Han Land Tax System

Timeline

1. c. -202–-155Guanzhong–Central Plains · ChinaThe Book of Han, Treatise on Food and Money, records that Qin Shi Huang "collected the greater half as tax." The Han began with light land tax: Gaozu "taxed one in fifteen," and Emperor Hui again reaffirmed one in fifteen. In the twelfth year of Emperor Wen half the people's tax was granted, and in the thirteenth year land tax was abolished. The Annals of Emperor Jing record "ordered half the land tax" in the fifth month of the first year, while the Treatise on Food and Money states "in the second year of Emperor Jing, ordered the people to pay half the land tax, one in thirty," making one-thirtieth the Western Han land tax standard.
2. c. 9–220Central Plains · ChinaWang Mang attempted to restore the well-field system and reform land and rent, provoking social turmoil; after the Guangwu restoration the Eastern Han resumed the one-thirtieth system, but the expansion of great estates' manorial economy shrank the state's direct tax base.
3. c. 220–500Central Plains–Jiangnan · ChinaCao Wei implemented military-agricultural colonies and a household-based cloth-and-rent system, levying in-kind taxes by household; the Han model of taxing land by yield gradually shifted. The Western Jin land-occupation system and the Northern and Southern Dynasties' equal-field system both inherited the Han land tax tradition while adjusting collection methods.