Anti-tax

This was a resistance movement by tenant farmers in old China, known as denko or denno, against landlords, known as denshu or gyoshu, over the payment of rent, or lease. It was recorded in documents from the late Tang dynasty in the mid-8th century, but by the Song dynasty, when the denko system as a tenant farming system spread mainly in the Jiangnan Delta in central China, records of region-wide resistance to rent began to appear in the late 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. In the early Ming Dynasty in the second half of the 14th century, there were also conflicts over rents in the Jiangnan Delta, but in the mid-15th century, the Teng Maoqi Rebellion spread throughout Fujian, demanding the abolition of additional rent charges, and from the first half of the 16th century, local chronicles in the Jiangnan Delta and Fujian often featured the trend of non-payment of rents, and anti-rent movements gradually became more active. In the mid-17th century, at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, large-scale rebellions and riots over anti-rents occurred one after another in the coastal areas of Fujian Province, the border areas of Fujian and Jiangxi, and the Jiangnan Delta. Even in the 18th century, when the Qing dynasty rule was stable, not only were there intermittent small-scale anti-tax riots, but individual tenant farmers were also refusing to pay rent throughout the provinces of central and southern China, and in years of flood or drought, open and organized rent non-payment occurred throughout villages, or even groups of villages centered around cities and towns. As a result, anti-tax payment eventually became a major issue at the heart of the dynasty's state, and in 1727 Emperor Yongzheng himself proposed including the crime of non-payment of rent in the Criminal Code. The idiom "anti-tax payment" also first appeared in central government documents in 1735, in an imperial edict by Emperor Qianlong entitled "The Crime of Anti-Tax Payment." The well-known idiom "stubborn anti-tax payment" also originated in the 18th century.

The demands made by tenant households against landlords that triggered the anti-rent movement included (1) a reduction in the rent itself and a halt to collection above the fixed amount, (2) the abolition of additional rent charges, (3) the abolition of the rent contract fee and correction of the method of collection, and (4) the recognition of the right to cultivate the land. The background to the fact that anti-rent movement became a regular practice throughout central and southern China in the 18th century based on these diverse demands was the improvement in the economic capabilities of tenant households since the 16th century, based on the commercialization of handicrafts as a side job and the spread of commercial crop cultivation. As shown by the spread of fixed-rate rent in kind and fixed-rate rent in cash, the complete separation of landowner ownership and tenant household management became evident, and the right to cultivate the land, known as "denmen," gradually became established as a social practice, playing a role in strengthening the tenant households' rights to the land.

From the 1940s to the 1960s, from the Opium Wars to the Taiping Rebellion, the anti-tax movement again took the form of violent riots, and its momentum did not wane even after the suppression of the Taiping Rebellion. In the Jiangnan Delta, landlords countered this by establishing joint collection organizations such as "rent offices" to ensure the collection of tenant rents, and cooperated with the administrative authorities' rent collection offices, which were equipped with prisons and torture equipment, and severely oppressed the tenants. However, the anti-tax movement continued, and during the politically turbulent period of the 20th century from the Xinhai Revolution to the War of Liberation in the late 1940s, it formed part of the peasant movement and had a major impact on the Chinese Revolution.

[Masao Mori]

"Studies on the History of the Land System in China" by Suto Yoshiyuki (1954, University of Tokyo Press) " "World History 11: The Shaking Chinese Empire" by Yamane Yukio et al. (1961, Chikuma Shobo) " "History of the Chinese People's Rebellion 4: Late Ming to Qing II" edited by Tanigawa Michio and Mori Masao (Heibonsha, Toyo Bunko)

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

佃戸(でんこ)、佃農(でんのう)などと称される旧中国の小作農が、租(そ)、すなわち小作料の納入をめぐって行った、田主(でんしゅ)、業主(ぎょうしゅ)などといわれる地主への抵抗運動。8世紀なかば唐代後半の資料にすでに記録があるが、華中の江南デルタを中心に小作制度としての佃戸制が普及した宋(そう)代には、11世紀後半、12世紀後半、13世紀後半と、地域ぐるみの抗租の記事が散見されるようになる。明(みん)初14世紀後半にも江南デルタで小作料をめぐる抗争が行われたが、15世紀なかばに福建全域で展開された鄧茂七(とうもしち)の反乱で小作料の付加負担撤廃の要求が掲げられ、16世紀前半以来、江南デルタおよび福建方面の地方志に、風潮としての小作料の不払いがしばしば取り上げられるなど、抗租はしだいに活発となった。17世紀中葉、明末清(しん)初には、福建省の沿海地方、福建・江西の省境地方、江南デルタで、抗租を内容とする大規模な反乱ないし暴動が相次いだ。清朝支配が安定した18世紀にも、小規模の抗租暴動が断続しただけでなく、個々の小作農による小作料不払いの動きが華中・華南の諸省で例外なく進行し、水・旱(かん)害の年には、村落、あるいは市・鎮を中心にした村落群を単位として地域ぐるみで公然たる組織的小作料不払いが行われた。このため、抗租はついに王朝国家中枢の重要問題となり、1727年には雍正帝(ようせいてい)が自ら発議して小作料滞納の罪を刑法典に盛り込むに至った。「抗租」という成語も、1735年、乾隆帝(けんりゅうてい)の勅諭の「抗租の罪」という句のなかで初めて中央政府の文献に登場する。よく知られる「頑佃(がんでん)抗租」という成語も18世紀に成立したものである。

　抗租の契機となった佃戸の地主に対する要求には、(1)小作料そのものの軽減、その定額以上の徴収の停止、(2)小作料の付加負担の廃止、(3)小作契約金の廃止やその徴収方法の是正、(4)耕作権の承認など各方面にわたっている。これらの多様な要求に基づいて18世紀に抗租が華中・華南全域で恒常化した背景には、16世紀以来、副業としての手工業の商品生産化、商品作物栽培の普及に基づく佃戸の経済的力量の向上がある。そのなかで定額現物小作料や定額金納小作料の普及に示されるように、地主の土地所有と佃戸の経営の完全な分離が顕著になり、「田面(でんめん)」などと称される佃戸の耕作権が社会的慣行としてしだいに定着し、佃戸の土地に対する権利を強める役割を果たしていったのである。

　19世紀の40年代から60年代、アヘン戦争から太平天国の反乱期にかけて、抗租はふたたび激しい暴動の形態をとって展開されるようになり、太平天国の鎮圧後も勢いは衰えなかった。江南デルタでは地主の側がこれに対抗して小作料徴収を確保するべく「租桟(そさん)」などの共同徴収機構を設立し、行政当局が小作料徴収部局として設置した押佃所(おうでんしょ)と提携し、牢獄(ろうごく)や拷問のための刑具を完備して佃戸に厳しい弾圧を加えた。しかし抗租は持続的に戦われ、辛亥(しんがい)革命から1940年代後半の解放戦争に至る20世紀の政治的激動期には、農民運動の一環を構成して中国革命に大きな影響を与えた。

［森　正夫］

『周藤吉之著『中国土地制度史研究』（1954・東京大学出版会）』▽『山根幸夫他著『世界の歴史11　ゆらぐ中華帝国』（1961・筑摩書房）』▽『谷川道雄・森正夫編『中国民衆叛乱史4　明末～清Ⅱ』（平凡社・東洋文庫）』

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