唐代内附異民族への賦役規定と辺境社会

抄録

There are two opinions about taxes imposed on ethnic peoples living under the jurisdiction of the Tang dynasty, the most detailed provisions of which are contained in Tang Liu Dian 唐六典. One purports that theses provisions were five-fold and each provision was applied individually to nomadic peoples or Sogdian merchants. The other argues that the provisions constituted one law that was applied only to Sogdian merchants. However, both opinions have been strongly influenced by the rooted idea of Ji-mi 羈糜, the traditional system of Chinese dynasties for control over ethnic groups, and economic activities in frontier societies. So we need to re-interpret this law doing away with this influence, examining the text faithfully to itself and taking into consideration the actual state of economic activities and circulation of coin in the north frontier. As the result, we can get some knowledge. This law was intended to be generally applied to ethnic peoples in the north frontier, written as Fan-hu 蕃胡. They meant nomadic groups mainly, but Sogdian merchants were included, too. The special quality of this law is that the tax institution was designed according to the difference of economic activities of them, but on the other hand it is noticeable that the provision to promote them to turn into agricultural people was involved. For the fact leads us to the view that the final objective of the rule over frontier societies was homogenization with the mainland, which was put only into very limited practice. The enforcement of this law continually needed so strong power that the true enforcement was not always expected and the practical usage was elastic in accordance with the actual state of their economic activities. In addition the application was so limited depending on the time and places. The objects who is surely thought to have been actually applied to are nomadic groups in frontier regular provinces and neighboring Ji-mi provinces in the Zheng-guan 貞観 and the Kai-yuan 開元 eras when the Tang dynasty had the strongest power. When we consider this law, we should keep it in mind that law itself often exists separated from reality. And we should do so when we consider any policies of the control over ethnic people, too. If we should stick only to the concept of the unitary control system organized by the central government, we will misunderstand the history.