Lands Under State Cultivation Under The T'ang

Lands under State Cultivation under the T'ang
Author(s): Denis Twitchett

Source: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 2, No. 2 (May, 1959),
pp. 162-203
Published by: BRILL
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LANDS UNDER STATE CULTIVATION
UNDER THE T'ANG
BY
DENIS TWITCHETT
(Cambridge)
During the T'ang dynasty, very large areas of land in China were held
by the government. Lands were set aside specifically to provide incomes
for officials, to produce the income necessary for the upkeep of official
buildings and to provide for the expenses of the postal system and to
give pasture for its horses. Extensive areas of northern China were
designated "Pastures" and used by the state for horse breeding. Further-
more large estates of every type were administered on behalf of the
Imperial household by the eunuch Commissioners for Estates.
With the exception of the pastures all these lands were rented to
tenants, and the income which they provided derived from the collec-
tion of these rents. Besides these lands, however, there were further
categories of state lands in the exploitation of which the government
was more directly concerned. These, known as T'un-t'ien 4j , Ying-
t'ien and Chiin-t'ien $ B1 are the subject of the present study.
,
The system of T'un-t'ien originated under the Former Han with the
military settlements established on the north-western frontiers.1) These
settlements were self-supporting, the troops and the subordinates of the
officers and officials working the lands alloted to them. The term has
therefore come to be translated as "military colony". During the Nan-
pei ch'ao period, such frontier colonies continued to be formed, but in
addition T'un-t'ien were established within metropolitan China.2) These
i) See TT 2 p. i 8b, c. See also the materialcollected in Li-tai t'un-t'ienk'ao

4-titj3] of Chang Chiin-yiieh if J (1937) pp. 44-106.
2) See Chang Chiin-yiieh,op. cit. pp. io8-147; T'ao Hsi-sheng ~J 4
and Ch'ii Ch'ing-yiian1 rj =
T'ang-tai ching-chishih (1936) )•
p
pp. 7-12z; T'ang Chang-ju Wei Chin Nan-pei ch'ao shih-lun
V. • J
ts'ung(I955) PP. 37-58. Nishijima Sadao jN - ~ / Gi no tonden-sei
-

LANDS UNDER STATE CULTIVATION DURING THE
T'ANG DYNASTY I63
latter were distinguished from the frontier colonies in that they were
frequentlyworked not by troops but by civilian labour, and were under
the controlnot of the militaryadministration,
but of the civil financial
organisation.1)The T'ang employed the term to cover both types of
institutionindiscriminately.
The term Ying-t'ienalso appearsduring the Nan-pei ch'ao. It is
sometimesfoundusedin conjunctionwithT'un-t'ien2)
butseemsgenerally
to have been used for lands developed by the stateandfarmedby civilian
labour.3)Under the T'ang the term usuallyhadthe meaningof statelands
farmedby civilians,but it is frequentlyfoundas a generaltermfor any
landexploitedby the state.This is especiallycommonwhereit formsa
componentin officialtitles.4)
Thus the two termst'un-t'ien andying-t'ien
referin theirnarrowsense
to two separateinstitutions,respectivelythe militarycolony exploited
by the localgarrisonto provideitselfwith suppliesandrations,andthe
stateownedlandsexploitedby civilianlaboureitherto producerentsin
grainor to providegrainrationsfor local needs.But both termswere
appliedmore or less indiscriminately to anylandsexploitedunderthe
directcontrolof the state.5)
tokuni sonohaishimondai
womegutte Q rh Jj ~
f Z0)
) .
IL
i • (" '5 . Tjyjbunka kenkyujo X
kiyi (1956) pp. 1-84.
i) SeeOkazakiFumio •j1i1t GinoTondensaku Q)
• 0 4 I J$.
Shinagaku V/2 (I939) p. 311-9.
z) Wei shu 79 p. 8a. tells how the Later Wei establishedt'un-t'ienunder the
control of a Ying-t'ienta-shihalong their southern borders.
3) The clearestcase of the distinction of the two terms is to be found in a
passagein Sui shu24, p. i ia-b, where militarycolonies (t'un-t'ien)were ordered
to be set up beyond the GreatWall, while the common people of Ho-hsi were
orderedto set up forts and accumulatesupplies of grain by means ofying-t'ien.
(cf. Balazs,Le Trait e'conomique du Souei-chou,T'oungPao XL1I/3-4, pp. I 5-6.)
4) In for example the titles Chihying-t'ienshih -kH.* [ $ and Ying-t'ien
shih , where usedin a non-specialised
is mostprobably
ying-t'ien
sense "In charge of mattersconcerningthe exploitationof lands"; "Commis-
sioner for the exploitation of [state]lands."
5) For a full discussion of these terms see Aoyama Sadao [I] ]
TjdainoTonden to Eiden) I 4 Q) ( f ,
ZasshiLXIII/i
Shigaku

164 DENIS TWITCHETT
During the early part of the T'ang dynasty both types of land were
known most commonly as t'un-t'ien,and this term is found almost every-
where in legal texts. However, the distinction between the two types
of colony is reflected in their administrative position.
The true military colonies were administered by a sub-department of
the Board of Works, the T'un-t'ienpu. This office was solely responsible
for military colonies according to the T'ang liu-tien 7, which reads1)
"The Chief Secretary (T'un-t'ienlang-chung)and Under Secretary (Y1ian-
areto controlthe militarycoloniesof theEmpire.Underallthe
wai-lang)
armies,prefecturesand garrisonsprotectingthe frontiersto which
cannotcarrysupplies,militarycolonies(t'un-t'ien)
transportation should
be established to improve the supplies of the armies. They shall decide
whetherthe landshouldbe irrigatedor dry-farmed, whetherit is fertile
or barren,what cropsits soil is suitablefor, how muchlabourwill be
needed, and the estimated crop and its quality. The land and labour for
all colonies should be standard amounts."
According to Hsin T'ang shu 462) their responsibilities were also ex-
tended to the "Lands appertaining to posts" (Chih-fen t'ien) and "Lands
of the public administration" t'ien) belongingto various
(Kung-chieh
public offices.3)
(1954) pp. i8-zo. This excellent article is far the best general discussion of the
whole topic, and I wish to acknowledge the use which I have made of it in
preparingthis study.
i) TLT 7 (Konoe edit) p. zob-z2ib. The text of all the currenteditions of TLT
is defective at this point, and lacks the second half of the entry on the Depart-
ment of MilitaryColonies. Konoe (pp. zza-23b) attempted to reconstructthe
missing passage from CTS and TT. As Ch'ti Ch'ing-ytian(T'ang-taitsai-cheng
shih (1940) pp. 87-8) and others have noticed, part of the missing passageis
quoted in YRi-hai 177 pp. 23a-24b.However, it has escapedthe attention of all
the scholars dealing with this question that the Sung print of TLT preserves
the sectionin full, showing that Yii-haigives only a rathercarelessr6sume.For a
convenient reprint of this "lost" passage,see Tamai Zehaku E I R 4
Shinashakai-keizai-shi kenkyj(1941) pp. 511-4, and plate 6. 3 ••S g
,
z) HTS 46, p. I3a; cf. des Rotours, Traiti desfonctionnaireset de l'armdepp.

I26-7.
3) The general description of the duties of the office in TLT 7 makes no
mention of these lands. However, in the full text of the Sung print details on

LANDS UNDER STATE CULTIVATION DURING THE T'ANG DYNASTY
165
The standardallowances of land and labour are worth quoting, for

they throw some light on the agricultural practise of T'ang times. The
general rules for T'un-t'ienwere laid down in the Land Statutes(T'ien-
ling) as follows :1)
"Regardingall militarycolonies (T'un); those attachedto the Courtof
Agricultureshall each consist of from 20 to 30 cb'ing.Those attachedto
the prefectures, garrisons and armies shall each consist of 50oc'ing.
All cases of the establishments of colonies shall be decided by the
Departmentof State(Shang-sbu-sheng). In the caseof the reestablishmentof
old colonies their boundaries shall be fixed according to their former
boundaries. Those which are newly established shall in all cases be
formed by taking wasteland or large holdings of unregistered lands.
Even if the colony is reckoned as So ch'inzg, in places where periodic
fallow (i-t'ien) is practised,in each case the circumstancesmay be taken
into considerationandthe size increasedin accordancewith the resources
of the locality ...."
The size of purely military t'un was however not always 50 ch'ing.
T'angLiu-tien7 tells us that2)
"Large colonies shall comprise 50och'ing,small ones 20 ch'ingof land.
All shall further be divided into three grades according to whether the
land of the colony is good or infertile, and whether the harvests are
abundantor sparse."
To give some idea of the meaning of these sizes, one ch'ingwas the
standardgrant per adult male envisaged in the chiin-t'ien land allotment
system in force during this period, although the average actualholding
was very much less. Labourfor the colonies was alloted according to a
Chih-fen-t'ienandKung-chieh-t'ien
are addedto those on militarycolonies. This is
confirmedby TT 23 p. 138c,which also adds officiallands used for rents (kuan-
t'ien, kuan-yfzanchai).
I) TT. 2, p. i9b-c; TPYL 333, P. 5a. The lattertext gives as the source of its
quotation T'angshu,on the basis of which Ts'en Chien-kung gjf accep-
ted this as a lost passage from CTS 48 (See his Chin T'ang-shui-wen 1872).
However, the work cited by TPYL was almost certainlynot the Chiu T'ang-
shu, but one of the lost National Histories (Kuo-shih)or Veritable Records
(Shih-lu)compiled during the dynasty. The text from the Statutesis included
in NiidaNoboru ji
[4 j Tjrydshzi f -1A (1933) pp. 655-7.
2) TLT, 7 (Sung print). Tamai, loc. cit, p. 513.

I66 DENISTWITCHETT
rigid assessment of the days of labour needed to cultivate one ch'ing

of a particularcrop.1)
"For the cultivation of one ch'ingof paddy rice 948 daysof labourby a
single man should be allowed; for millet z283man-days; for large beans
192 days; for small beans 196 days; for black hemp 191 days; for or-
dinaryhemp 489 days; for kao-liang(?) 280 days; for indigo 70odays;
for garlic 720 days; for onions 1,136 days; for melons 818 days; for
turnips 718 days; for lucerne 228 days."
The Land Statutes are equally precise about the employment of
draught oxen.2)
"Regardingmilitarycolonies in areaswhere oxen areemployed.Since
the land is sometimes hilly, sometimes plateau, valley or marsh, some-
times hard and sometimes soft, the power needed to cultivate it is not
uniform. Where the soil is light one ox shall be alloted for every I
ch'ing3o mou.Where the soil is heavy, one ox for every i ch'ing20 mou.
If within the colony there are some placeswith heavy soil and some with
light, this rule should still be adhered to. For paddy fields one ox
should be allotted for every 80 mou."
The acreage to be put under crops had to be reported to the central
authoritieseach year for their approval.3)Approval of the Board of War
(Ping-pu) was necessaryin addition to that of the Department of Mili-
tary Colonies, since they alone could assessthe local supplyrequirements
of their forces.
Each colony was controlled by a colony officer(t'un kuan)assistedby
a deputy colony officer (t'un-fu).4)These officers were recruitedfrom
retired or unemployed military officers or civil and military officers
with previous experienceof frontier service5)who understood agricul-
tural mattersand who "were able to write decisions adequatelyto carry
out their duties".6)Their deputies were taken from the sons of military
i) TLT 7 (Konoe) p. zIb-22a. Balazs refers to this passage in his Beitrdge
zur Wirtschaftsgeschichteder T'ang-ZeitMSOS XXXIV (193I) Pp. 39-40. The
Sung print preservesa numberof readingssuperiorto those of currenteditions.
I follow these in my translation.
2) TT. 2, p. i9c. TPYL 333 P. 5a. See Niida, op. cit, p. 656.
3) HTS 53, p. 5b.
4) TLT 7 (Sung print); Tamai loc. cit, p. 513; TT. 2, p. i9c.
TLT 7 loc. cit. TT 2 loc. cit. HTS 53 p. 5b has a much abbreviatedversion.
5)
6) TLT 7 loc. cit.

LANDS UNDER STATECULTIVATION
DURINGTHE T'ANG DYNASTY167
and civil officials.Their promotion was made dependanton the produc-

tion of their colony.1) Censorswere probably employed periodicallyto
examine the administrationof the colonies.
Less is known about the administrationof the colonies in the capital
region, which came under the control of a Directorate of colonies
(Chu-T'un chieng -jtq&) whichwasa dependantbody of the Courtof
Agriculture.2)This separationof administrative responsibilityhadbeen
madeunderthe Sui and was continuedby the T'ang.3)These colonies
were somewhatsmallerthan those on the forntiers,4)and were con-
finedto Ch'i-nei& N - thatis the MetropolitanDistrictof Ch'ang-
an (Ching-chaofu) andthe four neighbouringprefecturesT'ung-chou,
Hua-chou,Ch'i-chouandPin-chou.5)It is possiblethatvariousgroups
of colonieswereadministered eachdependent
by separateDirectorates,6)
of
on the Court Agriculture,but the sources are not very clear in
this respect.7)The individualcolonies themselveswereadministered
by a colony chief (T'un-chu4j I), whose staff consistednot of a
deputyalone, as in frontiercolonies,but also of an establishmentof
clerksandstorekeepers.8) The arrangements for the supervisionof these
colonieswerealsotighterthanin thefrontierregions.Besidethe general
policy supervisionexercisedby the Director(or Directors)of Colonies
andhis assistants(ch'engIt-), andthe periodicalinspectionsof Examin-
ing Censors,the officialduties of the Vice-presidentof the Courtof
I) HTS 53 loc. cit. TLT gives detailedrulesfor promotion.

2) See TLT i9 (Konoe) p. 25a. This gives no details. HTS 48, p. I3b, (des
Rotours op. cit, pp. 433-4) and TT 23 p. 138c give furtherparticulars.
3) TT 2 p. I9b, TPYL 333 P. 5a.
4) TT 26 p. 154a.
5) TT 26 loc. cit.
thecaseoftheLi-ch'iian
op.cit,quotes
6)Aoyama, chien
establishedin 630 and controlling 5 t'un (YHCHC 3 p. 61) and the appoint-
ment of Su Shih-chang i• • as Director of the Yii-shan colonies
l (I i
75p.I6.)
(CTS
7) In particularthe position of the t'un-chuis very obscure unless we assume
the existence of a centralDirectorate with overall powers.
8) HTS 48, loc. cit. (des Rotours, p. 434)

168 DENIS TWITCHETT
included an annual inspection of his

Agriculture (Ssu-nungshao-ch'ing)
colonies. 1)
Not only was the type of administrationdifferent.More important,
the labour force employed was of a differenttype in the two regions.
In the frontier regions the troops themselves were employed. The
Defence Statutes(Chiin-fang-ling) containeda clearruling2)
"All garrisontroops(fang-jen) when on theirstation,apartfromtheir
guardduties,maybe enumerated, and given vacantland close to their
garrison which may be considered fit for bringing into cultivation
accordingto what the waterand land is suitableto grow (ie, whether
rice or milletetc) togetherwith variousvegetables,wherebythey may
providea store of rations,and providefood for the garrisontroops."
The survivingadministrative laws do not lay down a specificquota
of land to be cultivatedby eachman.But an Edict of 737 says3)
"In all garrisonsandoutpostswherethereis cultivableland,eachman
shouldbe given io mouto providehim with rations.In the springthe
Colonyofficershouldmakea tour of inspection,andpunishthose who
cultivateat incorrecttimes."
This figurewould give an averageof 5oo00 troops attachedto each
colony,but it is probablethatthisis slightlyexaggerated.4) Sucha figure
would mean that therewere some half million colonistgarrisontroops
on the northernborders.This wouldimplythata verylargeproportion
of the frontiertroopswere attachedto t'un,but this seemsdoubtfulas
the distributionof coloniesonly roughlycorrespondswith the distri-
bution of armyunits.5)This subjectmust be left an open questionas
mustthe possiblerelationships betweenthe groupsof soldiersworking
on a colonyandtheirmilitaryformations.
In the coloniesof Ch'i-nei,it does not appearthat garrisontroops
wereemployed.Althoughtheinformation is tantalisingly
vague,it appears
i) HTS 53 P. 5b.
2) Code16, art. 15. Niida, op. cit. p. 388.
3) HTS 53 P. 5b.
4) All the later examplesgive an averageof 5o mouor more per man. Aoyama
discussesthe question at some length op. cit, pp. 35-7-.
5) Comparemy distributionmap with the map of the militaryorganisation
in Pulleyblank,Thebackground of An Lu-shan(1954). The dispro-
to therebellion
portionwouldbe evenmoremarkedif comparedwith a mapshowingthe size
of the units.

LANDS UNDER STATE CULTIVATION DURING THE T'ANG DYNASTY 169
that these colonies were worked by a type of special service corvte

labour known as t'un-ting -9 T. These labourers were supported by a
further class of tax-payer known as t'ieh-ting [ T
-- who paid a money
tax, probably of 2,500 cash per annum, called tZu-chu $fJ, for the
maintenance of the t'un-ting.1)Such labourers might also be assigned to a
colony with a surplus of cultivable land, and although previous scholars
have taken the relevant rule in the Land Statutes to apply only to the
interior colonies, there is some evidence that they could be assigned to
ordinary military colonies as well.2)
INCREASE OF T'UN-T'IEN AND THE INSTITUTION OF YING-T'IEN SHIH
It is impossible to say how many military colonies were set up in the

early years of the dynasty. Probably the T'ang took over many such
settlements already established under the Sui, and established others to
exploit ownerless or derelict lands. In the first years after 618, when in-
ternal order was by no means fully restored, colonies were established
to supply garrison troops in strategic centres within China. We read for
example of colonies set up in Ching-chou in 62I,3) in Shan-nan during
the 65o's.4) In the capital district, apart from the settlement of many
of the disbanded troops in the fertile irrigated lands along the Pai-ch'ti
canal north of Ch'ang-an,5) a number of colonies were established during
i) See Twitchett, ThefragmentoftheT'angOrdinances oftheDepartment of Water-

waysdiscovered at Tun-Huang, Asia MajorVI/i, pp. 5I-2, and notes 64, 65, 69.
z) A series of documents from the Protectorate-Generalof Hsi-chou
discovered at Turfan by the 3rd Otani expedition in 1912, and now in the
collection of the Ryfikoku University in Kyato (Catalogue Nos 3471-348z)
includes a report from the Ying-t'ienShih discussing the carts and oxen and
assignedlabourCh'ai-jen j, for the T'ien-Shan colonies f
A -h5.
This document dates from 729-31. See RydkokudaigakuRonshi7349_1 (I955)
pp. Io- i.
3) These colonies were establishedtogether with a copper smeltery by Li
Hsiao-kung 4 afterthe suppressionof the rebel Hsiao Hsien
in 621. See HTS, 78 p. 5b-6a.
4) HTS 197(biographyof HsiiehTa-ting g 1k$) p. 3b.
) HTS 50op. 5b. (cf. des Rotours op. cit., pp. 833-4). The source of this
passage seems to have been the Ye-houchia-chuan• now lost,
which is quoted in Yu-hai138 p. 23b. Cf. T'ang Chang-juJ , T'ang-shu
Ping-chihChien-cheng3 (1957) p. 83.

170 DENIS TWITCHETT
the reign of T'ai-tsung (6z7-65o).1)

The real growth of militarycolonies,however,camelaterand was
concentratedin the borderregions.At first, while the militiasystem
(fu-ping) was enforced,2) the military organisation of the empire was
based on a systemof part-timemilitaryserviceby troops who were
cultivators for most of the year, and were thus to a large degree self-
supporting. This system, however, proved cumbersome and unsatis-
factory, especially with respect to the garrisons on the borders, and was
supplemented and eventually replaced by the employment of long-
service troops.3) These new armies of professional soldiers were mostly
quartered on the frontiers, and since they had to be fed, clothed, and
paida serioussupplyproblemarose.
Provisions for these frontier armies were usually supplied partly
from local taxes and from enforced purchases of grain and cloth (Ho-ti)
imposed on the local population, and partly by the transportation of
supplies from the more productive regions. The establishment of mili-
tary colonies presented an attractive alternative, since not only was the
expense and difficulty of bulk transport avoided, but locally self-
sufficient garrisons were much less vulnerable than armies entirely
dependant on a complicated provisioning system.4)
i) For examplethe Li-ch'iianchien colonies (see p. 167, note 6) and those of
the Hsia-kuei t'un chien T I[j t , (see HTS 37 p. 3a) in Hua-chou.
z) On thefu-ping(Militia) system see Pulleyblank,op. cit., pp. 6 ff., and the
introduction to des Rotours op. cit., pp. xxvi-xl. There is a very extensive
literature on this subject of which the more important items are cited by
Pulleyblankin note i, p. 140. More recently Ts'en Chung-mien k I*ftL
has published anothergeneral survey Fu-pingchih-tuyen-chiu (~957) ) a
3) On this change see Pulleyblank loc. cit., and Hamaguchi Shigekuni

"j p j i e t ~
Fuhei-seidoyori shinhei-sei ]) J t ~1 9
dN ShigakuZasshiXLI/xii, pp. 125 5-95, 1430-1507. $,j
4) The vulnerable position of detachmentsdepending on transportedsup-
plies is describedby Ch'en Tzu-ang "In Kua and Su prefecturesand further
west, all depend on transported supplies. If these are not sent for a single
week (hsfin)the troops will all be starving."(Ch'enPai-yiiwen-chi8, p. 22zb-24a).
Another memorial by the same author (op. cit. 8, p. I Ia-14b), describes the
hardshipswhich such supply services causedto the common people.

The establishment of colonies on the northern borders, and in the

frontierregionsfacingTibetandNan-chao1)went on continuallyfrom
the beginning of the dynasty. Colonies were set up to provision the
armiesfightingthe Turks,2)and were also establishedto help in the
pacificationof conqueredterritories.3)
But the first large-scaleexpan-
sion of the system took place in the north-westernfrontierareain
present-dayKansu.Here the local populationwas so sparsethat local
purchase, forced levies, and local taxes could not possibly provision the
armies. Moreover the transportproblem was particularlysevere in that
the area from which supplies were drawn - that is Kuan-chung - was
itself over-populated, heavily garrisoned, and subject to frequent crop
failures and local famines.4) Thus from 678 to the end of the seventh
century there were continual complaints about the provisioning of
troopsin this region,and manyrequeststo set up militarycolonies.5)
The problem in the area is vividly described in a deposition presented
to the throne by Ch'en Tzu-ang Ji* T in 684.6) f
i) i) On the northern borders Tou Ch'ing p set up colonies around
T'ai-yiianearly in the dynastyto consolidatethe supplies of the northernpart
of Ho-tung which was being continuallyharriedby the Turks, and to reduce
the necessity of supplies from elsewhere.(CTS 6i, p. 6b; TFYK 503, p. zob-
2Ia) In 627, the Prefect of Shao-chouChang Chien "'• and the Protector (
of Tai-chou ChangKung-chin jM opened up furthercolonies slightly
further north. (See TFYK 503, p. zia; -CTS 68, p. 8a).
ii) On the Tibetanborderlands,Tou Kuei V 4Westablishedcolonies in the
borderprefectureof Sung-chouin 6zo as a precautionagainstthe bordertribes.
(CTS 61 p. 4b-5a. HTS 95, P. 4b; TFYK 503, p. 2za).
2) See TFYK 503, p. zob, ff.
3) For examplewhen the Han-haiarmywas establishedin 646 to control the
submitted T616s and Uighurs, Li Su-li who was made Protector-General
opened up colonies in the area.(CTS 185a,p. 4a) When Paekchewas pacified
in 662 the conquering general Liu Jen-kuei 2J ff:: established colonies
to help control the capturedterritory.(CTS 84, p. 3a; TFYK 503, p. zIa.)
4) There is an excellent discussion of this problem in Ch'iian Han-sheng
4.. ti-kuoydyfn-ho
( T'ang-Sung [f~pJ )& (i 944) PP.
zo-28.
5) See the materialcollected in Chang Chiin-yiieh,op. cit., pp. 156-9.
8, pp. 2zza-24b.This is summarisedin his biography
6) See Ch'enPai-yiiwen-chi
in HTS 107, p. 8a-9b.

172 DENIS TWITCHETT
"In Kan-chou the lands are broad and rations plentiful, and it is
menacedfrom both sides.Yet the civilianhouseholdsunderits controlare
less than 3,000 in number,and they are capableof maintainingno more
than something over a hundred soldiers. But the colonies are broadly
scattered and far distant while the granariesand stories are dispersed,
so that if ever a barbarianturnsrebelI fearit could causemajortrouble...
I have also received a deposition from Kan-chou which says that of
recent years the harvest of the colonies has ripened well, but because
the garrison troops are few in number and the common people not
numerous, while the colonies are broad scattered,gatheringthe harvest
has been difficult to complete. Once the correct season has passed the
grain withers, and thus not more than two thirds of the crop is gathered.
Since labour is scarceit is not yet put into the granariesand stored, and
even of what has alreadybeen reaped,much is still left in the fields ....
I am foolish and inexperienced in the affairsof the frontiers, but I
ventureto suggest thatadditionaltroops should be quarteredthere, who
could exploit agriculturewithin, and ward off bandits without. Then
the stores accumulatedin Kan-chou would certainlybe doubled. Why
do I say this? The militarycolonies of Kan-chou are all irrigated, and
being watered by heavily sedimented rivers their fertility does not
depend on the weather. These 40 andmore colonies togetherform a rich
region, and hence every harvest is never less than 200,000 tan. But
because labour is not available, there is still some idle land. If additional
troops were now (stationed here) and made responsible for exploiting
the resources of the land to the utmost limit, it will not be difficultto
obtainan annualharvestof 300,000 tan.1)'"
Furthercolonies were establishedin Kan-chou by its prefect Li Han-
t'ung ~ • • in 701.2) Even more difficult a supply problem was
posed by the armies quartered in the mountain valleys around the
Kdk6nor and the headwatersof the Huang-ho, to contain the Tibetan
border tribes. In 678, afterthe defeatof the T'ao-ho Army, the establish-
ment of colonies in the area was suggested as a means of preventing
furthertroubles.3)Furthernorth we hear of colonies establishedat Ho-
I) This is dated accordingto HTS 107.

2) CTS 97, p. 4a; TFYK 503, p. 2Ib-22a.
3) HTS 2i6A, p. 4aff.

of the Ho-
choul) and Shan-chou.2)The latterwas the headquarters
ytian army Wiij ~W. When Hei-ch'ih Ch'ang-chih X-~ '9 Z
" of this
becamecommander armyin 680 he establishedcoloniestotalling
5,000 ch'ingwhicharesaidto haveproduceda milliontanannually,so as
to be ableto increasethegarrisonwithoutresourceto Jocalprocurement
(whichmust have been all but impossiblein the sparselypeopledand
inhospitableregion)and withoutstraininghis transportfacilities.3)To
-
assistin this veryimportanttask,a Censor,Lou Shih-te, NAi*i had
alreadybeen appointedin 678 as Administrator (Ssu-ma)of the Ho-
of lands
ytian army, with specialresponsibilityfor the exploitation
(chihying-t'ienshih).4)Later,under the EmpressWu, 690 became
in he
Governorof Feng-chou,in the northernsweepof the Huang-ho,and
was againgiven responsibility for colonies.5)In 693 he becamea Chief
Minister,but the next year was sent out again to the north-westas
Acting GeneralCommissionerfor MilitaryColoniesto the Ho-ytian,
Chi-shih,and Huai-ytianarrmesand the Prefecturesof Ho-chou,Lan-
chou,Shan-chou,andKuo-chou.6)Laterstillin 698,he becameGeneral
Commissionerto the Armiesof Lung-yuconcurrently responsiblefor
colonies.7)Thistypeof generalprovincialcontrolover colonieswasnot
confinedto Lou Shih-te,for afterhim ChangAn • held similar
responsibilityfor all coloniesin Lung-yu.8)
The generalapplicationof this type of regionalcontrolfollowedthe
establishmentof Provincial Governors (Chieh-tushih) exercising
regionalcommandovertheprefectures andarmieson the borders.Most
of the ProvincialGovernorsbore the concurrenttitle of Commissio-
ner for PublicRevenueand MilitaryColonies(Chih-tuying-t'ienshih)
i) See ChangYen-kung chi i6, p. I65 Epitaph of Jan Shih.

2) See Li Pei-hai wen-chi 5, p. zob. Epitaph of Tsang Huai-liang.
3) CTS 109, p. 5b.
4) CTS 93, P. ib; HTS io8, p. 8a-b; TFYK 503, p. zib. His subsequent
changes of office are dated in TCTC 205, p. 6489ff and TCTC zo6, p. 6530.
5) CTS 93, P. Ib.
6) TCTC zo6 p. 6493, TFYK 503, p. zib.
7) CTS 93, P. Ib.
8) Aoyamaquotes this case from Chang'sepitaph,includedin Mang-lo
i-wen,pien 4, ch. 4. (Aoyama op. cit. p. 48).
Chung-mu

174 DENIS TWITCHETT
for their province,1) though occasionally their area of responsibility for

revenue and colonies was not identical in extent with their province.2)
The actual duties were carried out by a special Deputy Commissioner
(Ying-t'ienfu-shih) who sometimes acted concurrently as Deputy Com-
missioner for Public Revenue (Chih-tu fu-shih).3) In each capacity he
controlled a staff of Executive Officers (P'an-kuan) and Inspectors
(Hsiin-kuan).4) The Commissioner for Public Revenue was directly
responsible to the Department of Public Revenue (Chih-tu) in the Board
of Finance,5) and was responsible for the provisioning and supply of the
region. The Ying-t'ienshib, since the lands under his control produced an
important part of the local provisions, must have worked in close coope-
ration with him, but there is no evidence that there was any direct link
with the central government im his case. Beside the development and
management of colony lands, the Commissioners supervised irrigation
works and other construction.6)
The growth of the new regional establishments on the northern
borders made more acute the supply problem. Until the Kitan invasions
of 696-8 the most heavily garrisoned frontiers areas were the north in Ho-
tung and the north-west in Kuan-nei an and Lung-yu. The catastrophe of
the Kitan invasion led to a gradualbuilding up of forces in the north-
east. Althougha very largenumberof T'un-t'ienwere establishedin
Ho-pei in 717-I 8,7) the problem of supplying these armies was compara-
i) See the various brevets of appointmentin TTCLC 52-60, which cite the
full titles.
z) For a detaileddiscussionof these appointmentssee Aoyama op. cit., p. 49,
notes 34-5. The special cases were the governors of Shuo-fang, who were
ying-t'ienshihfor the interiorprovince of Kuan-nei;those of northernHo-tung,
whose responsibility for ying-t'ienextended over the whole civil province;
and those of Ling-nanin the far south, who did not bear this concurrenttitle,
or that of Public Revenue Commissioner.
3) See Aoyama op. cit. p. 23, and p. 49 note 35.
4) See HTS 49B, P. 3a. (des Rotours op. cit. p. 661-2) .See also Hino Kaisa-
buro 1-Tj5:f Shina no j 4
chigsei gumbatsu(1942) p. 104. A
-~
5) See TLT 3 (Konoe)p. 45b-46a.
6) See Aoyama op. cit. p. 5o, note 40.
7) See CTS 185, p. 6a. Also see the memorialof ChangYiieh requestingthe
chi 9, p. 98.
establishmentof colonies in the area,in ChangYen-kung

tively simple,sincethe areawas servedboth by a branchof the canal

system and by sea transport.1)
Fortunatelywe have a very detailedlist of t'unt'ien- probablydating
from 736-7-which enablesus to show in detail the distributionof colo-
nies during the middle years of the reign of Hsiian-tsung.2)The accom-
panyingmap will give the picturevery clearly.The distributionby
provinces was as follows")
Lung-yu 172 (172)
Ho-hsi 154 (1i 6)
Kuan-nei 258 (2 5 8)
Ho-tung 131 (I 3I)
Ho-pei zo8 (20o8)
Chien-nan 9 (9)
Totalfor BorderProvinces 932
Both T'angliu-tienandYii-haigive a grandtotalfor the empireof 992
colonies,butthis figureincludesan additional107coloniesin Ho-nan.4)
Since these colonies were only set up in 734 andwere abolishedin 737,5)
the list presumablydates from the period immediatelybefore the com-
pilation of T'ang liu-tien in 737:9. The Honan colonies represent a
separateaspectof colonisationpolicy,and aredealtwith below.
We know that in 749 the total productionof the coloniesof the
empire was I,913,960 tanof grain.6)This figureis surprisinglylarge,
I) On this question see Twitchett, Thefragmentof the T'angOrdinances, Asia

MajorVI/I, p. 5 o, note 6 . The of
governors Hopei in fact bore the additional
concurrenttitle of Hopei hai-yfnshih,Commissionersfor Sea transport.
z) This is included in the Sung print of TLT 7. See Tamai op. cit. plate 6
and pp. 512-3. Yz~-hai 177 is a much abbreviatedversion of this passage, and it
is difficultto see on what basis it was decided to include what details are in-
cluded.
3) The figures in bracketsare those of Yfi-hai.
4) It is probablethat the text of TLT 7, which contains the global figure,
refers to an earlier period than the subcommentaryin which the details are
given. Much of the maintext refersto the Statutesof 719. In this case, since the
Honan colonies were only set up in 734, the total of 992 colonies would refer
to bordercolonies in about 719. This would imply that there had been a slight
decreaseduring the earlypart of Hsiian-tsung'sreign (713 onward).
5) Dates are given at the end of the TLT 7 commentary.
6) TT 2, p. 19c; TPYL 333, P. 5b.

176 DENISTWITCHETT
representingabout a sixth of the land levy for the empireor about 7%

of the total grain income at the annual disposal of the state.1)More-
over it proves that eitherthe averagesize of the colonies was very much
less than 50 ch'ing,or the yield was extremelylow.2) The total is further
broken down by provinces, as follows
Totalproduction Averageper colony
Lung-yu 440,902 tan (2,564 tan)
Ho-hsi 26o,o88 tan (1,688 tan)
Kuan-nei 563,810otan (2,185 tan)
Ho-tung 245,880 tan (1,792 tan)
Ho-pei 403,280 tan (1,939 tan)
Leaving aside Ho-hsi, with its extreme climatic conditions and acute
land shortage, it seems that the averageyield of colonies was greaterin
Lung-yu and the Ordos region of Kuan-nei than in the case of Ho-tung
and Ho-pei which were more easily supplied with grain from outside.
This may reflectmore carefulexploitationin the west, or simply a larger
average size of the western colonies.
It is possible to give some indication of the importanceof the colo-
nies in supporting the frontiergarrisons.The total production of all the
colonies would supply 265,828 troops at the rate of 2 touper diem. The
total size of the frontierarmiesabout 75o is estimatedat something over
6oo,ooo men. Thus the production of the colonies was a very important
factor in their support. The regional differenceis again a striking one.
The following table shows the numbers of troops in the different
northern frontier provinces, according to the figures given by Chiu
T'ang-shu38, which probably date from 742. These figures, which
total only 415,6oo men, are probablyvery much lower than the reality,
and in any case the proportion of troops garrisoning Ho-pei and
I) Figures given in TT 6, p. 34a The total of grain from the land levy (ti-
shui) was something over 12,400,000 tan, that from the grain tax (tsu) over
7,400,000 tanin the south and 5,200,000tanin the north The total grainincome
disposable by the Department of Public Revenue was over 25,000,000 tan.
2) This gives an averageyield per colony of 2,054 tan.The average yield per
mou in T'ang times seems to have been between I tan and 1.5 tan. Hence
the average colony was probablyabout zo ch'ingin size, or else the yield was
well below half of the average. Since most colonies were in areas of marginal
cultivation,low yields might be expected.

Lung-yu is low compared with 749-50, as there was a great build up of

forces in those areas during the 740's.1)
Numberof Troops Annualproduction

of t'unper man
Ho-hsi a) An hsi 24,000
b) Pei-t'ing 20,000
c) Ho-hsi 73,000 3.6 tan
Total I17,000
Lung-yu 70,000 6.2 tan
Kuan-nei (Shuo-fang) 64,ooo 8.7 tan
Ho-tung 55,000 4.5 tan
Ho-pei a) Fan-yang 91,400
b) P'ing-lu 17, 500
Total 108,900 3-7 tan
The second column gives the average production of grain from the
provincial colonies per soldier in the local forces. These figures cannot
be taken at their face value, but they provide a basis for a rough
comparison. Thus colonies must have made the garrisons of Kuan-nei
(Shuo-fang) and Lung-yu almost self supporting for grain, while Ho-hsi
and Ho-pei needed very large support from other sources.2)
The alternative sources of supply may be hinted at, though the whole
subject of military finance urgently needs a full-scale study, and the fol-
lowing remarks are therefore tentative. Transported rations (chiin-liang)
provided a large part of the needs of the north-eastern provinces and of
the garrisons of Szechuan. The annual figure for Ho-pei was 700,000
tan in 749, for Ho-tung 5oo,ooo tan. The garrisons of Chien-nan also
I) On the build up of these forces, see the opinions of Tu Yu (T'ung-tien

148, p. 773 a-b) translatedby Pulleyblankop. cit. p. 71-2. Aoyamaestimatesthe
frontier forces as being in the region of 6oo,ooo men. But while it is probable
that many serving troops were not listed, it was well known that many dead
men were kept on the army registers, and supplies drawn on their behalves.
There must also have been great numbersof camp-followerswho needed to be
fed. I feel that it is impossibleto give any numericalestimateof the size of these
forces. But since the situationwas probablythe same in all the armies,the offi-
cial figurescan be used in a relativesense, without placing any relianceon their
quantitativevalue.
2) The normal allowance of grain was z shengper piem, or 7 tan 2 touper
annum.
JESHO II 2

178 DENIS TWITCHETT
consumed 700,000 tan per annum, and as they numbered only 30,900
men must have been almost entirely dependant on such supplies.1)
In the north-west and to some extent in Ho-tung, the principle
supplementarysourceof grainwas compulsorypurchase(ho-ti).The allot-
ments of silk cloth for the purchaseof grain by Ho-ti were as follows
Lung-yu lengths
1,000,ooo000
Ho-hsi 8oo,ooo lengths
Kuan-nei 8oo,ooo lengths
Ho-tung 400,000 lengths
a further200,000 lengths were allowed to the centralAsian dependencies
of Ho-hsi, and 400,000 lengths to the Commissionersfor Pastures.2)
The quotas of purchasedgrain to be retainedin the differentprovinces
were also recordedonly for the four north-westernprovinces, and show
that large reserves were expected to be built up in Ho-hsi and Kuan-
nei, and rathersmallerones in Lung-yu and Ho-tung.3)
To sum up, supply of troops in the north-east was dependant first
upon transported rations, and secondly on colonies. In Ho-tung
transportedrationsproducedrelativelymorethancolonies,but both were
supplementedby local purchase.In Kuan-neithe garrisonsseem to have
been very well supplied with very heavy production from colonies and
a large income from local purchase. In Ho-hsi and Lung-yu colonies
and local purchase were again the main sources of rations, with local
purchase relatively more important in Ho-hsi, and colonies more im-
portant in Lung-yu.
I) b"
TT 6, p. 34b,wheretheyarecalledk'uei-chfin-shih
z) TT6, p. 34a.TheCommissioners for Pasturesneededto buyin largequan-
tities of grainfor stockfeed.
3) WHTK2i, p. oo. The figuresare
Kuan-nei 510,000 tan 7.9 tan
Ho-tung 110,000tan 2 tan
Ho-hsi 370,000tan 5 tan
Lung-yu 150,000 tan 2.I tan
The second column gives the averagequota in store per man in the provin-
cial forces. Thus in Kuan-neiand Ho-hsi therewas practicallya year'sconsump-
tion kept in store, while in Ho-tung and Lung-yu, there was only about 3
months' rations kept in reserve.

DEVELOPMENT OF COLONIES IN CENTRAL CHINA
While the system of colonies had thus been growing into a most impor-
tant means of supporting the frontier garrisons, some further colonies had
been developed in central China either purely as a means of raising reve-
nue or as a device to bring new lands into cultivation. For the latter
purpose this type of exploitation was ideal, since it could afford to be
prodigal with labour to an extent quite uneconomic to the private
citizen.') These developments began on a large scale in the early years of
Hstian-tsung' reign, and were closely connected with the financial and
land crisis which then brought about a spate of suggested reforms.2)
In 718 ChiangShih-tu]-itj )IO becamegovernorof Ho-chung,3)apre-
fecturecontainingextremelyvaluablesalt depositswhichhadfalleninto
partialdisuseandneglect.In orderto bringthembackinto production
he establishedsalt"colonies"(yen-t'un)
employingtroopsto dredgeand
clear the waterwaysand to performother labour.4)In 7zo Chiang
Shih-tu was transferred to T'ung-chou in the lower Wei valley.5) Here
again he established a number of colonies (t'un-t'ien) in order to open
up some 2,000 ch'ingof paddy fields.6) These lands were placed under
specialofficialsknown as Ch'ang-ch'un for the
kungshihCommissioners
Ch'ang-ch'un Palace.7)
In 726 the Lands appertainingto office (Chih-fent'ien) of officials in
the Capitalwereabolished,in an effortto relievethe landshortage,and
I) There is an interestingparallelhere with the monasteries,which, asGernet

has shown, employedtheir largeavailablelabourforce in developingnew lands.
z) For a general discussion of this see Pulleyblank,op. cit. pp. 27 ff.
3) Chiang Shih-tu had had much experiencein irrigation and colony orga-
nisation. In 706 he was sent, as a Censor,to be Revenue and Colony Commis-
sioner to Hopei. In 711 he was Presidentof the Court of Agriculture,and thus
had charge of the colonies in the region of the capital.See CTS I85 B, p. 6a-b.
4) See CTS 185 B, p. 6a-b; CTS 48, P. 14a; THY 88 p. 1603.
V
5) There were alreadycolonies in this area.The Li-yangt'un M
were later (738) distributedto the local population. See TFYK 85, p. z27a-b;
CTS 9, p. za.
6) See CTS 185 B, p. 6b; HTS 00oo,p. ioa.
7) See THY 59, pp. 1038-9.

18o DENIS TWITCHETT
it was suggested that the land should be converted into colonies.') Li

Yiian-hung, 4 rV the chief minister, who had much financial
experience,2)turneddown the plan on the groundsthat it would be
wasteful, but the idea seems to have been much in the mind of the ex-
economicpolicies at this time. P'ei Yao-
ponentsof state-managerial
j J suggested, in a memorial of 730, a policy of settling
ch'ing ) ON
vagrants in settlements organised on "colonial" lines, in which they
wouldhaveto spenda specificperiodpermonthworkingpubliclands.3)
This scheme was never implemented, but during P'ei Yao-ch'ing's
period in office as Chief Minister (734-7), 107 irrigated colonies (shui-
t'zun) were set up in Honan, and P'ei's fellow Chief Minister Chang
i) See CTS 98, p. 8b. THY 92, p. I669 dates the abolition 722. This is borne
out by CTS 5, p. Iob; TT 35, p. 2ozc.
2) Li Yiian-hungbecameChiefMinisteronly in 726, and as he objectedto the
schemefor creatingt'un-t'ienin the capacityof Chief Minister,the scheme must
have been brought forwardsome time after the abolition of chih-fen-t'ien lands.
The objection he made reads as follows: "The army and the state are not the
same, the interior and the frontiershave differentsystems. If men are idle and
not employed, and the land abandonedand not cultivated then one mobilises
the idle men to work the abandonedlands, reducing the supplies which have
to be sent to the armies,and providing the army with rations. This is how we
come to have colonies, and their advantages are great. But now the lands
appertainingto office which have been given up by the officialsis scatteredin
differentPrefecturesand Counties, and may not be centralised.The private
lands held by the common people, areall worked by theirown labour, and may
not be taken. If colonies are set up, it will be necessaryfor public and private
lands to be exchanged,and for corv6e labour to be mobilised.If corv'e labour
is mobilised,then the livelihood of the families(of the labourers)will be spoiled.
Moreover,they will be exemptedfrom the corvee exemptiontax (yung)and the
state will be faced with a deficiency of taxes. Colonies establishedinside the
country are something which the ancientsnever had. The gain will not make
up for the losses involved, I fear that it is not feasible."
3) See THY 85, p. 1563-4,TFYK 495, P. 20a-z2a; TT 7, p. 4ia-b and CTW
303, p. 23a attributeit to Yii-wen Jung. This attributionis acceptedby Suzuki
Shun4 z f UbunYjnokakkonitsuite Zf 7) L' T
(WadaHakase kanrekikinen Toyjshirons0(195 ) pp. 329-44), but I am in-
clined to the view of Pulleyblank(op. cit. p. 126 notes 42-3)that itis more likely
to have been by P'ei Yao-ch'ing. It is however curious that Tu Yu should
have mistakenthe authorshipof this piece, since almost alone of T'ang writers
he was an admirerof Yii-wen Jung.

Chiu-ling ~i iL was appointedT'ao-t'ienshihCommissionerfor the

Rice Fields.') It appears that Chang Chiu-linghimself supervisedthe
establishmentof these colonies.2)
With the fall of P'ei Yao-ch'ing and Chang-Chiu-lingin 737 and the
abandonmentof their financialpolicies,3)these colonies were abolished
and their lands turned over to the common people.4)At the same time
more than 340 ch'ingof the lands administeredby the Ch'ang-ch'un
Palace- in other words a substantialpart of the colonies established
by Chiang Shih-tu in 720 - were also given to the common people.5)
and it seems clear that the policy of state exploitation of lands within
China was for the time being discredited.The reasons given were the
same as those used by Li Ytian-hungin 726, that such exploitation "if
we calculate the harvests, needs an excessive amount of labour."6)
There seems little doubt that the exploitation of colonies within China
by means of corvee labour was generally thought to be wasteful and
inefficient.
AFTER
COLONIES THEANLU-SHAN
REBELLION
With the rebellion of the frontier generalAn Lu-shan, and the years
of near disasterthat followed, the situation was entirely changed. The
previous pattern of frontier colonies was destroyed, for almost all of
Lung-yu and Ho-hsi were lost to the Tibetans and elsewhere the fron-
tiers receded. Beside the colonies, the great horse-breedinggrounds of
the north-west were lost, so that the government was forced to rely on
large-scale purchase of horses from the Uighurs,7) and to establish
breeding grounds elsewhere inside China.8)
i) CTS 8, p. zoa; CTS 99, p. 8b; HTS iz6, p. ioa.
2) HTS 126, p. Ioa.
3) For instancethe much more importantreformof the canaltransport
system.
4) See TFYK 503, p. z22a. TLT 7 (Sung print) loc. cit. (Tamai p. 513).
The list of colonies in TLT 7 shows io t'unattachedto the palace,which
5)
was near Ch'ao-icounty in T'ung-chou. See also THY 59, p. 1038.
6) See TFYK 503, p. 2za.
7) See HTS 5I, p. 5b. THY 66, p. 1145.
8) Even before An Lu-shan's rebellion, the supply of horses was not con-
stantly adequate. See Hsi Ang's (3 Ch'i-Pin-Ching-Ning ssu chou pa

182 DENIS TWITCHETT
The rebellionleft the provincialgovernorsmore powerfuland in-

dependentthanever, for duringthe rebellionthe systemof provinces
with some degreeof financialautonomywas extendedto the whole
empireso thatafter763 the empirewas no longerthe stronglycentral-
ised state which it had been during Hsiian-tsung's reign. The degree
of autonomy varied greatlyfrom one province to another. Some of the
frontier provinces, particularlythose in Hopei, had become semi-
independentstateswith hereditarygovernorswho appointedtheirown
official subordinates,collected their own taxes and made no returns to
the central government. While none of these provinces was powerful
enough to threatenthe stabilityof the empire as An Lu-shanhad been
able to do in Hopei, they followed very much their own courses. The
effectiveauthorityof the Emperorswas limitedto Kuan-neiand the
Huai-Yangtsebasins, and even here local autonomyrearedits head
fromtime to time.1)
Not all of the internalprovinces were heavily garrisoned,but some -
especiallythose in Honan which guardedthe canalroute which supplied
grain and other necessities to the region of Ch'ang-an- held forces
comparablein size with those of the old frontier provinces.2)Certainly
the overall total of militaryforces was very much larger than before the
Ma-fangpei-sungin T'angWen-ts'ui22, p. 407-411. THY 66, loc. cit., tells how

after the Tibetan invasion of Kansu, the old pasturedirectorateswere broken
up, and how "at present" (ie, in 851 on the compilation of the Hsii Hui-yao)
there were the commissioners for pastures at Lou-fan (Lan-chou northern
Shensi) and Lung-pi (Ts'ai-chou, western Honan). The latter was one of the
new grazing areasset up under Hsien-tsung. Others were set up in 819 in the
Han valley (Hupei), and in 804 in Fukien. These were soon abandoned.(HTS
50, p. iob-i Ib), (THY 66, p. i 146).
I) For a generaldiscussion of this problem see Hino Kaisaburo,Shinachz7sei
nogumbatsu.See also the same author'sTjdaihanchinno bakkoto chinshbJ
in TYGH 26/iv 1-37; 27/i (I939)
(7) • 0 (I939), pp.
pp. I-62, 27/ii (1940) pp. I-6o, 27/iii (1940) pp. 1-40.
2) The armiesbased on Pien-chou(K'ai-feng,Honan) were particularlylarge
and troublesome.See Ch'iianHan-shengop. cit., pp. 58-72. Han Yii's Account
of Conduct(Hsing-chuang) of Tung Chin 1[ - gives furtherdetails,and says
that in the latter 8th century these armies comprised aoo,ooo troops. (Han
Ch'ang-lichi 37, P. vii/14-5)

_
rebellion.In 837,WangYen-wei 1 , )A, Vice Presidentof the Board
of Finance in charge of Public Revenue, presentedan "Outline scheme
for supplying the armies",which put the militaryestablishmentduring
the last years of the 8th century at 8oo00,000men, and that during the
period 82z-5 at 990,000.1)
This enormous burden was borne by a greatly reduced number of
tax-payingfamilies, although new sources of indirect taxation came to
provide a very large part of the national revenue, while provincial
governors were allowed considerablelatitude both in the collection of
taxes and in theirdisposal.2)Any sourceof additionalincome was eagerly
grasped, and colonies were widely established, both by the frontier
armiesand by the interiorprovincialgovernments.
The new governors held in most cases the concurrenttitle of Ying-
t'ienshih,as the governors of the frontierprovinces had done in Hsiian-
tsung's reign.3) In the majority of provinces they had a deputy com-
missioner(fu-shih)and a staff of subordinateofficerswho looked after
the business arising from this office, and it is probable that this subaltern
staffwas considerablymore numerous and more irregularin its manner
of appointmentthan had been the case before 755.4)
These titles were not simplyadoptedout of arrogance.The central
governmentencouragedthedevelopmentof suchlandsby theprovincial
authorities,as therevenueof the empireremainedveryuncertainduring
the period 763-780 and the financialministersexperimentedwith many
I) CTS I7B, p. z2ia(837, i, 26). In 807 the total is given as 830,000. See THY
84 p.; TCTC 237, P- 7647-8.
2) In particular, under the Liang-shuitax reform of 780, every province was
made responsible for an annual quota of tax-income, but was allowed to assess
the rates of tax within the province. Moreover a large proportion of revenue
was retained by the province for local expenditure, and only a certain percen-
tage of the total quota was sent to the capital.Local governorsimposed
irregular taxes and levies on their own authority, and commonly invested the
funds of their provinces in usury.
3) See Aoyama, op. cit. pp. 23-4. Hino in Shina chziseino gumbatsup. 104-5
claims that after 763 these titles were purely ornamental, but there seems no
evidence for this contention.
4) This was certainly the case with the subordinate officers to a Governor, in
his capacityof Kuan-ch'a
shih(Civil Governor), and of Chieh-tushih (Military
G overnor). See Hino, op. cit. pp. 102 ff.

184 DENIS TWITCHETT
new taxes and other sources of income in a frantic effort to compensate

the loss of regular taxes. In 763 the Chief Minister Yiian Tsai 7T
promulgated a plan by which1)
"The various Militaryand Civil Provincial Governors and Commis-
sioners for Militias are given overall control of the policy respecting
colony lands within their jurisdiction. They are to choose lands in
their province which have been let go to waste and are no longer
cultivated, to form military colonies (t'un) ..."
Even in centralChinathere was a greatdeal of derelictland which had
been desertedby its owners or devastatedduring the fighting. When Liu
Yen NIj was sent by Yiian Tsai to inspect the canalsystem in Honan
and the Huai-Yangtseregion in 763, he wrote a graphicletterreporting
that in one stretch of nearly 5oo
0i in Honan scarcelya thousand house-
holds remainedon the registersof the local authorities,while "housesare
left roofless, the people are without cooking fires. Everthing is desolate
and melancholy,and wild beasts roam around howling like demons."2)
This ownerless land was a source of great embarassmentto the
government, whose whole fiscalsystemwas built on the assumptionthat
the authoritiesshould keep a rigid control over the distributionof land.
One of theirworries was that the abandonedand derelictlands would be
taken by powerful individualsto form great landedestates, and attempts
were made to prevent this,3) though probably with little success. The
creationof such lands into colonies not only prevented their falling into
the hands of the estate builders,but also ensured a regularincome from
the land, and assisted in the provisioning of the garrisons.
Even inside China,some of these settlementsseem to have been purely
military in character. For example, when the Pien-ho canal was re-
opened to traffic,guard posts were set up at regularintervals to guard
trafficfrom brigands. Each of these guard posts had a garrison of 300
men, who were given fertile lands near by and made to farm them.4)
i) See T'angwen-ts'uiz2, (Li Han ~ t'un-t'ienchi-chi

, Su-chouChia-hsing
•• t
pei-sungM*? H • -CAL Ik a f W P
-P3 CTS
z) See THY 87 p. 1588-90; TFYK 498, p. zoa-22b;94. 123 p. Ib-za; CTW
370, p14.a-I6a. CTS i20 p. 6a.ff. gives a very similarpicture
3) See TFYK 495, P .26a.
4) See CTW 46, p. 23a.

But it was more common for such colonies to be worked by civilian

labour. In some cases corv'e labour was conscripted to work them.1)
In others hired labour was employed,2) or the land was farmed out to
tenants.3) But the rule envisaged by Yiian Tsai in 763 seems to have been
a settlement farmed by civilians living under semi-military discipline.4)
"... Talented administrators who are specialists in radon-supply
problems should be selected to take charge of them. Each colony should
b N I") who is to be appointedfrom
have a generaloverseer(tu-chih
among the officials. He is to have a seat of administration, his office being
set up in the village.This officebeingset up, his clerksandunderlings
should be provided. Thus the lands will be provided with officials, and
these shall have their subordinates; while the countryside will have
labourers(fu), who will have their organisationin groups(wufit).5)
Superior and inferior will support one another as in the case of Prefec-
tures and Counties. The fortunate and the unfortunate will assist one
Where there is need to
anotheras in the rural community-groups.
imposepunishment rewards,(theofficers) exercisecontroloverall
or will
the personnel. If there are any instructions to be given them, they can
be proclaimedat thepropertime.This(organisation)
is whatconstituted
them as "colonies" (t'un) ..."
The inscription in which this order is quoted elsewhere refers to the
labourers as t'un-jen.6)There is little doubt that these civilians formed a
andthattheyworkedundercarefulsupervision,
separatecommunity,7)
I) See the case of the colonies in the InnerParkat Ch'ang-an,where labourers

worked in monthly turns of duty. THY 89, p. 1619-1620.
2) See HTS 53, p. 6a which tells us that during the latter part of Hsien-
tsung's reign, all the colonies (Ying-t'ien)were worked either by permanently
employedpeople(ku-minJ ) or by hiredlabour(Hsi-yungtIV ).
3) See below, pp. xxx.
4) See T'angwen-ts'ui21, p. 394
5) T'angwen-ts'uireadsjen f-. The quotation of this passagein Yi Hai 177
p. z7a-28a has wu Ili, which is borne out elsewhere in the inscription, and
gives better sense.
6) loc. cit. p, 395.
7) loc. cit. A distinctionis drawn between the workers on the colony (t'un-
jen) and the villagers (i-jen).

i86 DENIS TWITCHETT
as we read of their being instructed in the methods of managing the

land. The groups in which they were organised bore the name of a
militaryunit (wu).1)
Most of the colonies in the interior of China about which we read in
the latter part of the 8th century were in Honan and the lower valleys
of the Huai and Yangtse. Some of them were set up in areas which
needed draining and the establishmentof an irrigation network. For
large scale projects of this type, a disciplinedlabour force was obviously
necessary.In 76o-i part of the Hung-tse lake in Ch'u-chouwas reclaim-
ed and made into colonies, and other colonies were establishedat the
Shuo-pi dam in Shou-chou in the middle Huai valley.2)
The largest colonies of this type of which we know were those set up
at Chia-hsingin Su-chou by the Governor of Che-hsiin 769, together
with two other groups of colonies (whose position is not recorded)
in the same province. The group at Chia-hsingnumbered27 individual
t'un, and they are said to have had a circumference of more than
a thousand ii. The area in which they were situated was on the
southern shore of the T'ai-hu lake, which was one of the most fertile
parts of central China, and was probably drainedland, reclaimedfrom
the swamps and lakes in the area.3)These colonies were a great success
and in their first year produced the equivalent of the total grain tax
quota of Che-hsi as a whole.4)
During the reign of Tai-tsung (763-779) colonies were also set up
in some of the strategically important provinces further north. For
instancein 766 the greatgeneralKuo Tzu-i 4-1 %-T who was governor
of Ho-chung province (southern Shensi) encouraged his officers and
men to cultivate vacant lands in order to make good the deficienciesin
their grain supply, and himself set the example by ploughing a hundred
mou.5) In the province of Chao-i (south-western Hopei), we read of
I) The use of wuin this sense of community-unitmay be an allusion to the

legalist descriptionsof utopian societies as for examplein Kuan-tu 20oand Kuo-
yfi 6. These societies were organised for both agriculture and war, just as a
militarycolony was.
z) See TT 2, p. 19c. YR-hai177, p. 27a.
3) See T'angwen-ts'uiz21, p 395-6
4) ibid
5) TCTC 224, P 7193 Ygi-hai177, p 28a-b.

colonies being managed by a local garrison commander in the years

before 773,1) while a little later in 777, the Resident Deputy Governor
(Liu-hou) of the province, which had been much disturbed by the rising
of Li Ling-yao, began to give relief from taxation to large numbers of
peasants who were trained as archers so as to provide a powerful
reserve force.2) These more northerly colonies remained essentially mili-
tary in organisation, and were worked either by ordinary troops, or by
4.
special colonist-soldiers known as t'ien-tsuW3 This reflects the
difference in the nature of provincial administration in the two regions,
which was essentially military in the north, and essentially civil in the
south.3)
Apart from the colonies under the provincial governments, a certain
number remained under the direct management of the central govern-
ment. But these were drastically reduced in numbers, partly because of
the greatly improved grain supply in Kuan-nei resulting from Liu Yen's
reform of the canal and transport systems,4) partly because they were
worked uneconomicaily. YUian Tsai, who had encouraged the provin-
cial governments to establish colonies, in 770 abolished all centrally
administered5) colonies apart from those in Hua-chou and T'ung-chou
in the vicinity of the capital and those in Tse-chou in south-western
Hopei. In 773 those in Hua-chou was also abolished, and their lands
distributed to the local peasants.6) The costs of administration and
I) CTS 151 p 4a. The item is undated,but must belong to the period before
773 when Chu Chung-liangceased to be Governor of the province.
2) On Li Ling-yao see TCTC 225, pp. 7237-9. See CTS I32, p. 2b.
3) Perhapsit is betternot to be too categoricalabout this regional distinction,
as the evidence is so scanty.
4) See Ch'iianHan-sheng op. cit. pp. 47-50. See also the excellent Liu Yen
p'ing-chuan of Ch'tiCh'ing-yiian,pp. i and 54-8.
•J1 * 22b. ]J f" (I937) -25,
5) TFYK 503 p. The Edict is impreciseas to which colonies are invol-
ved. I am inclined to follow Aoyama(op. cit. p. 31) who suggests that only the
colonies under centralcontrol were in question. This might well be connected
with the decline in prestige and authorityof the Court of Agriculture at this
period. However, the mention of colonies in Tse-chou (ie South-western
Hopei) which were well apartfrom the other colonies underthe Court,throws
some doubt on this. If the Edict was generallyapplicable,it was certainlynot
enforced.
6) See TTCLC i I, p. 5a-b; CTW 41o, p. 8b-9a, where it is undated. It is
dated 773 viii accordingto HTS 6, p. IIb.

188 DENIS TWITCHETT
labour were so high that it was considered more profitable to collect land
taxes from a given area than to work it as a colony.1) In 774 the control
over the colonies in T'ung-chou attached to the Ch'ang-ch'un Palace
was also relaxed, and instead of a Censor being employed as special
Commissioner to the Palace, the title was given concurrently to the
local Prefect.2)
We may see in some detail the waste involved in these colonies from
the case of those in the Inner Park at Ch'ang-an. According to a memorial
submitted in 780 by the Governor of the Metropolitan District Yen
Ying W , these lands were cultivated by special-duty labourers
working in a monthly rotation, who were paid 8,000 cash in addition to
their rations for each month's labour. The memorial admits that the
costs exceeded the value of the harvest,3)and at the current price of
grain they must have been quite uneconomical when the costs of ad-
ministrationand the loss of productionby the labourerson theirown
landsis takeninto account.4)It is not surprising,then, thatthis type of
colony seems to have become virtually extinct at the end of the eighth
century.
Many of the provincialcolonies were also burdenedwith a top-
heavy administration.The colonies in Ch'u-chou were a particularly
flagrantexample. These were rather a special case as they were under
some sort of controlfrom the Capital,and the Prefectheld the con-
currenttitle of Commissioner
for Ying-t'ien,
andseemsnot to havebeen
underthe authorityof the ProvincialGovernorin this matter.When
Hsiieh Chiieh ft@ { reformedtheir administrationin 778-9 there were
I) See TTCLC i II, p. 5a-b

z) See THY 59, p. 1038.
3) See THY 89, p. 1619-20, TFYK 503, p. zzb-z3b.
4) The currentprice of grain in 780 was about zoo cash per touaccording to
Li Ao's ?? Shuk'ai shui-faL
4 f (Li Wen-kung chi9, p. 7 a). At
this rate the cost of one labourer per annum would work out at 96,ooo plus
14,400oo
-I 10,000 cash. This is equal to the price of 55o tou of grain, or roughly
the product of 5 mouof ordinaryland. On top of this has to be added the cost
5
of administration(cf. Note i p. 189 below) which was very heavy. It is doubtful
whether a single labourerworked much more than 70 mouunder such condi-
tions. Hence Yen Ying was probablyjustifiedin contending that the costs of
such cultivation were not covered by the crops produced.

several hundred officers(t'ien-kuan),for whose personal service no less

than 3,ooo households (I %/o of the prefecture's registered population)
were liable to corvee duty. Hsiieh was able to cut down the admini-
strationby four-fifths.1)
But colonies continued to be established steadily in the Honan-
Huai-Yangtseregion. In Ch'u-chouitself, further colonies were set up
in 780 by Li Ch'eng $ (*, the Commissionersent to inspect and assess
the province of Huai-nan under the sweeping financialreform carried
out in that year by Yang Yen ijq .2) These new colonies were again
on reclaimedland, this time along the coast, behind the newly construc-
ted Ch'ang-fengyen dyke.3) After Tu Yu ?ft became Governor of
Huai-nanin 790, more coastal land was brought into cultivation, more
than 3oying-t'ienbeing set up.4) These lands brought in an annualtotal
of 5oo,ooohzu.But Tu Yu was no blind advocateof colonies, for during
his period as Governor (790-803) a memorial was composed on his
behalf by Liu Yii-hsi agreeing to the abolition of some unspecified
colonies in Ch'u-chou.5)
Another region where many colonies were set up after 785 was the
area around Loyang, the Eastern Capital,which had been laid waste
during the An Lu-shan rebellion and had never recovered its former
splendour. In 790 Tu Ya #?r• the Resident Governor (Liu-hou)
developed Ying-t'ienin the ImperialPark in order to supply his armies
and cut down on the allocation from the Department of Public Reve-
nue. But this seems to have been very unsuccessful,and he was forced
to make loans at interest to the local people and enforce levies on the
I) See CTS I85B, p. iza.

2) See TFYK 503, p. 22b; HTS 143,p. 5a. There is some slight questionover
theidentityof the Commissioner
sentto assessHuai-hsiandHuai-nan.Thelist
in
given TFYK 162 p. I6b-I7a gives him as Li Ch'eng, but the Hsing-chuang
to
Han Hui if l in Ch' an Tsai-chih wen-chizo, p. 6a saysthathereceivedthis
appointment.
3) See HTS 143 P. 5a.
4) See HTS 166 p. 4a. CTS 167 p. 4a-b. The ratherunreliableTu Yunienp'u
(1934) of Cheng Chiieh-shengIt V (p. 8i) dates this in 800.
5) SeeLiuMang-te wen-chi16,p 4b-5a Thisis undated,butis assignedto 802
op cit. p. 99.
by ChengChiieh-sheng

190 DENIS TWITCHETT
people's grain crops to make up the deficit.') In 797 Wang Hung LE,
developed more than zo colonies in the areaas part of a generalbuild up
of military strength.2)In 8o8 when the post of defence commissioner
for the Eastern Capitalwas abolished, the provincial troops were set to
develop 65o ch'ingof Ying-t'ienin the former ImperialPark.In 811 these
colony troops were disbanded,apparentlybecause they did not produce
enough.3)
Colonieswere furtherestablishedin westernHonan4)andin the region
between the Huang-ho and the Pien-ho canal.5) At this same period,
too, the t'un-t'iensystemwas employedon the frontierin southernChina,
where the problemwasnot essentiallymilitary,but involved the extension
of the cultivatedareainto border lands farmedby aboriginaltribes.Hsti
Shen UZ,~4!who was Prefect of Shao-chou (Kwangsi) about 790,
levied the local inhabitants to work public land, loaning them oxen
and ploughs and giving them seed. By these means he was able to begin
an extensive plan for public works.6)Later, when Wei Tan f-f was
A
Governor of Yung-kuan (Kwangsi) (8oi-5) he set up 24 colonies and
taught the people to plant tea and wheat, as part of his policy of bringing
them the benefits of civilisation.7)
Thus the system of agriculturalcolonies was developed ratherexten-
sively in the interior of China during the reigns of Tai-tsung and Te-
tsung. The discussionsof the question by contemporarystatesmen,how-
ever, concentrateon the classic role of the colony as a means of sup-
I) See HTS 17z, p. 6a.

z) See CTS 157, P. za.
3) See TFYK 503 P. 24a.
4) See CTS 146, P- 7a for the case of Yii K'en j ) who establishedcolo-
nies in Ju-chou, and TFYK 5o03,p. z4a for that of Meng Yiian-yang 7t
a general of the Ch'en-hsiiprovince, centralHonan, who developed the Hsi-
hua t'un colonies.
See TFYK 503 p. 24a, CTS i2z, p. zb, for the case of Li Fu who set up
5)
several hundred mouof t'un-t'iensouth of the Pai-ma wei nf , M in 795.
6) See HTS 143, P. iza, YRHai 177, p. 26b, and Hsii Shen'sHsing-chuang
composed by Li Ao (Li Wen-kung chi iI, p. 9ib).
7) See Hai 177 p. z6b, and Wei Tan's epitaph composed by Han Yii,
YRi
(in Han Ch'ang-lichi z25,p. v-84).

plying frontier garrisons. After the disasters of 763-4 there was a certain
amount of activity among the commanders of the north-western garri-
sons in establishing irrigation works and colonial land. The most
ambitious of these schemes was begun by Yang Yen Q A when he
became Chief Minister in 780. This was to irrigate lands near Feng-chou1)
and to establish colonies there. The scheme was opposed on the grounds
of cost, and although the canals were completed, the scheme was soon
abandoned.2)
After the suppression of the rebellions of the Ho-pei governors during
the 780's, which again reduced northern China to chaos, in 786 Han
Huang 4'i, who had wide financial experience and had played
a major part in supplying the imperial armies during the fighting,3)
outlined a rather optimistic scheme for the recovery of the northwest
from the Tibetans. This envisaged the settlement of the area by troops
who would be provisioned from the capital for three years, and would
thereafter establish themselves in ying-t'ien and become self-supporting
garrisons who could both "farm and fight".4)
Other statesmen were thinking along similar lines. The establishment
of self-supporting frontier forces was very attractive, for it would not
only solve a major financial problem, but it would enable the govern-
ment to avoid conscription of the so-called Fang-ch'iuping( W ( -).
Conscription was doubly expensive, for each conscript soldier not only
became a charge on the state for rations and upkeep, but also ceased to
be a productive taxpayer. Li Pi 4 jf, who became Chief Ministerin
787, suggested the revival of the Militia (Fu-ping) system, with the im-
portant difference that the peasants who were to form the new militias
I) This prefecturewas at the western end of the sweep of the Huang-ho

through the Ordos region. For Yang Yen's scheme see THY 89, p. 1619,
TFYK 503, p. 22b. HTS i45, p 9a-b.
2) See Yen Ying's memorialcited THY 89, p. 1619-20, TFYK 503 pp. z2b-
23b, etc. In spite of the abandonmentof the schemefurthercanalswere opened
in the same region in 795 by Li Ching-ltieh j~ 1. See Yfihai 177, P 29a,
HTS 170, p. 9b.
3) See CTS 129, p. zb-3a. On his efforts in provisioning the armies see TCTC
231, p. 7428-9.
4) See CTS 129, p. 3a.

192 DENIS TWITCHETT
would live in the areawhere their turns of service were to be performed.

Troops were to be settled on colony lands and supplied with draught
animals,seed, and equipment.Any surpluswhich they produced was to
be bought in by the authoritiesat a price well above the marketvalue of
grain. By such advantageoustreatmentthe soldiers were to be encou-
raged to settle permanentlyon the land which they farmed, which was
to become their hereditaryproperty. Once they and their families were
established,they would be organised into militias on the old system.1)
In 792 the Chief Minister Lu Chih W presented to the throne
an extremely detailed proposal by which the transportationin bulk of
grain from Honan and the South was to be cut drastically,and the mo-
ney saved in transportcosts was to be used in increasedlocal purchase
(Ho-ti) of grain in Kuan-nei itself. The purchaseswere to be made at
prices varying from I0oo%above marketvalue near the frontier to 5 /o
above market value further away, the prices being graded thus to
encouragefarmersto settle in the vicinity of the frontiers.2)In the next
year Lu Chih took up this question again in his comprehensive"Depo-
sition on the requirementsfor the frontier defences."
"It is my foolish opinion that the system of officersand troops from
the various provinces being employed on frontier defense for duty
should be abolished. The former numbers should be divided into three.
For one third of these, the Military Governors of the provinces con-
cerned should be deputed to recruityoung and fit men who are willing
to live in the fortresses on the frontiers, and to shift them there. For
another third, the province concerned need only provide rations and
clothing, the various armies of Kuan-nei and Ho-tung being deputed
to recruityoung barbariansand Chinesewho are willing to serve in the
frontier armies, to whom the rations and clothing will be granted. For
the last third again the province concerned shall only provide food and
clothing, which shall be additionally granted to the recruited men to
provide them the means of setting up their livelihood in the place to
which they have been transferred.
The Department of Public Revenue should also be ordered to make
harmonious purchase (Ho-shih) of plough oxen in places scattered
i) See TCTC 232, pp. 7494-5.

chi I8, pp. zb-ga, especiallyp. 8a.
2) Lu Hsidan-kung

through the provinces, and to take into employmentartisanswho are to

go to the armies and fortresses to repair and manufactureimplements.
When the recruited men arrive, each family should be granted a
plough-ox and given all the implements needed for working the land
and for the home. In the first year in which they arrive,each memberof
the household shall be granted double rations, given seed and encour-
aged to cultivate their land. On the completion of the first harvest they
shall be allowed to provide for the needs of their own family, and if
there is any surplus grain the officialsshould buy it in, paying in every
case double the currentprice, it being their chief concern to encourage
the exploitation of land (Ying-t'ien).Once they have achieved ease, and
the troubles of conscription have been solved, there will no longer be
the evil of evasion of service in times of trouble. When the invaders
come the men will fight them of their own accord. When the right
season comes the familieswill labour on the land of their own free will.
The forces will inevitably be strong, and their supplies will inevitably
be adequate.. ."1)
Although the Emperor was unable to carrythese reforms into effect
he was very impressedwith the scheme,2)and there seem to have been
few dissentients. Even Tu Yu, who representedin many respects the
opposite pole of political thought to Lu Chih, brought forward a very
similarproposal when he was still Governor of Huai-nanin 8o2,3)and
again discussed the frontier problem in similar terms after he became
Chief Minister in 803. The second memorial, as must have seemed
appropriateto a declaredadmirerof the Legalists,contrastedfavourably
the organisation of the Ch'in state, with its concentrationon war and
agriculture, to his own day, where "only ten men in a hundred are
engaged in farming", the restin less essentialoccupations.He also advo-
cateddependenceon the interioreconomy of Kuan-nei,which was to be
strengthened by the re-establishmentof the old Ch'in-Han irrigation
i) Lu Hstfan-kungchi 19, pp. ia-9b, especially p. 8b-9a. TCTC 234 summarises

these two lengthy memorialson pp. 7534-6 and on pp. 7544-7; the originals
are undated.
2) TCTC 234, p. 7547.
lun hsi-jungcomposed by
3) See the memorial Wei Huai-nanTu hsiang-kung
Liu Yu-hsi on behalf of Tu Yu (Liu Mang-tewen-chi,wai-chi 9, p. ib-3 a). This is
undated. I follow the dating given by Cheng Hsiieb-cheng, op. cit. p. 98.
JESHO II '3

194 DENIS TWITCHETT
network') and a revival of agriculture. The frontiers themselves were to

be better fortified, and the supplies for the garrisons secured by colonies,
as a basis for the recovery of the lost territories from the Tibetans.2)
Although all these memorialists were preoccupied with the menace
of the Tibetans, the number of colonies actually set up on the Tibetan
frontier west of the capital does not seem to have been considerable.
In 789 the Governor of Lung-yu (which was reduced to Lung-chou
alone),LiYiian-liang
prefecture $ ir , hadtransferred
hishead-
quarters into one of the Tibetans' grazing grounds on the border and
opened up an area tens of ii square as ying-t'ien to be worked by his
troops. These provided sufficient supplies for him to refortify and develop
the area.3) About the same time Liu Ch'ang J j developed lands
in the upwaters of the Ching river, in the rear of the frontier defences.4)
Apart from these, little was done until well into the ninth century.
The Ordos and Ho-tung border, however, was the scene of consider-
able activity, and a scheme was put into effect in this region which
represented a near approach to the ideal of the memorialists. In 8 1 the
Chen-wu army (North-east Shansi and North-west Shensi) requested
urgent assistancefor a severe famine. Lu T'an )E-*1 and Li Chiang
4• the Vice-presidents of the Board of Finance,5) decided that
the Commissioner
in chargeof transportation
to the regionwas inade-
quate for his duties, and appointed as his successor Han Chung-hua
ji , a relative of the great writer Han Yii. As his title, "Commis-
sioner for Land and Water Transport,HarmoniousPurchase,and
I) ie., the Pai-kung ch'ii and Cheng ch'ii canal systems in the plain north of
Ch'ang-an, which had be this time fallen into decay. See Twitchett, Asia
MajorVI/i p. 38-9 and note I.
z) See HTS 215 A, p. za. This memorialis undated, but must belong to the
early years of the 9th century after Tu Yu became Chief Minister. It is also
quoted in CTW 477, p. 16b-I7a. Its somewhat sanguine note was justifiedto
some extent by the victories of Wei Kao j over the Tibetans on the
Szechuanfrontier.
3) See CTS 144, P. 5a. TFYK 503 p. 23b-24a; Yfihai 177, p. 26b.
4) See HTS 170, p. 7b-8a.
5) On these appointments, see Yen K'eng-wang , T'ang P'u-
I2, pp. 702-3.
shang-ch'eng-langpiao fIA 1 4I $
-f~

Colonies for Chen-wuand Ching-hsi",suggests Han's termsof reference

for relievingfamineconditions were widerthan those of his predecessor,
and embraced all three classical means of provisioning the frontier
armies.') It seems that Li Chiang, who shortly after became Chief
Minister, and who was painfully conscious of the financialdifficulties
of the state2)plannedthat he should developying-t'ienin the areaso as to
relievetheDepartmentof PublicRevenueof the annualallocationto the
region, and avoid local purchaseand its attendantabuses.3)Han Chung-
hua threwhimselfenthusiastically
into this task. He beganby setting
minor officials who had been convicted of financialmalpracticeunder
his predecessorto cultivateofficiallandandthuspayoff the sumswhich
they had misapplied. This proved so profitable that he developed a
chainof fortsand coloniesstretchingfor 6oo li alongthe border.In all
there were I colonies each consisting of ioo ch'ing and cultivated by
13o men, who musthave been t'ien-tsu,troopsfor whom farmingwas
the primaryduty, since regularsoliderswould not have had the time
to cultivatesuch a large quota of land.4)This schemetoo wasvery
successful, and in 813 he presented a further scheme for the establish-
ment of another 4,000 ch'ingofying-t'ien which he calculated would make
the armiesof the province completelyself-sufficient.He was most
anxiousthat the troops themselvesshould be made productive,and
describedtheirgeneralattitudevery graphically
"None of thosein the frontierarmiesunderstands work.
agricultural
They are just like babies waiting for the breast with open mouth. The
authoritiesthushaveto hiremento go andcollectsuppliesfromother
regionsbyboator cart... Theexpenseis incalculable.. ."5)
This scheme too was adopted, and in 814 P'an Meng-yang ik
a brilliantfinanceofficialwho had succeededLu T'an as Vice-president
of the Board of Finance in control of Public Revenue in the preceding
year was made "Commissionerof Colonies for the Five Strongholds
I) See Han Ch'ang-lichi z2, p. v-36-7, SungShui-luyiin-shihHan shih-yiikuei

so chihhsz~.Also see HTS 53, p. 6a.
2) See the accounts of his exchanges with his fellow minister Li Chi-fu, in
TCTC 238, pp. 7689-90.
3) See TCTC 239, p. 7697 for Li Chiang'smemorial.
4) See Han Ch'ang-lichiloc. cit.
5)ibid, p 37

196 DENISTWITCHETT
north of the Capital"to assist with the plan. However Li Chiang the
patron of the scheme fell from power almost immediately afterwards,
and P'an Meng-yang quarrelledwith Wang Sui 3E , the Commissio-
ner responsible for supplying the armies of the north-west, who was
opposed to colonies. The scheme was therefore suspended, but seems
to have excited wide admiration.1)
Thus the period from An Lu-shan's rebellion to the middle of the
reign of Hsien-tsung (8o6-819) saw three main developments. On the
frontiersthe pure colony worked by ordinarytroops gave way to a great
extent to colonies worked by agricultural troops t'ien-tsu and by
permanentlysettledsoldier-farmerfamilies.In the interiorprovincescolo-
nies were establishedby provincialgovernors to provide an income and
to exploit unbroken lands. These lands were worked either by civilian
settlers living under tight discipline, by levied labour, or by hired
werealsoemployed.A
labourers,whilein thenorthernprovincest'ien-tsu
thirddevelopmentwas the decayof the coloniesdirectlyfarmedunder
the central government's control.
LANDS UNDER STATE CULTIVATION AFTER 818
During Hsien-tsung'sreign (805-8zo) a determinedeffortwas madeby

the central power to reassert its authority over the provinces. One
importantaspectof this effortwas the strengtheningof the centralfinancial
authoritiesby the revival of the power of the Board of Finance and by
the co-ordination of the activities of the Board, the Public Revenue
Department, and the Salt and Iron Commission, each of which had
followed its own policy duringthe precedingperiod.2)Branchesof these
centralagencies began to play a bigger role in local administration,and
helped reduce the financialautonomy previously enjoyed by the pro-
vincial governors.3)
I) See CTS 16z, p. ib; HTS 16o, p 5a. The appointment and dating are
dealt with in Yen Keng-wang, op. cit. p. 703. For the titles given to Han and
P'an, see Aoyama op. cit. p. 51, note 55.
z) For a general account of the revival of centralpower, see Hino, op. cit.
pp. 145-207. On financialchanges, particularlypp. 146-75. On the changes in
the balance of centralfinancialauthority, see Twitchett, Thesalt commissioners
after An Lu-shan'srebellion,Asia MajorIV/I, pp. 6o-89.
3) See Hino, op cit, pp. I67-I7I.

The need to curb the governors was made still more apparentwith
the rebellion of Wu Yiian-chi t j in 815-7, which hadthreatened
to cut off the capitalfrom its chief source of grainsuppliesin the Yangtse
valley. Various measures to reduce the financialindependence of the
provinces were enforced in the following years,1)and among them was
the abolition of the concurrentposts of Ying-t'ienshihheld by provincial
governors.2)These had been graduallywhittled down in the years 814-7,
and in 818 an Edict was promulgated which abolished the remaining
posts, and laid down a rule that in future none of the provinces apart
from specially excepted cases should have such commissioners.3)The
Edict gives as the reason for the change the great variation in the con-
trol of colonies in differentareas,and the need to bring them all under
a single system.
There is no doubt that control passed into the hands of the Board of
Finance. The actual machinery of managementis by no means clear,
but in some places at least there were special Agricultural Colony
Bureaus(Ying-t'ienrwu
[- Wf" ) subordinatedtothelocalrepresentatives
the offices
(Hsin-yuian(( 1) of the Boardof Financein the sameway as
for mines,the centresfor collectingtradetaxes,and the branch-offices
of the variousmonopolies.The first of these bureausis mentionedin
732.4) Thereis very little evidenceaboutthe systemin the laterreigns
of the T'ang,but the bureausand similarBureausfor OfficialEstates
(Chuang-chaiwu •t• -) are frequentlymentionedunder the Five
Dynasties. When their abolition was suggested in 953, the TZy-chih
notes that in the latterpart of the T'ang, "The Boardof
t'ung-chien
Financeset up separateofficesto havecompletecontrolof(theying-t'ien),
whichwere independentof the local authorities".5)Fromthuswe may
i) Forexamplerestrictionswereimposedin 819 on theacquisitionof estates,
and disposal of taxes(THY 83, p 1539, TFYK 488, p. 7a.) The salt monopoly
was also extendedto partsof Shantungand Hopei which had been exempt
(CTS 48, p. 15b.)
z) See TTCLC Ioi, p. 7b-8a, THY 78 p. 1434.
3) Accordingto the edict nearlyall the governorsof the Honan,southern
Hopei, and Kuan-chungareashadalreadybeenstrippedof thesetitles.
4) See Hino, op. cit, pp. 167-71. For the first mention of such an office, see
CTS I7B, p. 6b.
See TCTC 291, p. 9488.
5)

198 DENIS TWITCHETT
assume that the system was generally applied.

Following this reform, there was a widespread change in the exploi-
tation of agricultural colonies. On the accession to the throne in 820o
of Mu-tsung, an Act of Grace placed further restrictions on the control
of the armies over colonies, and forbade them, since they already
received an allocation from the regular tax income, to force the civilian
population to work lands on their behalf, or forcibly to exchange poor
lands of their own for fertile lands in private hands. Lastly it ordered
that whereying-t'ien were necessary they were to be worked by soldiers
employedfor agricultural labour(Shih-liang PA
chien-erh, i ) and
not by conscriptedcivilianlabour.1)
However,the employmentof hiredlabourwas almostuniversalby
this time, civilian labour continued to be levied, at least in cases where
reclamationor irrigationworks neededto be improved,2)and it was
the employment of troops which was discontinued. In 833 an Edict
abolishedthe colonytroops(t'ien-tsu)
undertheHstian-wuarmy(central
Ho-nan),andit is probablethatthis waspart of a generalrelaxationof
the rulelaid down in 820o.3)
In the case of the Hsiian-wuarmyit seems that the land forming
agricultural colonies was rented to tenants,4) and this became the normal
means of exploitation. There was nothing new about the employment
of tenants.An Act of Graceof 785, afterexhortingthe commonpeople
to open up uncultivatedlands,ordersthat
"Wherethere are fertile but derelictlands suitablefor use as t'un-
t'ien, the Provincial Governors are to inspect them and cause any
or commonerswho arewilling
personsof variouscategories(tsa-se-jen)5)
i) See TFYK 503, p. 24b for the relevantpassage.The full text of the Act of
Grace is in TTCLC 2 p. 13a-i6b.
2) HTS 41, p. iob.
3) See TFYK 503, p. 25b.
4) I take it that this is what is meant when the passage continues "He re-
quested that he might impose a levy (shui) in wheat amounting in all to over
39,000 hu on the acreage of theying-t'ien,to replace the rations [formerlypro-
duced] and to enable him to retain the troops. . . ." I take it that the shuire-
presents some sort of rent levied on lands previously worked by the t'ien-tsu.
On this term see Twitchett, Asia MajorVJ/i, p. 58, note IIo.
5)

to do so to become controlled tenants (kuan-tien (f"l)."1)

It is possible that even earlier examplesmay refer to tenancy.2)
There were, of course, many other categories of official land which
had always been rented out to tenants. Besides the lands attached to
various posts, which formed a type of endowment to produce salaries,
prior to the An Lu-shan rebellion distinct categories of land called
"Official land" (Kuan-t'ien ' B•) and "Official Estates" (Kuanyzian-
chai ' L -L) were managedby the Departmentof MilitaryColonies.3)
Many of these lands later came under the control of the Household
of Estates
Commissioners shihjJ
(NeiChuang-chai ), who
managed a great variety of properties including not only lands but
mills, gardens, shops, establishmentsfor the hire of carts, and house-
property.4)All these propertieswere rented out, either for money rents
or for rent in kind.5)
The income from these lands was sometimesused for armyexpenses,6)
but the armies held further lands of their own known as Chkin-t'ien.
This term seems to have been appliedindiscriminatelyto colonies con-
I) See Lu Hsiian-kungchi2, p. 6b. Aoyama conjecturesthat kuan-tieng

(which he cites afterLu Hsfian-kung 2, as
chi-chih-kao
han-yuan i' ) may be
a corruption of ying-t'ien. I can see no grounds for such an emendation.
z) Aoyama claims to find evidence for tenancy in the account of Hsiieh
Chiieh's reform at Ch'u-chou, and in Liu Yii-hsi's memorial on the abolition
of the Ch'u-chou colonies. (op. cit. p. 29-30o) He may well be right, but the
evidenceis the word tsu-ju
i[ A which at this period can meannot only rent
in the specialised sense, but any imposition on land.
3) See TT 23, p. 138c.
4) See T'ao Hsi-sheng and Ch'iiCh'ing-yiian,T'ang-taiching-cbi
shibpp. 38-47,
and also the Japanesetranslationof the same work, which adds some supple-
mentary material. The classic description of the system is Kata Shigeshi
f~ Nai-sataku-shi kJ jj
~
in Shina shi KishbVol.
I, pp. 26I-282. keizai
5) Edicts granting exemption on these properties in 80o (TFYK 491, p. 6a)
and 867 (TTCLC 86, p. i ia, WYYH 441, p. 8b) mention rents payable in va-
rious textiles, grain, hay, and money. The management seems to have been
very lax, since in 867 there were still rents outstanding from 849.
6) See the memorial from the Nei-Chuang-chai shih dated 779 in THY 83,
P. 1535, TFYK 484, p. 7a.

200 DENIS TWITCHETT
trolled by the armies and to land owned by the armies and rented out to
commoners.1) It was also very common for civilians with large holdings
of land to have themselves falsely registered on the roll of one of the
armies,andthus,beingno longerunderthe financialjurisdictionof the
local authorities, evade their regular taxes, and pay a rent to the army
instead.2)
With the establishmentof the AgriculturalColonyBureaus,which
again were independent of the local authorities, a similar type of abuse
arose. The bureaus appointed Colony Households (Ying-t'ienhu
SWJ Pi) to worktheirlands.3)Thesefamiliesweregenerallyrichand
powerful ones, and beyond paying their rent (Shu-k'o 4ij to the
-) to the
bureau they avoided all fiscal responsibility. Being attached
bureau, which was directly dependent on the Board of Finance, they
were beyondthe jurisdictionof the Prefectural
or Countyauthorities.4)
Manyof thesefamilies,havingreceivedthe title of Ying-t'ien
hu,did not
perform the cultivation of colony lands themselves, but sub-let them to
tenantsof theirown, or employedcasuallabourto work them.5)
However, many of the tenants were recruited from among the
i) See for examplethe case of the Chiin-t'ienin T'ung-chou reportedby Yiian

Chen, in Yiian-shih ch'ang-ch'ingchi 38, p. 4a-5b.
2) This abuse was extremely common under the Wu-tai and the Sung. A
similarmeans of evasion was for the tax-payerto get himself put on the nomi-
nal roll of Buddhist monks, who were also tax-exempt.Funds for investment
were also commonly entrustedto the armyand provincialauthoritiesto avoid
taxation.
3) See HTS 53, p. 6a. Since such specialdutiesas these usuallycarriedexemp-
tion from labour-serviceand taxes, such a responsibilitywas generally consi-
dered as a priviledge rather than as an irksome imposition.
4) See TCTC 291, p. 9488. "In formertimes, militarycolonies were all on the
frontiers, and the troops of the garrisonswere made to cultivate them. But at
the end of the T'ang the troops quarteredin central China all set up colonies
(ying-t'ien)to bringwaste landinto cultivation.Laterthey also recruitedwealthy
households, and made them cultivate the lands as tenants (tien f{l) and pay
rent. The Board of Finance set up special offices to control them. They were
not dependent on the local authorities. In some of these families there were
manyadultmaleswho did not performlabourservice.In othersthey harboured
malefactors.The local authoritieswere unable to punish them..."
5) See Aoyama, op. cit. p. 34.

dispossessednon-nativepopulation(Fou-k'oFf W) who had previously

provided a source of hired labour. During the period after 820 Edicts
were issued on at least three occasions ordering the settlement of land-
less people on vacated land.1) In two of these cases the new occupier was
first to become an official tenant and was later to be recognised as the
owner of the land if the holder of the title did not return.2)
Thisincreaseof tenancyin the exploitationof landby the authorities
wasnot anisolatedphenomenon,but a partof a generalsocialandeco-
nomictrend.Duringtheninthcenturytherewasa greatgrowthof large
landedpropertiesworkedfor the most partby tenantfarmers.3)
Duringthis lateperiodit is verydifficultto makeanyestimateeitherof
the extent to which colonies were established, or of their regional distribu-
tion, as the sources became progressively less satisfactory after 850.4)
Most of the activity of which we read was concentrated in western Kuan-
nei, where colonies were established or extended in 820,) 823,6) 832,7)
I) See THY 85, p. 1566 and TFYK 495, P. 3ob for the case of 8zo; THY
85, pp. 1566-7and TFYK495, p. 3Ib for Edict of 848; and THY85, p. 1567
and TFYK 495, P. 32zafor Edict of 871.
2) See the latter two cases (note i).
3) See the studies of Tamai Zehaku, Tjdainotochi-mondai kankenin his Shina
shakai-keizaishi kenky7(1942) pp. 1-96; of Kato Shigeshi, Tdnosdennoseishitsu
oyobisonoyurai ni tsukiteand ThS&-jidai no sdensoshikinarabini sonosh7iraku to
shitenohattatsuni tsukite,in his Shina kdsh I, (1952) pp. 208-260;and of
keizaishi
Sud6 Yoshiyuki •~j ~' Chigokutochi-seidoshi kenkyR(1955) PP. 9-64.
4) When the CTS was compiled in 941-5, the Veritable Records (Shih-lu)
relating to the period subsequentto 847 were lost, (See Wu-taihui-yaoI8, p.
229ff.)and as a resultthe CTS and HTS basedthemselveson very heterogenous
materialin dealing with this period, and are thoroughly unsatisfactory.
5) In 820, Li T'ing 44 became Governor of Ling-yen, and reopened
the derelict Kuang-lu ch'tii jj • canal, setting up colonies in the lands
which it watered. (HTS 154, p. 8b). In the same year Yang Yiian-ch'ing
*po)t Governor of Ching-ytianin the same area establishedover 5,000
of
ch'ing colonies, heavily fortified against barbarianraids. (CTS 6i, p. 8a)
6) CTS I7A, p. 3a, TFYK 503, p. 24b, recordsthe establishmentof 6oo mou
ofying-t'ienon the T'e-chin ch'ii canalin Ling-chou.
7) In this yearthe newly appointedPresidentof the Board of Finance,Wang
Ch'i I i made plans with the provincialauthoritiesto bring large areasof

202 DENISTWITCHETT
846,1) in the last case being set up as a settlement for transported crimi-
nals. Some colonies in the region were abandoned in 836.2) The
Department of Public Revenue was directly involved in some of these
cases. Other colonies were established in southern Hopei in 8253) and
829,4) and on the border between Hopei and Honan in 831.5)
When after 849 the Chinese began to recover the lost parts of Kansu
from the Tibetans, colonies were set up to consolidate the Chinese
military position in the region.6) Other frontier regions especially Ho-
tung opened up new colonies in the 83o's,7) and it was suggested that the
system should be extended to Szechuan, to develop new frontier terri-
tory and cut down transport costs, but the Governor was dissuaded
from pursuing this plan, on the grounds that it would tie down too
many of his troops in exposed regions.8)
At this time the power of the central government, as it fell more and
more into the clutchesof the eunuchsand generals,beganto decline
rapidly.It is veryprobablethatthe semi-independent
provincialgover-
nors of the late 9th century established many colonies, and administered
them themselves in spite of the theoretical control of the Board of
Finance. Certainly this was the case under the Five Dynasties, which
differed only in name from the later days of the T'ang. These colonies
of the early ioth century were mostly worked by tenants, but some
remainedunderdirectarmyexploitation.
derelictand abandonedfarmlandin Pin-ning and Ling-wu provinces back into
production by means ofying-t'ien.See TFYK 50o3,p. zb, CTS 164, p. 3a.
i) See TFYK 503, p. 25b-26a.These settlementswere establishedin Ling-
wu and in the fortressesalong the northern sweep of the Huang-ho
2) TFYK 503, p. 2zb.
3) See TFYK 503, p. z4b. In this instance the Governor of Tsang-ching
province was made Commissionerfor Ying-t'ien as a concurrent post. See
CTS i61, p. 8a.
4) See TFYK 503, p. z2a-b, HTS 164, p. 7a-b. This was in again in the
coastal area of Tsang-chou.
See CTS The governor concernedwas Yang Yiian-ch'ing(cf.
5) i6i, p. 8a.
notes I 87, 192 above), who was at this time Governor of Ho-yang san-ch'eng,
with his capital at Huai-chou. The new lands are said to have yielded zoo,ooo
tan of grain.
6) See TFYK 503, p. 26a; CTS I8B, p. 7a-b.
7) See HTS i82, p. 6b; There is also a record that the armies on the Kitan
frontier in Ho-pei were all settled on the land.
8) HTS 18o, p. 3a ff.

f*, o/
-HS//
. S,
c.- 04R d
"~
, :o Agmm
N
Io N ?
N* ..•
- .A' ... ,1
WV.Cweg :.
fth To mo
Pr4?.jw
?:
A~~cs \i??IW- I
4a~~7A
sI

F AN- YAN4
SHO-T ONc i
I
-,
/':"...g
1.4*0$
f* TA,y7 s,,
oa afew
4* •,•
*.:.1., ' ,A
SH '"-rc.t?
-•** 0
/Aev'
" *:**.
0 *o:* <W,' " *0:
##:a*r
&r- 'e'
4"1W 4 4r
/ - '
H~lo~Sam-",/
-C~~Y X4 U
G
Y4??~
?`j.
At r
oruTy?U
Pr046c s 00*0
ta~c~ ~'
4w~r qa##
c .olo4A.
i0 colOIon
e -t? Cind In?hs
S* - Those colon
of Pastures.
Source: SunI
For conveni
MiMilitary
litary DiDisp
sp

F AN YANC4 J•
--,r.+-
e uis
I ,H
S40Ds
at
oPsr.he ib t o
of
at*#
tr
in
of
yC
aure
T liuTie
e
7-
sn
**" *
' rU;)f..co, .......
. D
Militar'
iOsito
-Distribution of Military Colonies circa 737

PltN-.HO
In addition to those shown there were 56 colonies in the Tunhuang Turfan
oases, a few unidentified colonies in Kuan-nei,e 13 in Lung-yu and 6 in Hopei.
There were also 8 colonies at on the southern border of Szechuan
Sui-ehou
and colonies at Kuknei-chou in Northern Kwangsi.
Those colonies enclosed in a diagonal frame were attached to the Directorates

of Pastures. Those in a square frame to the salt-pools at Yen-chou.
Source: Sung-print of Tang liu-Ti/n 7.
For convenient reference, this map is drawn to the same scale as the map of
MilitaryDispositions in Pulleyblank "Background of the Rebellion of An Lu-shan"

UNDERSTATE
LANDS CULTIVATION THET'ANGDYNASTY
DURING 203
For the second half of the T'ang dynasty, it is impossible either to

estimate the number and size of the empire's colonies, or to arrive at
any approximation of their production and its relation to the total
national revenue. But from the fragmentary evidence which I have
summarised above it is certain that colonies - even though many were
transformed into little more than landed estates farmed by tenants -
were an important source of income, both to the Provincial and Central
authorities. This situation varied greatly from region to region, but in
some areas at least a considerable proportion of land was farmed in this
way, and there is no doubt that this system played an important part
in the total economy, especially in areas of marginal cultivation.
An appendix to this article will be included in the next number
SOURCESAND ABBREVIATIONS
The dynastichistoriesarequotedfrom the Po-na edition, and collectedworks

of authorsfrom the Ssu-pu ts'ung-k'an edition unless otherwise specified.
Journalsare abbreviatedaccording to the system employed in the Harvard
Journal of Asiatic Studies.
CTS Chiu T'ang-shu
HTS Hsin T'ang-shu
TCTC TZu-chiht'ung-chien,Peking edition 1956.
TLT T'ang liu-tien, Konoe Iehiro's edition 1724, together with Tamai's
collation of the Sung print in his Shina shakai keizai shi kenkyui1942.
Code Ku T'ang-l/i shu-i, Tai-nan-ko ts'ung-shu.
TT T'ung tien, Shih-t'ung edition 1936.
THY T'anghui-yao,Kuo-hsiieh chi-pen ts'ung-shu.
TTCLC T'ang Ta chao-lingchi, Shih-yiian ts'ung-shu.
TFYK Ts'e-fuyiian-kuei,Li Ssu-ching's edition 1642.
Ming MS in University Library,Cambridge,and
WYYH Wen-yzianying-hua,
the edition of 1567.
WHTK Wen-hsient'ung-k'ao, Shih-t'ung edition I936.
Yii-hai, edition of I8o6.
T'ang wen ts'ui, Wan-yu wen-k'u edition.
CTW Ch'zianT'ang wen, Kuang-ya shu-chii edition 1901.
TPYL T'ai-p'ingyzi-lan, Ssu-pu ts'ung-k'an.
Han Ch'ang-lichi, Kuo-hstieh chi-pen ts'ung-shu.
YHCHC Yiian-ho chin-hsient'u-chih, Wan-yu wen-k'u edition.
Lu Hszian-kungchi, Ssu-pu pei-yao.
Li Pei-hai Chi, Hu-pei hsien-cheng i-shu edition.


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Lands under State Cultivation under the T'ang

Author(s): Denis Twitchett

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.198 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 07:41:47 AM

i) See TT 2 p. i 8b, c. See also the materialcollected in Li-tai t'un-t'ienk'ao

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z) HTS 46, p. I3a; cf. des Rotours, Traiti desfonctionnaireset de l'armdepp.

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The standardallowances of land and labour are worth quoting, for

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rigid assessment of the days of labour needed to cultivate one ch'ing

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and civil officials.Their promotion was made dependanton the produc-

I) HTS 53 loc. cit. TLT gives detailedrulesfor promotion.

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included an annual inspection of his

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that these colonies were worked by a type of special service corvte

It is impossible to say how many military colonies were set up in the

i) See Twitchett, ThefragmentoftheT'angOrdinances oftheDepartment of Water-

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the reign of T'ai-tsung (6z7-65o).1)

3) On this change see Pulleyblank loc. cit., and Hamaguchi Shigekuni

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The establishment of colonies on the northern borders, and in the

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I) This is dated accordingto HTS 107.

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i) See ChangYen-kung chi i6, p. I65 Epitaph of Jan Shih.

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for their province,1) though occasionally their area of responsibility for

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tively simple,sincethe areawas servedboth by a branchof the canal

I) On this question see Twitchett, Thefragmentof the T'angOrdinances, Asia

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representingabout a sixth of the land levy for the empireor about 7%

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Lung-yu is low compared with 749-50, as there was a great build up of

Numberof Troops Annualproduction

I) On the build up of these forces, see the opinions of Tu Yu (T'ung-tien

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DEVELOPMENT OF COLONIES IN CENTRAL CHINA

I) There is an interestingparallelhere with the monasteries,which, asGernet

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it was suggested that the land should be converted into colonies.') Li

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Chiu-ling ~i iL was appointedT'ao-t'ienshihCommissionerfor the

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The rebellionleft the provincialgovernorsmore powerfuland in-

Ma-fangpei-sungin T'angWen-ts'ui22, p. 407-411. THY 66, loc. cit., tells how

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new taxes and other sources of income in a frantic effort to compensate

i) See T'angwen-ts'uiz2, (Li Han ~ t'un-t'ienchi-chi

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But it was more common for such colonies to be worked by civilian