1. The relevant literature here is enormous. For a summary statement, see Philip C. C. Huang, The Peasant Family and Rural Development in the Yangzi Delta, 1350-1988 (Stanford, 1990), 329-31.

2. See especially Joseph P. McDermott, "Charting Blank Spaces and Disputed Regions: The Problem of Sung Land Tenure," Journal of Asian Studies 44 (November 1984): 13-41. Brief descriptions of local conditions can be found in Robert P. Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-Chou, Chiang-Hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung (Cambridge, 1986), 22-23, for Fu-chou Prefecture, Kiangsi, in the Sung; and Jerry Dennerline, The Chia-ting Loyalists: Confucian Leadership and Social Change in Seventeenth-Century China (Yale, 1981), 88-89, 264-41, 272-73, for Chia-ting County in the Yangtze delta in the Ming. Dennerline (p. xv) has also had to maneuver around "the lack of any detailed data on local agriculture, land ownership, family economies, and the like," and he, understandably, prefers analyzing personal networks to deploying class terms such as "landlord" and "peasant." Hui-chou Prefecture, in present-day Anhwei Province, is exceptionally rich in such local documentation; some of the literature is noted in Evelyn S. Rawski, "Research Themes in Ming-Qing Socioeconomic History—The State of the Field,'' Journal of Asian Studies 50 (February, 1991): 84-111. Tenurial landlordism from an econometric perspective is treated in Chao, Man and Land in Chinese History (Stanford, 1986), chap. 8.

3. This is the thrust of Joseph W. Esherick and Mary B. Rankin, eds., Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance (Berkeley, 1990). See especially the editors' concluding remarks, pp. 305-45.

4. Robert M. Hartwell, "Demographic, Political, and Social Transformations of China, 750-1550," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42, no. 2 (December 1982): 395.

5. For the earlier irrigation work and its periodic repair, see Chiang-hsi t'ung-chih (Kiangsi, 1881), 63.7a; Liu Yueh-shen, Shen-chai Liu hsien-sheng wen-chi (reprint, Taipei, 1970), 469-71 (epitaph for Li I-fei, 1259-1336); Wang Chih, I-an chi (SKCSCP ed., 8th ser.), B6.30b-32a (preface to poems for the Yuan-ming lou); Hu Chih, Heng-lu ching-she ts'ang-kao (SKCSCP ed., 4th ser), B3.6a-8a (inscription for the Tun-tien t'ang) and B10.1a-3a (epitaph for Hu Hsi, 1498-1580). Three inscriptions, dating to 1052, 1534, and the eighteenth century, have recently been found. The 1052 inscription includes an engraved map. See Chung-kuo li-shih-hsueh nien-chien (Beijing, 1989), 438. For the four-teenth-century irrigation work, see Wu Ssu-tao, Ch'un-ts'ao-chai chi (Ssu-ming ts'ung shu ed.), 10.5b-7a (epitaph for the builder's son, Liu Jen-shou, 1304-65); Wang Chih, B17.36a-38a (preface to the genealogy of the K'an-ch'i Liu). The agricultural writers were literati from the Tseng common-descent group of T'ai-ho city in the Sung, who were still prominent in Ming times, although their interest in the subject had lapsed. For a discussion of them and their books, see Sudo Yoshiyuki, Sodai keizaishi kenkyu (Tokyo, 1962), 24, 51-53. The text of Tseng An-chih's Ho p'u (Guide to the grains) of 1094, which was long lost, has been rediscovered in a local genealogy; see Chung-kuo li-shih-hsueh nien-chien (Beijing, 1987), 326.

6. Population figures are from Chi-an fu-chih (Kiangsi, 1875), 15.7b-8a; Chiang-hsi t'ung-chih (1881), 47.15ab; and Chung-kuo 1982 nien jen-k'ou p'u-ch'a tzu-liao (Beijing, 1985), 178.

7. Recent conditions in T'ai-ho County have been so bad that they bear little relation to past history. The county has suffered serious soil erosion: between 1957 and 1979, there was a 15 percent loss of cropland; and despite the likelihood that only the worst land has been removed from cultivation, T'ai-ho's per- mou yield of foodstuffs is among the lowest in the province. Irrigation systems, so prominent in the Sung and Ming, have all but disappeared. Sugarcane and sweet potatoes have supplanted rice and other traditional crops. T'ai-ho's 1982 population, which looks large enough by historical standards, is said to be insufficient to meet labor demands. Far from exporting population, either permanently or seasonally, as it did in the middle and late Ming, the county (and, indeed, much of the province) now has to import labor on a seasonal basis. See Judith Banister, China's Changing Population (Stanford, 1987), and especially Chiang-hsi nung-yeh ti-li (Nanchang, 1982).

Some rural people were too poor to consume rice every day. Hu Chih's grandfather, Hu Hsing-kung (1469-1527), an impoverished primary teacher, was for a while reduced to a diet of "taro and mixed cabbage and beans," but he studied so intently that he didn't mind the hunger. See Hu Chih, Heng-lu ching-she ts'ang-kao , A8.21b (generational account of the Hu family).

8. Liu Sung, Ch'a-weng wen-chi (Ming woodblock ed.), 10.5a-6b (message for Wu Ming-li, continuing on his journey).

9. Wang Chih, A2.23b-25b (inscription for the Tun-pen t'ang).

10. Ibid., B6.34b-36b (message to T'ai-ho magistrate Cheng, on his departure). Cheng Lin was appointed magistrate in 1416.

11. Ibid., B18.14a-15b (preface to poems for Magistrate Shen, about to take office [in T'ai-ho]). Shen Yü was appointed in 1427.

12. Ch'en Hsun, Fang-chou wen-chi (printed ed., 1593), A4.22b-23b (message for Vice Magistrate Ch'iu Chung-yeh, returning to T'ai-ho). Ch'iu's tenure in T'ai-ho was 1440-46.

13. Liu Sung, Ch'a-weng wen-chi , 14.12a-13b (postscript to an inscription for the Kuo family retreat).

14. In Shih-kang (Stone Hill Ward, township to) lived Liu Sung's mother's people, the Shih-kang Hsiao, whose lands produced peaches, pears, mandarin oranges, persimmons, cabbage, leek, melon, edible bamboo, taro, and rice, together with pond-bred fish and livestock (zebu cattle and goats). Liu Sung described in detail the formalities and orderly routines observed by these people, and remarked that "inwardly I used to envy all this, since my own home was poor by comparison." He went on to say that "once I heard the elders talk about Hsiao Pao-sun, who was an accounts keeper and the son of Hsiao Ssu-lien, a facilitated degree holder of the late Sung [thirteenth century]. He was one of the richest men in the county. For several tens of li around his home, all of the gardens, fields, mountains, and forests were his, none of it sold to an outside surname." He ended by noting that this gigantic estate was later twice damaged in civil wars, and rebuilt, though on a reduced scale. See Liu Sung, Ch'a-weng wen-chi , 10.22b-25b (preface to the Hsiao genealogy).

15. Wang Chih, A1.31b-33b (description of the joys of farming).

16. Ibid., B5.20a-21b (inscription for the detached estate at Ch'ang-ch'i).

17. For example, Chao Kang and Ch'en Chung-i, "Chung-kuo li-shih-shang-ti tzu-ying ti-chu," Shih-huo yueh-k'an , n.s., 9, nos. 5-6 (October 1979): 178 (full article, 169-193).

18. Ch'en Hsun, A3.37b-39a (preface to poems on the detached estate at Lung-men).

19. Liang Lan, Ch'i-le shih-chi (SKCSCP ed., 8th ser.), 8b (poem, on enjoying myself in the western garden plots) and 32b-33a (poem, on coming home from farming). Liang Lan's son, Liang Ch'ien (1366-1418), expanded his father's garden and diversified its produce. Out a second-story studio window, itself shaded dark by pine and bamboo, one could now view water caltrop planted in a willow-ringed pond. Nearby, a stone path transected an herb garden. From the doorway of the house one could hear fish splash and orioles twitter. "My home," wrote Liang Ch'ien, "is in T'ai-ho's Willow Creek, where there are several tens of mou of garden plots. There are several thousand bamboo, hundreds of peach and plum trees, and tens of beds growing rape-turnip, cabbage, ginger, sugar cane, cress [ Nasturtium montanum ], black mustard [ Bras-sica juncea ], barberry [ Lycium chinense ], and chrysanthemum. . . . And not even the costliest delicacies can surpass the lettuce gathered in the spring snow, or the leek harvested after the frost." Cf. Ch'en T'ien, ed., Ming-shih chi-shih (reprint, Taipei, 1971), 2:716 (Liang Ch'ien, poem on the Ai-ts'ui studio) and 2:270 (Liang Ch'ien, poem on garden life); Liang Ch'ien, Po-an chi (SKCSCP ed., 6th ser.), 7.18b-19a (preface to the Le-p'u poems). The quotation is from this last source.

20. Liu Sung, Ch'a-weng shih-chi (SKCSCP ed., 5th ser.), 3.34b-35b (poem, on a painting of fall colors in a plain); Hsu Hung, ed., Ming ming-ch'en wan-yen lu (SKCSCP ed., 6th ser.), 12.1a-4b (Yin Chih, biography of Liu Sung).

21. Liu Sung, shih-chi , 2.11b (poem, expressing my mind).

22. Ibid., 2.12a (poem, visiting a field-father).

23. Ibid., 8.25b (poem, rising early at a peasant house) and 2.60b-61a (poem, returning from observing the harvest below the mountain, in the sixth month, late in the day).

24. Ibid., 2.67ab (poem, in gratitude for the field-father's invitation to have some rice-beer).

25. Ibid, 8.25b (poem, observing the transplanting of rice shoots).

26. Ch'en Hsun, A8.3a-4b (epitaph).

27. Chou Shih-hsiu, Ch'u-jao chi (SKCSCP ed., 4th ser.), 6.19a-21b (description of eight inspiring scenes at Chü-kang). The contrast of the Chou home base is with the densely clustered, citylike living arrangements of other rural families, such as the Hsiao of Jen-ch'eng Ward (township 25), the Liu of Chuan-chiang Ward (township 52), the Cheng of Shuang-ch'i in Ta-iui Ward (township 35), or the Chou of Ch'i-t'ien Ward (township 51). See Wang Chih, B3.49a-50b (inscription for the Chi-shan t'ang); Yin Ch'ang-lung, Yin Na-an hsien-sheng i-kao (ms. ed.), ch. 4, no p. (preface to the Hsiao genealogy); Chou Shih-hsiu, 5.43a-44b (departing message for Assistant Instructor Liu Chung-heng, en route to Shih-ch'eng); Ch'en. Hsun, A5.17a-18a (preface to the Shuang-ch'i Cheng genealogy); Lo Ch'in-shun, Cbeng-an ts'un-kao (SKCSCP ed., 4th ser.), 2.1a-2b (inscription for the Ying-hsi building) and 2.16b-18a (inscription for the Shih-te hall); T'ai-ho hsien-chih (Kiangsi, 1879), 24.44a-45a (Hu Kuang, inscription for the Kao-ming building); Wang Chih, B6.29a-30b (postscript to Chou Chih-kang's Kao-ming lou poems) and B6.30b-32a (preface to the Yuan-ming lou poems).

28. Liu Sung, shih-chi , 2.19b (poem, on a field family).

29. Chou Shih-hsiu, 1.17b (poem, on a field family).

30. Ibid., 3.4ab (poems on field families).

31. Yang Shih-ch'i, Tung-li ch'üan-chi (SKCSCP ed., 7th ser.), A16.11b-13a (epitaph).

32. Ibid., A16.11b-13a and A17.5b-8a (epitaph for Hsiao Lien).

33. Ibid., B30.11a-12b (epitaph for Hsiao Tzu); Ch'en Hsun, A5.8a-11a (preface to the T'ao-yuan Hsiao genealogy). Liang Ch'ien, 16.4ab (colophon to the genealogy) and 4.1a-2b (inscription for their academy); Wang Chih, A5.12a-13b (preface to the genealogy) and A3.2b-4a (inscription for the l-shout'ang); Yang Shih-ch'i, B23.22a-23a (postscript to the Hsiao genealogy), B1.16b-18b (inscription for the Ching-i t'ang), B3.1a-2b (inscription for the Wan-i chai), B4.13b-14b (inscription for the Ching-yueh t'ang), A4.Sab (preface to the Shih-t'ai poems), and A9.15b-18a (colophon to the Lucky Fungus poems and essays in honor of the Hsiao); Lo Ch'in-shun, 8.2a-4a (preface to poems for the Yung-ch'ing t'ang).

34. Hsiao Tzu, Shang-yueh chü-shih chi (woodblock ed., 1494), 18.16b-18b (epitaph).

35. Wang Chih, B33.38b-40b (epitaph).

36. Ibid., B28.34b-36b (epitaph). In the Yung-lo era, some of T'ai-ho's tax captains were required to do more than collect taxes. The emperor's building and expansion programs required some to build residences in the new capital (Peking) and others to superintend logging teams in the wild mountains of southern Hunan. See Wang Chih, B27.37a-39b (epitaph for Tuan Feng, 1365-1441, of Fishpond Lane in the western suburb), B28.26a-28b (epitaph for Kuo Tung-wei, 1393-1459, of Ch'ien-ch'i [or Ao-t'ou], township 62), and B28.24a-26a (epitaph for Yang Meng-pien's son, township 43); Ch'en Hsun, A7.45b-47b (epitaph for Yueh Hsu, 1390-1447, of Ho-ch'i Ward, township 62). None of these rich T'ai-ho men forced to live in Peking are mentioned in Sato Man-abu's detailed study of the whole policy in Toyo gakuho 64, nos. 1-2 (1983): 69-98. The heat, pestilence, and corruption of the Hunan logging camps are discussed in Hsiao Tzu, 19.6b-7b (biography of Hsiao Pang-yen, of Huang-kang, perhaps in township 67); Wang Chih, B26.54b-57a (epitaph for Tseng Ku, 1380-1437, of Shang-mo Ward, township 28); Yang Shih-ch'i, B46. 1a-4b (preface to a lament for P'eng Pai-lien, 1386-1433).

37. Ou-yang Te, Ou-yang Nan-yeh hsien-sheng wen-chi (woodblock ed., 1558), 20.11b-12b (preface to a revision of the Sha-li Chang genealogy).

38. Ch'en Hsun, A5.32a-33b (preface to the Chang-ch'i Hsiao genealogy).

39. Wang Chih, A8.7b-9b and B28.8b-10b (two epitaphs for Wang T'ien-ti).

40. Hsiao Tzu, 18.15a-16b (epitaph for Hsiao Chi).

41. Yang Shih-ch'i, B1.16b-18b (inscription for the Ching-i t'ang). Yü Yao was from Fukien Province; see P'u-t'ien hsien-chih (1879; reprint, Taipei, 1968), 5.47.

42. Ming shih-lu (Taiwan, 1965), 25:1323-28; Wan-li T'ai-ho chih (1579; reprint, Taipei, 1989), 331 ff.; Wang Chih, B33.56a-59a (epitaph for Yang Tzu-p'ei, 1391-1455, of township 62). Yang Tzu-p'ei, very distantly related to Yang Shih-ch'i, could donate only fifteen hundred piculs. For that, his name was engraved on a stela. His family was already exempted from services because his son was a government Confucian instructor.

43. Ming shih-lu , 30:3386.

44. Ch'en Hsun, A9.35a-36b (epitaph for Chi-an prefect Li Chi).

45. Ming shih-lu , 33:4767-68.

46. Ibid., 34:5096.

47. Ibid., 35:5532; Wan-li T'ai-ho chih , 334-36.

48. Liu Ch'iu, Liang-ch'i wen-chi (SKCSCP ed., 11th ser.), 4.25b (inscription for the Chung-shun t'ang).

49. Yang Shih-ch'i, B53.18a-23a (family letters).

50. Wang Chih, B33.48a-50a (epitaph). In the seventeenth century, Yen Shu-ching did the same thing; cf. Kuo T'ing-hsun, ed., Pen-ch'ao fen-sheng jen-wu k'ao (1622; reprint, Taipei, 1971), 19:6279-81.

51. Yang Shih-ch'i, B40.26b-28b (epitaph for Wang's wife, née Hsiao, 1333-1412).

52. Hsiao Tzu, 16.31a-32a (account of conduct).

53. Wang Chih, B32.14a-16a (epitaph). One great-grandson, Lo Chün, won his chin-shih degree in 1448 and ended his career as a prefect (4A); unfortunately, nothing is known of any other descendants or of the disposition of the original estate.

54. Wang Chih, B17.7b-9a (preface to funerary poems); Yang Shih-ch'i, A18.23b-25a (epitaph).

55. Wang Chih, A8.24b-27a; Ch'en Hsun, A7.43a-45a (epitaphs for Lung Ts'an, 1384-1447); Wang Chih, B31.39b-41b (epitaph for Lung Shu-chao); Ch'en Hsun, B4.27a-28b (epitaph for Lung Kuei, i.e., Shu-hsuan). The quotation is from this last source.

56. Wang Chih, B24.38a-41b (epitaph for Lung Wen); Hsu Yu-chen, Wu-kung chi (SKCSCP ed., 4th ser.), 4.60a-61b (departing message for Lung Shih-hsi, i.e., Lung Kuang); Yueh Cheng, Lei-po kao (SKCSCP ed., 3d ser.), 5.5a-6b (departing message for Lung Shu-tan). The Lung marriage connections with T'ai-ho's high elites were many: Lung Wen's son Chain was married to one of Wang Chih's granddaughters, and Lung Kuang's younger sister was married to Yang Shih-ch'i's second son; and further generational marriage interconnections could easily be discovered. Lung Wen bribed his way into a promotion and transfer to Nanking at the time of the palace coup of 1457; see Ming shih-lu , 37:6419.

57. Liu Sung, Ch'a-weng wen-chi , 13.4b-5b (postscript to the Lü family record of equal inheritance).

58. Ou-yang Te, 25.19a-22a (epitaph).

59. Wang Chih, A6.5b-7b (epitaph for Liang Hun).

60. Yang Shih-ch'i, B39.17b-22a (epitaph for Ch'en Yung).

61. Wang Chih, B27.16a-18a (epitaph for Wang Yen-jui).

62. Wu K'uan, P'ao-weng chia-ts'ang chi (Ssu-ming ts'ung shu ed.), 77.3a-5b; and Li Tung-yang, Li Tung-yang chi (new ed., Changsha, 1984), 3:358 (epitaphs for Hsiao Chen).

63. Yang Shih-ch'i, A4.19b-20b (message for Ou-yang Yun-hsuan, on his departure); Ou-yang To, Ou-yang Kung-chien kung i-chi (Ming woodblock ed.), 17.1a-2b (epitaph for Ou-yang Yung); Ho Liang-chün, Ho Han-lin chi (1565; reprint, Taipei, 1971), 2:753-63 (epitaph for Ou-yang Mien and his wife); Kandice J. Hauf, "The Jiangyou Group: Culture and Society in Sixteenth-Century China" (Ph.D diss., Yale University, 1987), 147. The quotation is from Ou-yang To.

64. Ou-yang Te, 6.1a-14b (family letters); Hu Chih, Heng-lu ching-she ts'ang-kao , A10.23b-25a.

65. Ch'en Ch'ang-chi, Lung-chin-yuan chi (Ming woodblock ed.), 2.48b-50b. The governor was Weng P'u, for whose career see Chiao Hung, Kuo-ch'ao hsien-cheng lu (1594; reprint, Taipei, 1965), 3:2043-44. The prefect was T'ao Ta-nien; Ch'en Ch'ang-chi, 3.44a-46b (an inscription). Apparently only by slow degrees were T'ai-ho's dikes and reservoirs all counted and assessed for tax, however. The definitive count was not made earlier than 1581-82, perhaps not until as late as 1598. The county budget of 1610 lists reservoirs only, some seventeen thousand mou in extent, and these reservoirs appear to have been taxed at a very favorable rate, the same as the rate for the lowest grade of paddy. See Cbiang-hsi fu-i ch'üan-shu (1611; reprint, Taipei, 1970), 4:1385-1430.

66. Ch'en Ch'ang-chi, 5.63a-68b (letter to Inspector Wei Ch'ien-chi [1509-60] discussing famine relief methods). A major famine in 1637 was handled very differently; the magistrate prevailed upon wealthier people to contribute funds toward the purchase of gruel, and feeding stations were opened in Buddhist and Taoist temples where needy people lined up a thousand at a time to receive doles. Cf. T'ai-ho hsien-chih (1826; reprint, Taipei, 1989), 7:2922-27 (Yang Chia-chen, "What I heard and saw about famine relief in 1637").

67. The major study of the inflow of foreign silver into China is William S. Atwell, "International Bullion Flows and the Chinese Economy, Circa 1530-1650," Past and Present , no. 95 (1982): 68-90.

68. Liu Sung, Ch'a-weng wen-chi , 11.23a-24b (preface to the genealogy of the Heng-kang Yuan).

69. Wang Li, Lin-yuan wen-chi (SKCSCP ed., 1st ser.), 12.1a-2a (lament for Wang Kung-min).

70. Liu Sung, Ch'a-weng wen-chi , 17.27a-28a (epitaph).

71. Hu Chih, Heng-lu ching-she ts'ang-kao , A26.14a-16b (epitaph).

72. Ibid., B10.11a-12b (epitaph).

73. Louis J. Gallagher, S.J., trans., China in the Sixteenth Century: The Jour-hals of Matthew Ricci, 1583-1610 (New York, 1953), 244-47; Matthieu Ricci, S.J., and Nicolas Trigault, S.J., Histoire de l'éxpedition cbrétienne au royaume de la Chine, 1582-1610 (Bellarmin, 1978), 700 (index).

74. Lo Ta-hung, Tzu-yuan wen-chi (Ming woodblock ed.), 5.42a-44a (preface to the seventieth birthday [celebration] for my in-law, Wu Hsiang-shan). Lo Ta-hung was a famous scholar-official from Chi-shui County, north of T'ai-ho. Wu's granddaughter was married to one of Lo Ta-hung's nephews.

75. It was related that the Wu had run a local ferry since the Sung era. They funded the construction and repair of the ferryboats from an endowment in rice paddies. A family of the Liu surname held a hereditary contract, sealed with the county seal, to serve the Wu as boatmen; but at some point in the Ming era, the Wu sold the field endowment to someone surnamed Lo. One day, boatman Liu Chang came weeping to one of Wu Hsiang-shan's sons and begged him to resume the family obligation of managing the ferry. So "a thousand men of the six [subbranches] of the Wu lineage contributed funds to extend the field endowment, build boats, renovate the boathouse, and restore the Liu to their hereditary ferry service." Lo Ta-hung, 7.23a-24a (inscription for a stela at the ferry crossing).

76. That did not rule out elite tax cheating, as evidenced by the perennial problem of "empty grain" ( hsu-liang ), i.e., rice tax the registers showed as due but unpaid or uncollectible, owing to one or another form of ownership concealment ( kuei-chi, fei-chi ). A few citations of rice-tax shortfalls survive in the literature: 15,000 piculs in 1512; 4,942 in 1533; 1,659 in 1539; 1,950 in 1587. The total rice tax (according to the county budget of 1610) was 34,760.6996 piculs. Except in 1512, therefore, cheating resulted in marginal losses of 5 percent to 14 percent. In each of the cases cited, the magistrates took remedial action.

77. Ou-yang To, 5.10a-11b (preface to the revised comprehensive tax registers of T'ai-ho); Chang Mou, epitaph for Magistrate Lu Chen (1464-1519), in Chiao Hung, ed., Kuo-ch'ao hsien-cheng lu , 3:1705-8.

78. Ou-yang To, 17.10a-12b.

79. Ch'en Ch'ang-chi, 5.75b-76b (epitaph).

80. Ou-yang To, 1.4a-5b (account of an investigation into empty grain in T'ai-ho). In 1539, Kuo Yuan-ch'ang and four other upright locals discovered another tax shortfall, and the magistrate forced the ward scribes to gather all the household heads together so as to eliminate fraud case by case. The ward scribes' work was then audited by the "hundred and ten township scribes." The end product was a new master register in which "the households' [quota of taxes] matched the tithings, the tithings matched the wards, the wards matched the townships, and the townships the county." These registers were then printed and posted where everyone could see them. See Ou-yang To, 5.10a-11b (preface to the collected registers).

81. Ou-yang Te, 25.25b-29a (epitaph).

82. Ou-yang To, 17.16a-17a (epitaph).

83. Hu Chih, Heng-lu ching-she ts'ang-kao , A26.6a-7b (epitaph).

84. Ibid., A26.20a-31a (biography).

85. Ibid., B10.11a-12b (epitaph).

86. Kuo Tzu-chang, Pin-i sheng Yueh-ts'ao (printed ed., 1590), 6.23b-26a (biography).

87. Wang Shih-hsing, Kuang-chih i (reprint, Beijing, 1981), 81.

88. Timothy Brook, "The Spatial Structure of Ming Local Administration," Late Imperial China 6, no. 1 (1985): 38.

89. Just how lineage segments mapped onto fiscal households is better known in other localities in China. T'ai-ho lacked a statistically minded native son like Yeh Ch'un-chi, who made detailed studies of this matter in his native Hui-an County, Fukien, in the sixteenth century. See Yeh Ch'un-chi, Shih-tung chi (SKCSCP ed., 5th ser.).

90. T'ai-ho hsien-chih (1879), 24.40b-42b (Tsou Yuan-piao, inscription for the Ch'en ancestral temple).

91. Ou-yang Te, 20.14b-16b (preface to seventieth birthday honors for the virtuous widow Hsiao).

92. Quoted in T'ai-ho hsien-chih (1826), 2:569-70. The extant gazetteer of 1579 is lacking the first five chüan , in which the quoted text would have appeared.

93. T'ai-ho hsien-chih (1826), 2:558.

94. See Ray Huang, Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth-Cen-tury Ming China (Cambridge, 1974), 109-112.

95. Chang Huang, T'u-shu pien (1613; reprint; Taipei, 1971), 24:10188-202. The same effect was noted in Hunan around 1600, where Hung Mao-te wrote that "without ting all the tax is laid on the land. The people see the land as poison and abandon it as quickly as possible." Cf. Peter C. Perdue, Exhausting the Earth: State and Peasant in Hunan, 1500-1850 (Harvard, 1987), 62.

96. Kuo Tzu-chang, Ch'ing-lo kung i-shu (T'ai-ho, printed ed., 1882), 31.15a-18a (family instructions).

97. Chi-an fu-chih (Kiangsi, 1875), 15.43a-44a (Tseng T'ung-heng, record of field investigation). The boast was not wholly empty; the results of the survey ended up in the county budget of 1610, whose areal totals for rice fields coincide rather well with the rice fields shown on a detailed U.S. Army map of 1954. From 1607 to 1613, when P'u Chung-yü was T'ai-ho magistrate, the tax complaints he heard had little to do with unequal assessments. To be sure, P'u warned the people against false registry and tax engrossment ( kuei-chi and pao-lan ), but local complaints at the time targeted the duties and powers of the receivers and checkers and shippers, who, though compensated for their work by payments in silver, were squeezing excessive charges from the people. Cf. Kuo Tzu-chang, Ch'ing-lo kung i-shu , 26.1a-2b (stela in honor of Magistrate P'u, on his departure).