Abstract
I-t'u was a tax collection system which was put into practice in a part of Chiang-nan (江南) ) in the age of Ch'ing. The purpose of this article is to investigate the institutional details of the i-t'u system, its organization and function, together with its relevance to the rule of hsiang-shen (郷紳) which was established on the basis of parasitic large landowning. The origin of the i-t'u system can be seen in the process of breaking up of li-chia (里甲) system in the age of Ming, for there emerged a contradiction between tzh-feng-t'ou-kuei (自封投櫃), a tax collection system in principle, and pao-lan (包攬), a tax (collection system in practice under the control by hsiang-shen. Therefore it was hsien-nien (現年) and other smaller landowning peasants who had been subject so pao-lan that had the greatest interests in i-t'u. Whereas t'u (図), a regional basis of the i-t'u system, was an administrative unit of three thousand mou (畝), it was a cornmunity or a union of villages consisted of several of the geographically close villages. The members of the i-t'u system were the smaller peasants, and they maintained the autonomous tax collection system in order to exclude pao-lan controlled by the privileged hsiang-shen. So it may be said that the i-t'u system was not only a passive organization to cooperate with the state in collecting taxes, but atso it was a defensive organization of the smallIer peasants for the purpose of protecting their interest and life as a group. What bound the menbers of the group together was t'u-kuei (図規), the regulations of i-t'u, and the strength of the bonds was manifested in a very strict sanction against those who were delinquent in paying their taxes. Moreover, while i-t'u was a legitimate tax paying system on the one hand, under certain (Donditions it could turn at any moment to the movement of paying no taxes on the other. It was, as it were, the two sides of the shield. The above analysis of the i.t'u system might contribute to the discussion on the rule of hsiang-shen in the Ch'ing age, in which one of the points is focussed at present on the evaluation of the position of the smaller landowning peasants.
