The Teng Mao Rebellion

A peasant revolt that took place in China's Ming Dynasty, mainly in Fujian Province, from 1448 to 1449. It was named after its leader, Deng Maoqi. Most of Fujian is mountainous, but the climate is mild, so agriculture developed in the small plains, where an increasing number of immigrants from the Central Plains had been coming since the end of the Tang Dynasty (10th century). During the Ming Dynasty, while taxes were increasingly paid in silver, peasants also cultivated commercial crops such as sugarcane, tea, indigo, lychee, paper, and kudzu cloth, and developed commercial production. This led to even stronger control over peasants by the merchant class, who developed large landholdings based on the tenant farming system. Many of them were absentee landlords, and the tenants not only paid high rent to the landlords themselves, but also paid a secondary tax called tousei (firewood, rice, chickens, ducks, etc.), and also paid a part of the taxes and hard labor that absentee landlords were supposed to pay. On the other hand, they were organized into a vigilante group called the Soshoko system for security purposes, and Teng Maochi was the leader of this organization and was highly respected. He represented the tenants' demands and advocated the abolition of tousei, which he succeeded in achieving. He also demanded that the landlords collect the rent, but in 1448, the landlords joined forces with the authorities and tried to suppress this demand by force, so Maochi called himself "King of Sanpei" and started a rebellion by contacting an armed group of miners who were rebelling against the Ming Dynasty's state control over the development of silver mines. This rebellion was the first in Chinese history in which the tenant households took the lead and fought on behalf of peasant demands, and it is highly regarded as a historical precursor to the later anti-tax movement.

[Noriko Taniguchi]

"Iwami Hiroshi and Taniguchi Norio, New Book on Oriental History 4: The Completion of Traditional China" (Kodansha Gendai Shinsho)

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

中国、明(みん)代の1448年から49年にかけて、福建省を中心に起こった農民反乱。その指導者が鄧茂七であったのでこの名がある。福建は大部分が山地であるが、気候が温暖なので、狭小の平野部では唐末（10世紀）以来、中原(ちゅうげん)からの移住者が増加し、農業が発達した。明代になると、租税の銀納化が進む一方、農民もサトウキビ、茶、藍(あい)、茘枝(れいし)、紙、葛布(くずぬの)などの商品作物を栽培し、商品生産を展開した。そのため商人層による農民支配がいっそう強まり、彼らによって佃戸(でんこ)（小作）制に基づく大土地所有が発達した。彼らの多くは不在地主であり、佃戸は高い小作料を自ら地主のもとへ運ぶほか、冬牲(とうせい)という副租(ふくそ)（薪(しん)、米(べい)、鶏(けい)、鴨(おう)など）を納め、さらに不在地主が納めるべき租税、徭役(ようえき)の一部をも負担した。一方、彼らは治安対策上、総小甲(そうしょうこう)制という自警団に組織されていたが、鄧茂七はその組織の総甲として衆望を集めており、佃戸の要望を代表して冬牲の廃止を主張してそれを実現させた。さらに小作料を地主側からとりにくるよう要求したが、1448年、地主側は官憲と結んで武力でこの要求を抑えようとしたため、茂七は自ら「剗平(さんぺい)王」と称し、当時銀山開発をめぐって明朝の国家統制に反抗していた鉱山労働者の武装集団とも連絡をとって反乱を起こした。この反乱は中国史上初めて佃戸層が主導権を握り、農民的要求を掲げて戦った闘争で、後の抗租運動の歴史的先駆として高く評価されている。

［谷口規矩雄］

『岩見宏・谷口規矩雄著『新書東洋史4　伝統中国の完成』（講談社現代新書）』

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