明 天啓年間의 陵工과 殿工 재원 조달

Abstract

In the year of the Tianqi Emperor(天啓帝)'s enthronement, 1620, the Ming government was facing an increasing financial burden derived from the huge military expenditure spent on the defense against Nurhachi's Jurchen tribes. In addition to that, the constructions of the Qingling(慶陵) tomb of Taichang Emperor(泰昌帝), costed 700,000 liang(两), and the three palace buildings(三殿) of Huangjidian(皇極殿), Zhongjidian(中極殿) and Jianjidian(建極殿), costed 5,950,000 liang, made the situation even worse. After the constructions of the three palace buildings were begun, the Board of Revenue(戶部) endeavored to collect back taxes from shengzhi(省直). However, since the people were in dire poverty, the tax collection was not conducted as planned. Under these circumstances, the government had to look for another sources of revenue to cover the construction expenses. The additional funds were raised through various methods; by securing new tax revenue, soukuo(搜括); by taxing on a salt production, yanke(鹽課); by casting bronze coins, guzhu(鼓鑄); by taxing on kings; by the financial aids from the bureaucracy, juanzhu(捐助); and by a monetary penalty imposed on officials who embezzled from public resources or extorted from personal properties, zangfa(贓罰). Even though the absence of an accurate accounting record from the reign of Tianqi Emperor makes it impossible to assume an exact scale of the tax revenue, it seems like that the financial officers of the Dynasty covered 67.3% of the construction expenses by soukuo. Judging from the gathered information above, the bureaucrats of the Boards of Revenue and Civil Works(工部) of the Dynasty were desperate to secure additional resources of tax from local governments.