The Water Transportation System in the Former Han 前漢 Dynasty

Abstract

It is usually regarded that the gradual increase in quantity of the water transportation from the beginning of the Han Dynasty (漢初) to the reign of Emperor Wu (武帝) was mainly caused to transport of local revenues to the central government, as it was so later in the Sui-T'ang (隋唐) period. There are, however, very few studies to demonstrate concretely the purpose and method of the water transportation, and its system has scarecely been studied. This paper, therefore, firstly investigates the past studies on the purpose of the water transportation and shous the way how to collect the crop in the Former Han Dynasty, and then, discusses its characteristics and its relations to the local revenues. After that, it will examine the system which made such enterprise possible, and clarify a feature of the administrative organization of the Former Han Dynasty. In summery, it is assumed that in the beginning of the Dynasty, the water transportation was carried out in a small scale just to transport the reserved grain of Ao-Ts'ang (敖倉) in Hsing-Yang (〓陽) to the central government. In the reign of Emperor Wu (武帝), it was promoted in a large scale corresponding to the military actions in the north border and the amount of six million Seki (石), the largest in the Former Han, was collected from the crop of the forfeited fields in counties. Accordingly, the crop of the water transportation were mainly from the reserved grain of Ao-Ts'ang (敖倉) and the crop from the governmental fields (公田), therefore, it is clear that there were hardly used as any transportation of local revenues in the water transportation, but including the crop purchased by the Government after the reign of Emperor Hsuan (宣帝). Also as the route of the crop transportation was limited in the route of Huang He (黄河), it was technically difficult to transport the local revenues of every where to the central government. Thus the development of the Place transportation in the Former Han was regarded to be accelerated by the military demand, so, in this point, it was different from the water transportation later in the Sui-T'ang (隋唐) Dynasties. The administrator (大司農) who was responsible to the governmental finance, operated such water transportation enterprise directly, concerning the crop collection, the storage management and the ship construction, but not the transportation itself except employing employees (〓人). The people in the transportation office were provided by the military laborers in the countries, and it may be understood that the association of the water transportation enterprise to the military actions in the north border incorporated the conuty armies under the control of the military organization of the central government. In other words, in the Former Han period, it seemsd that the central government held the civil administration in the county system on the one hand, and provided the function to incorporate the county armies under the military organization of the central control on the other. The study of the evolutional proeess of the water transportation in the Former Han, should be considered important, for it clarifies how the governmental financial system was operated and at the same time the double administrative system in the counties.