out the number of Qiu Duan. For the major events of field transactions, Yuan Cai did not use the household post as a certificate, and bluntly said the anvil base book, which shows the strong utility of the anvil base book. Once the function of the household post taxable certificate has been cut and chiseled, it is covered by the anvil book.
At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, in order to solve the problem of financial pressure, the Song government implemented the meridian boundary push and exclusion law. Kaihua County of Quzhou on Liangzhedong Road carried out land inventory activities in the first year of Xianchun. Huizhou's "Fuxi Cheng's Ancestral Training Family Regulations and Seal Qiu Yuanyuan's Co-compilation" transcribed "Kaihua County Pays Tomb Servants to Self-Undertaking Posts" is an important document of land inventory promulgated during this period, which is not without reference value for understanding the function and nature of household posts, and is hereby transcribed below:
"Kaihua County Pays the Grave Servant to Bear the Truth"
Kaihua County Push and Row Special Bureau No. 67, according to the county's brigadier envoy, government post, prepare to serve the provincial command, hold the push row, the order is real. In case of leakage, coercion, or flying mail, it will be implemented as usual. In addition to the county has been under the line of all the capitals to unite and protect the armor, according to the order of each of the applicants, the joint to the self-confession, pay the officials, the people. Yang will follow the style that has been issued, the Litu Peak card is served, and the verification is guaranteed, such as the style of the book to fill in the grass by, pay the household receipt, with which each place two anvil bases, and the indoor but dry industry is issued, and the self-tenant and tax color are within. Can't be counted, obey the capital, from the size of the Baojia jurisdiction Baoming, pay the governor, really right, Baoming paid in the county seal. B Ben stays in the county, B Ben ginseng is on the grass reason, exchanged for the real reason, and pays the owner to receive it forever. For example, if the owner of the property in another county is not in the county, that is, the tenant and the cadre are urged to do the same, but it is set with grace. A person who is empty and proletarian, that is, properatistic, who now lives in a house or tenant of land, shall also rely on the actual offering, and shall pay the application for the first time within five days, and shall also ensure that the application is made from the Governor. This shall not be violated.
The right to self-concede by the son, pay the ninth capital five households. That's right
Command, faithfully pursue, do not lead to self-condemnation.
On the tenth day of the first year of Xianchun, he gave Zhixian Cao County Chenghong
"Kaihua County Pays Grave Servants to Self-Acceptance" is a land inventory notice issued by the government to households. The phrase "prepare to serve the command of the province and hold the push row" means that the imperial court ordered the implementation of the meridian push and row. The "Self-Undertaking Post" stipulates that the land inventory shall first be issued by the government to the households for their own inheritance, and the information of the land property and owners shall be provided by themselves, and the documents shall be filled in and drafted, and the capital shall be guaranteed for examination and approval before being paid to the households. Households save two anvil books based on the grass, fill in the information of the field of the house, and after verification, hand over the county seal, one to stay in the county, one to check with the self-undertaking grass, and replace the grass by the real reason, that is, the official text, together with the household. The "Yuzi" issued is a kind of fundamental land property right certificate issued after the land inventory. In addition, there is no account post involved. If the household registration is a property right and property tax certificate, why does Kaihua County not issue a household registration to the owner to receive the receipt, but issue it to the household Yuzi separately? It can be seen that there is a difference between the two, and the household post is not a land certificate.
3. The application for the household post is awarded: "household post" and "fixed post" are examined
The application and issuance of household posts is an unavoidable topic in the discussion of the household post system, and there is no discussion in the academic circles on this issue. In addition, there is also an important tax system, that is, how is the tax amount delineated after the sale of land, and is it the government? For a long time, there has been no in-depth study. The following is a trial of some of the information we have.
(1) "Household post" test
In the sixth year of Jiading (1213), Anxi County, Quanzhou, ordered Chen Mi to "return to the embassy to build an anvil base book to draft the incident" and said:
Today's anvil is thin, just like people make household posts, and those who have no difficulties at the beginning are afraid of being frustrated by the upper household. If you want to implement it today, you must ask for the permission of the imperial court.
Among them, the sentence "just like someone makes a household post" is quite difficult to understand. The household post was printed by the government and issued to the households, why did Chen Mi say that it was made by the people? Chen Mi's "Anxi County Persuades the People to Build an Anvil Base Book" is cloudy:
If the husband has land, he will have property, and the property of this state will really have the system of tithing, and he will collect nine of them privately, and use one of them to serve the officials, so as to fill the worship of the gods of heaven and earth, is it not the righteousness of the king and the people, and the course of humanity. Today, however, if you buy people's land, you will reduce your production, and you will gather in the homes where you are employed, and all the people who have worked are poor, and if the officials give them them, they will flee again.
In the first year of Shaoxi (1190), Zhu Yan, the governor of Tingzhou, said in the notebook of the "Baoming Jingjie Shenyun Division Transit Division":
When a rich family buys a farm house, they will make the people who produce it lose their tax money, and then they will sell it, and the poor people are forced to refuse to give it, so they will obey their request. If the lawsuit is not exempt from being pursued according to the deed, it has to be transferred to migration, which is often lost.
The above-mentioned "if there is land, there is property" and "if the buyer's land is reduced", they all refer to property taxes and taxes. According to the above records, in addition to the agreement between the buyer and the seller, the amount of the land tax was originally calculated by the government but by the buyer and the seller. For the poor who sell their land, they are the weaker party, usually because their families are in trouble and sell their land, and the rich family takes the opportunity to keep the land tax as low as possible, and the seller has no choice but to do so. After the sale, the government levied taxes according to the amount of taxes agreed upon by the buyer and seller, and it was easy for the poor people who could not pay the taxes and then migrated to other countries. This is what happened in the Southern Song Dynasty, is it the same in the Northern Song Dynasty? In the third year of Chongning (1104), Cai Jing and others once said: "Since the opening of Qianmo, the people have been able to trade with each other privately, and the rich have more than enough to make a profit by setting a high price; The poor are forced to be insufficient, and the tax is transferred to sell quickly, and the world's endowment is uneven for a long time. Cai Jing's statement that the poor people are "forced to transfer taxes to sell quickly" and Zhu Yan's statement that the poor people are "forced not to give" and that the rich "lose their tax money", as well as the "Anxi County Persuasion of the People to Build an Anvil Base Book" that "if you buy people's land, you will reduce their production (money)", all clearly reflect a historical fact: the amount of tax to be cut is not calculated by the government, but agreed upon by both parties to the land transaction. In the process of agreement, the interests of the house of sale are often usurped by the wealthy. Chen Mi's "people make household posts" means that the buyer and seller freely agree on the tax to be cut, first enter into an agreement privately, and then ask the government to buy the post, fill in and apply for a formal household post deed issued by the government, that is, the statutory determination of the tax on the subject of land should be cut. The so-called "fixed post" is relative to the private agreement initially negotiated between the buyer and the seller.
Anxi County has never implemented the meridian boundary law in history, and it was still a user post at that time. Chen Mi's so-called "just like people make household posts" Yunyun, which means that people buy and sell land property, set tax money, and make household posts, which is originally a very simple matter, and the tax moves with the field, but because the buyer lowers the tax money, making the household post become a tricky thing, and the accumulation of the anvil book is to publish the tax overcut, which will undoubtedly make the wealthy households' evasion of land tax be restricted, and naturally they resisted. Therefore, Chen Mi compared the construction of the anvil book with the difficulty of agreeing on the household post.
(2) "Fixed" test
Discussing the awarding of household posts, it involves an important clerical term - "fixed posts". An edict in the sixth year of Zhenghe (1116) contained in the Manuscript of the Song Society:
The two Zhejiang transfer divisions are under the custody of the counties under the management of the year extra, and according to the Huainan regulations, the collection of people sells their fields and houses to the official to buy the money. Huainan style: the household pawn sells the field house, the price is straight, the first time to buy the post is limited to three days, fill in the book, the county is on the book to urge, and the price is limited to three days to buy the positive deed. In addition to the paper and ink money, its officials sell two fixed posts, and the money of work and ink is 10 Wen, and each time the paste is paid 3 Wen. If the price is more than five times, each time the money is five dollars.
The edict stipulates that people must purchase a fixed post and a formal deed to sell their homes, of which two fixed posts must be bought. Both of these instruments are contractual instruments involved in the process of land transactions. Let's start with the positive deed, which usually refers to the sale and purchase contract. "Qingming Collection" contains a case of a field property, involving the positive deed: "See the request to the anvil base book and the branch book, and the positive deed 19 ways, with the application of the petition, taken from the command." Huang Yu also had a judgment mentioning the positive deed: "Zhao Yu judged that the empty deed was a deed of Zeng, and the deed of re-establishment was a fake deed of Zeng Wei." Since he has never traced out Zeng Qi's confession, how can he see that it is a fake contract? In the meantime, there are many people who do not submit the positive deed to the seal, and they also know that the re-establishment of the deed is fake? The formal deed is sometimes referred to as the land deed. Wu Yiyan, who knew Taizhou in the fifteenth year of Shaoxing: "When people go out of the pawn field house, there is a positive deed according to the article, there is a contract deed, and the money and the owner each hold one of them, and they are redeemed according to the certificate." It can be seen that the official deed is a contract made by the Diantian Mansion and is a format text printed by the government. After figuring out the correct deed, look at the final post. What is "fixing"? Huizong Xuanhe first year (1121) edict:
Next to the banknote, Yuanfeng used to sell it from the government, and it can be tested for a long time to prevent the disadvantages of counterfeiting. The edict of the government and the amendment was deleted, and it was not established, and the command was not allowed to be betrayed. In the future, the banknotes should be fixed and fixed, and the county should be allowed to sell, that is, the price should not be increased.
The edict stipulates that officials sell money and set posts to prevent counterfeiting. The side of the banknote is juxtaposed with the fixed post, and figuring out what is next to the banknote can help to understand the nature of the fixed post. In the tenth year of Shaoxing (1140), the ministers said:
The loss of taxation is limited to the letter next to the banknote, the valley is raised, the silk is measured, the money is from the past, there must be four banknotes, and the recipient personally uses the group seal, and the household banknote is paid to the household; said that the county banknote, then the county division of the cancellation of the registration; If it is said that the supervisor will pay for it, the supervisor will take it; If you live in money, you will hide it in the warehouse. Therefore, anti-counterfeiting, prepare to lose, and take care of each other, this is a good law.
Wang Shengduo pointed out that "next to the banknote is the tax banknote." and "Qingyuan Article Legal Affairs" volume 47 "Taxable Rent" contains: "All official goods use banknotes four, county money to pay the county, household money to households, supervision of money to pay to supervisors, residence money to keep the department." It can be seen that the so-called "banknote" is the general name of the voucher for the tax payment, which contains four kinds of documents, among which the household banknote, after the household is lost, the receiving official uses the regiment seal as the proof of the tax paid, and keeps it for future reference. Then the fixed post that is juxtaposed with it is nothing more than an instrument related to the loss of taxes. Of course, this fixed post does not belong to the land deed, which only contains the acres of land and the transaction price, not the tax amount, and has no generic relationship with the banknotes that pay taxes. Is this a household post? Kao Li Yuanbi's "Zuoyi Zizhen":
The money for buying silk and silk in advance is mostly a false name, so that the limit is not paid, and there is a fee. However, at the beginning of the money, the intention to guard against it, the first five or seven days to announce the head of the household, each body, to the beginning of the sunrise, one by one, please be the head of the account. If there is no household post, it is necessary to pay the money for inspection last year. If it is the beginning of the household, the township secretary Baoming, although there are documents and banknotes, it is still in the first post after the elderly, the head of the household is entrusted with the guarantee.
In the Song Dynasty, the implementation and purchase system, in order to prevent false names and fraudulent requests, required the applicant to take the account post as a witness, if there is no household post, you can also use the tax certificate account money as a basis. From its provisions, it can be seen that both household notes and household banknotes are related to tax payment, the former is a taxable identification document, and the latter is a tax payment voucher document. Based on this, it can be concluded that the household post is an instrument of the same nature as the above-mentioned fixed post. The fixed post is the same as the banknote next to a collective name, and both contain multiple documents, all of which refer to official seal format texts that have not yet taken effect. The former is used for the determination of taxable liabilities and is exchanged for an official document with an official seal, called a household post; The latter is used as a proof of tax payment, and after being sealed, it is issued to the household, which is called the household banknote.
After the fixed post becomes an official household post, it is necessary to go through the procedures for pushing and cutting the land tax. In the first year of Zhenghe (1111), a note from the Ministry of Households:
Those who want to pay taxes on the deed of the land and the house, immediately register as an official, give the owner of the payment, and limit the three days to survey the owners, neighbors, and people who write the deed, and the words of the person who writes the deed are not added, and the tax rent and exemption money are inspected by the pawn, and the tax rent and exemption money should be cut by the new decision, and the tax rent should be cut into the case, and the file will be opened and collected in the department (book) on the same day.
There are two procedures mentioned here, the first is the payment of the deed tax, and the government pays the tax proof - the reason. Secondly, after paying the deed tax, it is necessary to determine the share of tax rent that should be cut, go through the procedures for pushing and collecting land tax, and transfer the share of tax rent borne by the seller to the buyer, as detailed in the 31st (1161) Imperial Decree of Shaoxing:
If the deed does not open acres, shelves, neighbors, taxes, rents, deed owners, neighbors, and tooth protection to write the deed's words, and sell the land and house according to the illegal pawn, it is difficult to get rid of the disadvantages of unclear transactions and lawsuits; If we do not chisel the anvil base book, it is difficult to put an end to the disadvantages of reducing taxes and removing taxes from property.
The above-mentioned historical materials all talk about the procedures for pushing and collecting, in addition to the number of acres of land, it is also necessary to analyze the tax, rent, and labor money. In the Song Dynasty, the tax money was not written in the land sales deed, and the tax money was only available in the household post. "A piece of paper for the household, issuing the color of the tenant land, the number of acres, the four to, the look, and the rent should be paid." Therefore, in addition to signing the land deed, the buyer and the seller also need to have a deed with the content of the tax money, which should be the confirmation of the purchase of the land house by pawn as stipulated in the edict of the sixth year of the reign of the aforementioned Zhenghe (1116).
We know that you need to buy two posts, how do you use these two posts? How does it relate to posts? The following draws on the use of banknotes and tries to analyze. In the third year of Xuanhe (1121), Zhang Yiqian was sentenced to Pizhou:
The state has been in accordance with the rules and regulations of the Department of Records and Supervision of the printing and counterfeiting of money, and the counties are sold in accordance with the regulations. According to the county's contract, one million pairs of banknotes are used every year, each pair of four pieces of paper, and the price is four dollars.
There are four pieces of paper next to each pair of banknotes, which are issued to taxpayers' households, county departments, supervisors, and warehouses respectively after losing taxes, that is, the so-called household banknotes, county banknotes, supervisors' banknotes, and residential banknotes. According to the actual use method next to the banknote, it can be inferred that the two copies of each set of cards are purchased by the taxpayer who buys the land. "Song Hui Yao Manuscript" contains the verse of the Zazi of Shangshu Province in the second year of Xuanhe (1120): "The official sells banknotes, and each household must be asked to make a banknote, and the names of the previous households shall not be followed." Zazi said very clearly, please buy one bill per household, one bill is a pair. In this case, as far as the fixed post is concerned, one post per household means that the property owner buys and fills it out separately, and the seller does not need to buy it.
The official copy of the household post mentioned in the edict of the sixth year of Zhenghe is the official copy of the household post, which is filled in by the owner of the farmhouse after purchase; The positive deed is a pawn sale contract. The purchase of the fixed post and the positive deed must pay the cost of ink, and the fixed post money obviously refers to the cost of paper and ink for the purchase of the post. We know that after the land deed is concluded, the deed tax must be paid to the government, so the so-called subsidy money should be collected for those who apply for the purchase of the post. In the third year of Xuanhe (1121), there was an edict: "Zhulu received the post and posted the money, and the commission was sent to the criminal department to send it to the inner treasury." Among them, the subsidy money is actually a surtax paid after the cut-off procedure.
After the payment of money, it evolved into the money of exploration. In March of the fifth year of Shaoxing (1135), the Criminal Division of Liangzhexi Road said: "The money for the sale of fixed posts by the people of the near edict is implemented according to the rules of the self-style, and it is changed to the collection of survey money." So the household said: "The beggar will sell the land at a price, and each time the property is collected, the survey money of the producer is 10 yuan." "The court from it. The money is subject to a tax of 1% on the transaction price of the property, which includes the previous interest. That is to say, the survey money comes from the original fixed paper and ink labor money - fixed post money, and is integrated into the paste money. In the ninth year of the Gandao (1173), Huainan Yun sentenced Feng Zhongjia to say: "The deed surveyor sells the field and house, and pays the tooth tax, the deed paper capital, the conquest, the vermilion ink, and the head money." Visiting Wenzhou and county skillfully made names, and there were vermilion money, printing money, and money for the property. The desire to enforce the law is prohibited, the deed tax is to collect the people's money, and the households are allowed to sue for more. According to this, it can be seen that in the Song Dynasty, when buying and selling land, they usually had to pay tooth tax, deed paper capital, survey money, etc. The tooth tax is the deed tax, and the deed paper cost refers to the cost of the paper and ink of the official printed contract. As early as June of the third year of Chongning (1104), Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty said: "The counties pawn the deeds of cattle and livestock, and the deeds of the fields and houses are printed and sold by the tax and rent banknotes, and are printed and sold from the lawsuit. In addition to the cost of paper, pen and ink, the amount of interest money collected to help students use it, and the interest shall not be doubled. The so-called "deed of the field house" printed and sold by the government is a collection of documents including banknotes and fixed posts, and the edict stipulates that in addition to the cost of paper, pen and ink, interest money is also added.
The above-mentioned edict of the sixth year of Zhenghe stipulates that "its officials sell two fixed posts, and the money of Gongmo is 10 Wen, and each time the money is collected and paid 3 Wen, there are two fixed posts, and in addition to the payment of Gongmo money, it is necessary to pay the paste money, which is paid in proportion to the full amount of three Wenyuan per line. The so-called "per guan" should be calculated based on the transaction price of the field. The transaction price of the property is not written in the account post, and the transaction price of the property is contained in the deed. It can be roughly judged from this that after the buyer and seller agree on the tax to be cut, the buyer of the land property shall apply to the government for the purchase deed, and the official seal of the land and house deed at the beginning of the purchase shall be called "fixed post", and the relevant information on the sale and purchase of the land property and the tax payable shall be filled in according to the printed format. After the fixed post is approved by the government, it is exchanged for an official document with an official seal, which is called a household post. After the completion of the formalities, two household posts, one of which is kept in the official office for future reference, and the other is still held by the property owner, as the basis for the amount of tax payable. The above-mentioned copy of the household post of the Xiuning Cheng family is copied from the household post held by the owner. Yuan said in the Southern Song Dynasty that there is a passage of Shuyun:
The poor of the people, compelled by food and clothing not to give them the amount they want to sell, will gladly give up their property. The rich family, vested in its property, and will hold the deed deep hidden, and the year to collect its possession without telling the county. Therefore, although the property of the poor has entered the house of the rich, the levy of property is still attached to the poor. The rich will not sue, and the poor will not.
It can be seen from this that the seller of the land does not hold the household slip for pushing the tax on the cession, and if there is, he will not be unable to sue the official.
At the same time as the property owner goes through the tax collection procedures, he pays the subsidy money according to the proportion of the land price (later changed to the survey money). The original meaning of "inquiry" is to verify the contract document and verify the contract document. The "plus four guan five hundred and eighty texts" in the above-mentioned copy of Cheng's household post should have been added by the official when going through the procedures for tax collection.
Judging from the household post documents transcribed in the "Records of the Origin of the Ancestral Tomb of Kaolin", the household post was applied for by the head of the household who bought the land, and then issued by the government. This is in line with the above-mentioned procedures for the application and issuance of household posts, and is also in line with Chen Mi's statement that "it is only as if people make household posts" and the provisions of the edict of Huizong in the sixth year of Zhenghe that people should ask for a fixed post to sell their fields and houses. However, Fuxi Cheng's family was transferred to Kaihua County through an official document issued by Xiuning County, Huizhou to apply for a household post, so why not apply directly locally? Behind this was the errand service system at the time.
The Jingjie Law implemented during the Song Shaoxing period stipulated that the land and property purchased by other counties should be merged into the registration of the place of residence, so as to prevent the deliberate dispersion of the land and the reduction of households to avoid errand service. The registration method of land endowment is different from the registration method of land property to be calculated by the errand servants, and the tax is "rationalized and paid in the township where (the field property) is located", that is, "the tax is levied with the field", and the field property is registered in the township and county where the field is located, and the land tax collected by each county is not combined. After Fuxi Cheng's entrusted agent applied for the household post through Xiuning County, he followed the "tax with the field" method and completed the tax acceptance registration in the local area. A copy of the "Excerpt of the Zhongshu Official Seal Containing the Gaoling Tomb Property in the Seal of the Public Official Seal of the Chinese Book" (original note: Song Jingding's fifth year Jiazi June 3 asked for the official seal) contained in the "Fuxi Cheng's Ancestral Training Family Regulations and Seal Qiu Yuanyuan" can be used as evidence, which contains: "Yuan buys Yu Jian Shui Shan Section B...... In the first year of Baoqing, Fangzhou Zhushan Chengzhi County was established, and the tax was collected by ten acres of officials, and Liu Sier, the man who guarded the grave, collected the seedlings and paid them himself. "The taxable tax payable on the consignment field in Cheng's Kaihua County was entrusted to the grave servant Liu Si'er to pay on his behalf. In the case of errand service, the fields and properties scattered in each county must be merged into the township and county where the head of the household lives and lives to calculate the material resources in a unified manner, and the households shall be promoted and discharged, and the errand department shall be used for servitude. Song Fa: "The color of the wheel is from the smoke." "Servitude with the field", including the calculation of the material resources of the field of consinical production. As a consignment household that does not live in Kaihua County, Fuxi Cheng's family must apply to the place of purchase through the county government of the county where they live, and then return to the place of residence to register new material resources, and adjust the household in the future, which will be included in the errand service promotion process.
It is worth mentioning that the amount of taxes paid in the Song Dynasty was first agreed upon by the people themselves, and then recognized by the government and issued to the households, which is of profound significance. Shang Ping once pointed out that the household post also has the effect of preventing the corrupt of the officials and wealthy households in the grassroots government in the township and secretly transferring the enslavement. Judging from the procedures for applying for and issuing household posts, the amount of taxes to be paid is agreed upon by the people themselves, and the amount to be paid is clearly determined by the government, which can prevent officials from secretly adding taxes and committing fraud. The household post has a dual role, for the households, it reminds taxpayers to pay taxes in a timely manner; For officials, household posts have a regulatory role. Looking at the anvil base book implemented by the Shaoxing Economic Circle, the Song Dynasty stipulated that the people "buy the anvil base book by themselves", which was also made by the people themselves, declared the land property, and then officially approved and issued to the people. Its intention is the same as the application and issuance procedure of the household post, which profoundly embodies the basic concept of governing the country of the Song Dynasty of "preventing things for the sake of doing things, and making music for the system".
Conclusion
The Huizhou Fuxi Cheng's household post manuscript is credible, and the information contained in it is of great value for the study of the household post and book system in the late Southern Song Dynasty. As far as private economic activities are concerned, their basic function is to pay taxes rather than determine land property rights. The household post is issued with the tax deduction, and each post is only the determination of the tax payable after a certain land purchase. Under special circumstances, it is used as the initial certificate of land property rights, which is a function derived from the household post. The acquisition of this initial voucher is not the result of a certain transaction activity, but is given by the state as a fundamental document, which is obviously different from the basic function of the one-time account card that is frequently used by the people on a daily basis. The Southern Song Dynasty Shaoxing Jingjie Law vigorously promoted the anvil base book, but it did not abandon the household post and did not use it, and the household post and the anvil base book were parallel to the world and were not replaced. The amount of tax on the household post is not delineated by the government but is negotiated between the buyer and the seller, and after the agreement, the buyer applies to the government to buy the post, fills in the information on the land purchased and the tax that should be cut, and the government recognizes it and exchanges it with an official document, which is the household post. Consignees from other counties cannot apply directly, and must handle it through the county government of the county where they live, so as to prevent Hao You from evading the land and avoiding the errand service. The application and issuance of household posts was an important measure for the implementation of the enslavement system in the Song Dynasty.
The book system of the Song Dynasty, which had an impact on later generations, left some traces of continuity in later generations, such as the fish scale atlas created by the Song Dynasty and so on. After entering the Yuan Dynasty, the anvil base book was still in use, (1) but the nature of the user posts was completely different from that of the Song Dynasty, and it contained population and property information. If the household post was still valid in the late Southern Song Dynasty, why was it not used in the Yuan Dynasty like the anvil base book? Why are there few records in the historical books of the late Southern Song Dynasty? This makes one wonder about the universality of the use of household posts during this period. After the Southern Song Dynasty vigorously promoted the anvil base book system, the effect of household posts was gradually weakened. This is a question worth pondering. There is a judgment in the "Qingming Collection" that says: "The county has passed the tax, and it is all based on the guarantor, and Zou gradually used the insurance seal, and there was a mistake in cutting it." This is a phenomenon in the Fuzhou area of Jiangnan West Road. The so-called "use of the seal of guarantee" means that the guarantor signs the fingerprint on the tax transfer agreement agreed between the buyer and the seller, and the guarantor guarantees the tax in these areas. Since the amount of tax cut by the household post is determined by the people themselves, in the areas where the anvil base book is implemented, the people do not necessarily have to buy the fixed post when going through the procedures for pushing and cutting taxes, and the buyer and seller may be able to handle it with the guarantee of the guarantor with the land deed and the tax promotion agreement freely agreed in private. For the circumcision, you only need to pay a handling fee - the survey money, which can save a fixed post purchase fee. If the above speculation can be established, it may be said that although the household post was not abandoned in the middle and late Southern Song Dynasty, it gradually faded as a system in the daily life of the people in the areas where the anvil base book was commonly used. However, dilution is not equal to extinction, Xianchun first year Xiuning County moved to Kaihua County to issue household posts, these two counties belong to Jiangnan East Road and Liangzhejiang East Road, are the implementation of the meridian boundary law in the late Southern Song Dynasty to implement the anvil base book area, this example reflects the anvil base book system after the promotion, the household post did not disappear. Especially in areas where the meridian law has not been implemented, because the anvil base book system is not popular, there is no reason for the household post to be abandoned, and Chen Miyan, the order of Anxi County, Quanzhou in the sixth year of Jiading, as mentioned above, is a good example.
The notes are omitted, please refer to the original text for the full version.
▼
1. Song Dynasty History Research Information 1
E-mail: [email protected]