International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)

No.3, 2020

On the delivery of the tributary rice in the Southern Song Dynasty

(Abstract)

TAKAHASHI, Hiroomi

Since the founding of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Emperor Gaozong - who had been tossing about in the Southeast China because the troops of the Jin Dyansty chased him after - moved to Lin’an from Shaoxingfu Prefecture in the first month of the second year (1132) of Shaoxing. His settlement in Lin’an resulted in improvement of the delivery system for tributary rice from the Liangzhe lu (province) to the capital. Specifically, the systems and regulations on such affairs as how to prepare and collect royal cargo boats, how to appoint the officials in charge of royal cargo transportation, how to encourage or punish them, how to monitor the water transportation of grains, how to receive and story the supply in Lin’an and how to remedy the shortage of tributary rice to the capital and how to conduct compulsory purchases were set up. After the first month of 1132, there had been about 1 million dan (1 dan ≈ 59.2 kilograms) shipped to Lin’an a year. In the third month of thirty-first year (1161) of Shaoxing, it was set that about 1.12 million dan would be shipped from all the prefectures of Liangzhe lu to the capital every year, and a delivery system of tributary rice to the capital was formed. At the same time, the delivery systems of tributary rice from such lu as Jiangdong, Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan to the northern boundary areas were also improved.