청대의 거래, 민국의 공증 ― 淸水江 지역 토지거래문서를 통해 본 稅契와 驗契 ―

김한밝 명청사학회 2026 명청사연구 Vol.- No.65

In the Qing period, shuiqi (tax registration of contracts) functioned as a procedure through which the state confirmed the transfer of private ownership from land transactions. In general, the government notarized contracts in exchange for a notarization fee. However, among privately preserved documents from the Qingshui River region in southwestern China, the overwhelming majority of private contracts remained as baiqi that had not undergone tax registration. This situation was attributable not only to the limited reach of governmental control over the Qingshui River basin, but also to the premodern Chinese state’s relatively passive stance toward contract tax collection under the guiding principles of “low taxation” and “minimal litigation”. With the establishment of the Republican government, however, the state simultaneously required the obligation to verify contracts concluded in the past and the right to secure fiscal revenue through such verification. The Republican government confronted the persistent fiscal deficits that had continued since the late Qing. Among the potential sources of revenue to which it turned were transaction contracts concluded during the Qing period. In securing revenue from contract taxes, the priority was not to raise the tax rate on future contracts, but to subject contracts concluded under the previous dynasty to tax registration. To this end, the Republican government stipulated new tax rates of 5 percent and 1 percent depending on whether Qing contracts had undergone tax registration at the time of their conclusion. This represented a novel initiative not observed in earlier dynastic transitions. In order to implement this policy, the Guizhou provincial government introduced a new form of notarized document for Qing contracts known as duanmai qi. In 1914, the Republican government established a new procedure called yanqi (contract verification). Separate from the payment of contract tax, this was an additional step introduced in the name of contract inspection. It was soon incorporated into the administrative framework of tax registration and became a new source of fiscal revenue. As a result, in 1914, the combined income from verification fees and contract taxes in Guizhou Province reached an unprecedented level. Furthermore, Guizhou created a new standardized form, shuiyan maiqi, thereby fully integrating the verification procedure into the tax registration system. Over time, the authorities increased the fees associated with both verification and tax registration, placing growing pressure on the populace. This change suggests that the strategy of generating revenue through Qing-era contracts had reached its limits. In other words, the focus of fiscal extraction shifted from uncovering previously unregistered contracts to increasing taxation on contracts that would be concluded in the future. Did Republican officials ultimately achieve their dual objectives—ascertaining ownership and securing revenue—through tax registration and contract verification? Compared with the Qing’s ideals of low taxation and minimal litigation, they operated with considerably fewer constraints. They raised tax rates to three times those of the Qing and intervened actively in cases of noncompliance with tax registration. Yet the realization of these aims was far from straightforward. Local practices in the Qingshui River region, centered on the continued use of unregistered white contracts, remained deeply entrenched.

청대 귀주성 청수강 유역 소수민족의 賣田과 裏面契約

박찬근 명청사학회 2024 명청사연구 Vol.- No.61

In the Qing dynasty, where taxes were imposed on landowners based on land units, it was necessary to ascertain the residency status of the owners and the state of land ownership. Therefore, transactions related to land and houses were mandated to be reported to the state. Consequently, Qing dynasty land contracts offer vital insights into the everyday strategies adopted within minority communities, between the state's principles and their modes of agreement. This study focuses on land sale contracts found in the Qingshuijiang Documents , a collection of documents excavated from minority residences in the Qingshuijiang River basin in Guizhou Province. The practices of private transaction contracts transcend the dimension of everyday economic activities and hold significant meanings as expressions of the relationship between the region and the state, and of mutual interaction and trust-building within local communities. This paper analyzes the land sale contracts recorded in the Qingshuijiang Documents to reveal that officially recognized contracts coexist with those based on mutual trust within the community, and sometimes, dual contracts—‘red contract’ and ‘white contract’—were drafted to simultaneously ensure the stability of ownership and maintain the economic value of the transaction items as recognized locally. Additionally, while drafting these dual contracts, the sale price listed in the ‘red contract’ was approximately half of that recorded in the ‘white contract’. This was understood as a measure to reduce the transfer tax payable to the authorities. However, this implies that relying on the sale prices listed in the ‘red contract’ to ascertain the actual land prices at the time may not fully reflect the reality. When creating any economic-related data based on both red and white contracts, the possibility of distortion must be considered. The reliability of the sale prices presented in the ‘red contract’, including the feasibility of compiling any statistics based on them, needs to be reconsidered.

清末至民国时期地契研究 - 以山东蒙阴县公氏家传地契为例 -

张力,公杰 한중법학회 2017 中國法硏究 Vol.30 No.-

청말 이후 민국시기는 토지계약이 매우 활발했던 시기중 하나이다. 현존하 는 토지교역계약문서 수량부터 각종통계자료에 이르기까지 이 시기의 각종 정 책법령은 모두 이 시기의 번영을 보여주고 있다. 이러한 번영의 현상은 특정 시대배경의 특징과 관습을 반영하기도 한다. 이러한 현상은 여러 방면에서 경 제발전과 정책법률에 영향을 미치고, 천재지변 또한 이 시기의 토지교역의 제 도의 발전개혁이 되기도 하였다. 따라서 본 논문에서는 토지교역 계약유형을 분석하고, 표준근거계약의 실례로서 형식계약, 비형식계약, 토지매매계약, 토 지임대계약에 따라 분석한다. 또한 이 시기의 주요 토지교역계약 유형별 특징 과 이 시기의 토지교역에 대하여 조세부담, 자연재해, 이주민문제, 전쟁 및 강 도 등 4가지를 원인으로 한 귀납분석을 진행한다. In the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, is a very frequent land transaction period, from the existing land transaction contracts and the number of statistical data, and this period of various policies and laws can be seen in the “prosperity” picture. Behind this “boom” phenomenon not only reflects the characteristics of the specific background, and the consistency of the habit of compliance. The reasons for this phenomenon are in many aspects, not only because of the economic development, also affect the policies and laws, and natural calamities and man-made misfortunes under the helpless. The period of land transactions in the system is also the innovation and development of this period of previous generations, the main land transaction contract types were analyzed according to different standards according to the contract, for example red white, a kind of contract, the former contract for comparative analysis, shows the characteristics of this period of land contract the types, summarizes the analysis of the causes of land transactions during this period, including the tax burden, natural disasters, immigration, wars for four reasons.