地域之外的社会:明代役法与一个跨地域网络的兴衰

An Extra-Regional Society:The Corvée Labor System and the Rise and Fall of a Cross-Regional Network in the Ming Dynasty

明代以业著籍,户分民、军、匠、灶四类,每类户籍均需世代承担特定徭役。由于服役的需要,编入这几种户籍的民众,尤其是军户和匠户,必须不时离开家乡,前往数百里乃至数千里的地方当差。以此为契机,在明前期相当长的时间里,出现了大规模的民众跨地域流动;同时,在原籍、卫所、服役工场等地之间,形成了一个涵盖整个明帝国的跨地域网络。在其最盛期,仅计入军户、匠户的数量,这个网络就囊括了全国近四分之一的户数;而每年参与跨地域流动的军户、匠户,可能多达150万左右。这一数量庞大的流动人群和跨越南北的服役网络的存在,在推动市场经济的兴起、加强普通民众与村外世界的社会联系、促进跨地域信息流通、建构民众的空间认知和文化认同等方面,都可能产生了不容忽视的影响。因此,对这一跨地域网络兴衰的探讨,为我们理解明代政府和社会的运作提供了一个独特的视角。

In the Ming Dynasty, the people were registered in four categories according to their major occupations. There were civilian, military, artisan, and salt-processing households, and each household was hereditarily obligated to provide specific eorvee service based on its registered category. The registered population in general, and the military and artisan households in particular, had to leave their hometowns and regularly visit places hundreds of or even thousands of miles away from their homes to render their services. As a result, there appeared large-scale cross-regional population mobility for quite a long time in the earlier period of the Ming Dynasty. At the same time, a cross-regional network from their hometowns to their garrisons or workplaees that covered almost the whole territory of the Ming Empire came into being. In the heyday of the Ming Dynasty, the network included nearly one-fourth of the registered households of the empire, with only military and artisan households counted. Every year, as many as 1.5 million military and artisan households were involved in this cross-regional mobility. The existence of such a great amount of mobile population and the network that covered almost the whole empire may have made an unignorable influence on, among other things, leading to the rise of market economy, intensifying the social connection between the peasants and the world beyond their home villages, promoting the flow of information across the empire, and constructing the people＇ s spatial perception and cultural identity. An exploration into the rise and fall of such a cross-regional network, therefore, may provide a unique perspective for our understanding of the operation of the government and society in the Ming Dynasty.