Ming-Ch'ing Studies in Japan, 1985

Vol. 8, No. 2 Late Imperial ChinaDecember 1987 MING-CH'ING STUDIES IN JAPAN, 1985 Norimatsu Akifumi* ß ^k vU|(Hokkaido daigaku bungakubu kiy'o it >% % A *$¦ L· ^- 34.1) basically follows previous views of rent resistance from late Ming on. According to these views, the historical development of the direct producers or small peasantry finds concentrated expression in the contradictions of landlordtenant relations. Miki first examines model cases of rent resistance in Fukien over the nearly 250 years between the Wan-li and the Tao-kuang reigns; he subdivides them into four periods for convenience; and he recognizes a "continuous," "geographic, spatial" development. Miki next analyzes in detail local customs described in the Ch'ien-lung edition of the Ch'ung-an hsien chih ¿if, ¦$£ ¡fy, &· (Gazetteer of Ch'ungan County), held in the Fukien Provincial Library. He argues three basic points. First, although rent resistance was carried out within the framework of the then standard one-field two-owners system, landlords responded to this dual ownership system with basic tolerance and prescribed control. Second, the "t'u-hao" ? ^ , or local bullies as the term appears in historical sources, were men involved with tenant farmers as lenders of silver or grain (Miki assumes these were locally resident usurer capitalists and merchant capitalists - namely rice merchants ). However, conflict emerged between landlords and local bullies because the repayment of these loans was made in grain at the time of rent payment [in silver]. In response tenant farmers favored the bullies and practiced rent resistance against the landlords. The fact was that "loans from t'u-hao, for production capital in agricultural management or for rice in lean periods between harvests," were essential to a tenant farmer's survival and the reproduction of his means of production. Third, state power in the early Ch'ing controlled rent resistance through direct intervention and a unified pao-chia 4$, ^f system. We can point to two pieces which enable us to see where studies of rent resistance are headed at present: the written report on the Hokkaido 112Joshua A. Fogel University symposium (in Shih'o $L, ^Jj 15 [1982]) and Mori Masao's J^. £ A. summary of the history of research (in Koso to nuhen %\, 4M. l *> i [Rent Resistance and Bondservant Uprisings], 1981). Both of these pieces raise numerous issues, but especially the importance of placing rent resistance within the context of popular struggles , and of understanding various kinds of struggles — tax resistance, grain theft, bondservant uprisings, and religious rebellions — from a unified perspective . I will touch on this point further below. What is needed is not that our attention be drawn to the phenomenon of "rent resistance" itself, but that we analyze rent resistance, linking the social circumstances of both landlord and tenant (including commerce, circulation of goods, markets, and human relations, as mentioned above), with social upheavals. On the basis of such an analysis one can then reassess the historical significance of rent resistance. Miki's references to the structure of markets and commodity circulation may be valuable as a step in this direction. Let me now examine several points with respect to his essay. First, he only recognizes the "development of rent resistance" temporally, geographically, and spatially, and hence does not offer an explanation of its qualitative growth or of its periodization. Second, an analysis of the organization and territorial cohesion of tenant farmers, who were the main actors in rent resistance, is absolutely essential. Third, although this analysis, in conjunction with the concrete historical sources, is worthy of our attention, even if we accept that "t'u-hao" had some point of contact with merchants out of a need to circulate the grain that accumulated as debt repayment, there is no objective basis for regarding them as "local rice merchants." Also, Miki points to the possibility of a '"wholesale advance payment' form of production," but this concept remains extremely vague. Fourth, Miki agrees that tenant farmers in south and central China in the Ming and Ch'ing periods, as earlier, understood rice as a necessity for maintaining the reproduction of their means of production, but can we now see this condition as universal for China? If this were the case...