caoliang 漕糧, tribute grain

Tribute grain (caoliang 漕糧 or 漕粮) served in imperial times to feed the officialdom and the court in the imperial capital, as well as the troops in military garrisons in and around the capital region and in border regions. The tribute grain was a type of tax replacing the common field tax (tianfu 田賦) delivered in kind, but it was applied only to regions with rich harvests, mainly in the lower Yangtze area. It was predominantly transported by river (shuiyun 水運) along the Grand Canal (da yunhe 大運河; compare the character 漕 with the water radical), but in certain periods of history also by sea (haiyun 海運).

The earliest evidence for the tribute grain is an event in 486 BCE, when the regional state of Wu 吳 fortified the city of Han 邗 (today's Hanjiang 邗江, Jiangsu) and connected it by canals to the River Huai 淮河 and the Yangtze. During the Western Han period 西漢 (206 BCE-8 CE), grain (millet, su 粟) was shipped from the Shandong Peninsula westwards along the Yellow River and up the River Wei 渭水 to the capital Chang'an 長安 (today's Xi'an 西安, Shaanxi). At that time, the salaries of state officials were paid out in grain, and not in money. During the reign of Emperor Xuan 漢宣帝 (r. 74-49 BCE), as much a 4 million hu 斛 (= 2 million shi 石 "bushels", see weights and measures) were brought to the capital. For this enterprise, as many as 6,000 troops (zu 卒) were needed. The grain was stored in large granaries in important nodal points. During the Qin period 秦 (221-206 BCE), the Aocang Granary 敖倉 had been built in Chenggao 成皋 (today's Xingyang 滎陽, Henan), and the Han dynasty created a whole network of imperial granaries (taicang 太倉).

The Sui dynasty 隋 (581-618) built granaries in Liyang 黎陽, Heyin 河陰, Changping 常平 and Guangtong 廣通. Others granaries were called the Luokou Granary 洛口倉 and Huiluo Granary 回洛倉. During the Sui period, the Grand Canal was built, which connected the Yellow River with the River Huai and the Yangtze. The origin of grain during that period shifted from the eastern Yellow River Plain to the lower Yangtze region. The Grand Canal made it possible to ship as much as 3 to 4 million shi of grain to Chang'an.

The Northern Song 北宋 (960-1126) chose Bianjing 汴京 (Kaifeng 開封, Henan) as their capital. It was located much further east than Chang'an and, therefore, made transport easier because the dangerous rapids in the Sanmen Gorge 三門峽 could be avoided. For the supply of Kaifeng, the four rivers Bian 汴水, Yellow River, Huimin 惠民 and Guangji 廣濟 were connected with each other. An amount of between 4 and 7 million shi of "government grain" (guanliang 官糧) was brought to the capital, but also to military garrisons in the border regions. To ensure the supply of sufficient rice, the Song government set an annual quota for rice to be delivered as tribute grain. It also provided an exact schedule for which destinations the grain was to be taken to. In this way, the grain tribute system shifted from a general system of grain supply to an elaborate tax system. This tendency was influenced by the increasing monetisation of the economy during the Song period, which required more precise data on the economic potential of different regions of the empire.

In the early Ming period 明 (1368-1644), the total amount of the tribute tax quota to be brought to the capital was fixed at 3 million shi per year. The Ming capital was initially Nanjing (南京), in present-day Jiangsu, which is close to the region from which most tribute grain came, but Beijing in the far north was later designated the capital. The transport, therefore, had to rely on a new canal system through the Shandong Peninsula, whose foundations had been laid during the Yuan period 元 (1279-1368). In 1472, the central government ordered that an annual quota of 4 million shi of tribute grain was to be delivered by the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Hunan, Jiangxi, Hubei, Henan and Shandong. The Qing dynasty 清 (1644-1911) largely followed the tribute grain system of the Ming, but ordered that a certain portion of the tribute grain remain in the provinces of origin to stock local reserve granaries.

In addition to tribute grain, the Ming and Qing levied a specialised grain, the so-called "white grain" (bailiang 白糧). It originated in the prefectures of Suzhou 蘇州, Songjiang 松江, Changzhou 常州, Jiaxing 嘉興 and Huzhou 湖州. 170,000 shi of rice and glutinous rice ("sticky rice") were levied to supply the imperial palace, and a further amount of 44,000 shi of unhusked rice (caogengmi 糙粳米) to supply the offices of the central administration.

The population of the regions from where the tribute rice came were also liable for delivering several types of additional volumes of grain to cover the transport expenses. These fees were called haomi 耗米, qingji 輕賫, zengtie 贈貼 or ximu 席木, and summarised under the names caoxiang 漕項 or suicao 隨漕. The height of the transport surcharge (haoxian 耗羨) was as high as about 1.7 dou 斗 per shi of rice (i.e., 17 per cent), but it was also collected in money instead of in kind. It was a primary source of exploitation and embezzlement by the local officialdom, which managed its collection.

The increasing commercialisation of the economy initiated a trend toward replacing tribute grain with a money substitute, called zhecao 折漕 or caozhe 漕折. It was easier for local officials to collect money rather than rice. Using the collected funds, they commissioned merchants to purchase rice and ship it to its destination. This custom originated in the so-called "method of adjusting the tribute grain tax" (pingmifa 平米法) initiated by Zhou Chen 周忱 in 1433, and was first only applied to the transport surcharge. In 1436, it was decreed that not more than 1 million tael/liang of money was to be collected as a substitute for rice, yet in the late years of the Ming period, the amount of grain transported by the government itself was only a small proportion of the whole tribute grain. The Qing dynasty initially prohibited the substitution of rice with money, but was then compelled by the local officialdom to accommodate practical considerations. In the late nineteenth century, most provinces of origin were allowed to collect the total amount due in money. The conversion rate was at that time 1 liang per shi of rice. The only exceptions were Jiangsu and Zhejiang, which still had to deliver an amount of 1 million shi of grain. Yet in general, the tribute grain transport system came to a halt and was abolished in 1901.