Different from the central-local perspective that has dominated late Qing fiscal studies for decades, this paper offers a more detailed analysis by differentiating the imperial household and the ministry of revenue and examines how the two parts of the central fiscal bureaucracy interacted with each other and how these interactions contributed to the deepening of the fiscal crisis during the Taiping civil war. This paper reveals that the Taiping rebellion not only deepened the Qing government’s financial crisis in an unprecedented way, disrupting the financial balance between the central and local governments but also disrupted the financial balance between the ministry of revenue and the imperial household department. On the one hand, collecting new taxes in the wartime led to decreases of Lianghuai salt tax and Canton custom, the two greatest contributors to imperial household revenues, not only during the wartime but also in the postwar era, which was the single most important cause to the fiscal crisis of the imperial household. On the other hand, once the imperial fiscal separation was broken, royal spending went unchecked. In short, while the fiscal decentralization contributed to the fiscal crisis of the imperial household, the deteriorating fiscal relationship between the imperial and bureaucratic governments in turn worsened the already problematic central-local relationship by increasing the fiscal burden on the ministry and weakening the fiscal management capacity of the center.
FENG Jia.
The Breakdown of the Qing Fiscal Separation and the Prolonged Fiscal Crisis during and after the Taiping Civil War. Jinan Journal. 2020, 42(5): 119-132