清代同治年間的福建票法改革

Abstract

清代福建採行綱法作為鹽法，以穩定收取鹽課。到了清代中期，已難以維持效能。雖然嘉慶後期到道光年間，分別從恢復清初原制、補充商業資本、政府代為運送的方式，試圖改善效能，結果在咸豐期間的地方戰亂和通貨膨脹造成的破壞下，宣告完全失敗。同治四年，左宗棠入閩，進行對太平軍的戰爭，由於強烈的軍餉需求，改善鹽政，獲取鹽利，成為其財政政策。面對鹽課積欠、鹽商無力、私鹽充斥等問題，左宗棠派任的吳大廷、周開錫等官員，改行票法、釐課並抽、裁革冗費、整飭場務、化私為官，第一年即取得巨量鹽稅，但因為課稅費率過高和貨幣價值變化，很快便逐漸失去效能。

In Qing dynasty, the Fujian government adopted the key link (綱法) method to stabilize the collection of the salt tax. By the middle of Qing dynasty, it was already difficult to maintain the efficiency of the salt tax collection The Fujian government tried to improve the effectiveness of revenue collections by reverting to the original salt system of the early Qing dynasty, supplementing salt merchants’ capital, and having the government transporting the salt itself. But this totally failed due to the damage caused by local wars and the inflation. At the fourth year of the Tongzhi reign, Zong-tang Zuo (左宗棠) came to Fujian and to battle the Taiping army. On account of his exigent need for military expenditures, he chose to bolster his financial resources by reforming the Fujian salt tax system. Facing the problems such as arrears in salt tax collection, the salt merchants’ lack of capital, and the market being flooded with smuggled salt, Zuo assigned Da-ting Wu (吳大廷) and Kai-xi Zhou (周開錫), as the government officials to reform the salt policy. Together they executed reforms including: replacing the key link method with salt certificates (票法), increasing the levy of the likin tax, abolishing redundant costs, reorganizing the salt production process, thereby turning the smuggled salt into taxed salt. This reformation yielded a huge amount salt tax in the very first year. But the salt tax collection system soon lost its high efficiency because of the high rate of salt tax and the change in the value of currency.