课植农桑:唐代乡村基层组织与农业生产

Supervising Crops--Planting:The Relation of the Rural Grassroot Organizations and Agricultural Production in the Tang Dynasty

唐代中央集权体制下的乡村基层组织具有督导农业生产发展的法定职责,其历史必要性来自于均田制和租庸调制的实施。按比户口、检察非违、课植农桑和催驱赋役等各项职责皆具有重要的农业经济意义。其中课植农桑一项,最为典型地反映了唐政府对于农业生产的强制性干预,它在资源分配、效率评估和农民经济行为选择等多个方面得到体现。随着均田制的瓦解和租庸调制为两税法所替代,乡村基层组织由上层指定的督导农业生产的功能逐渐失去制度性的依据与内在动力,并在后来的历史发展中趋于消亡。

The rural grassroot organizations in centralism of the Tang Dynasty,had the legal responsibility of supervising the development of agricultural production,and its historical necessity came from the implementation of the systems of land equalization and regular tax in the Tang Dynasty. The duties such as checking the registered household population,inspecting illegal actions,supervising crops-planting and urging taxes and services had significance in agricultural economy. Among them,supervising crops-planting most typically mirrored the compulsory intervention of the Tang government in agricultural production,which was reflected in many aspects,such as resource allocation,efficiency evaluation and farmers’ choice of economic behaviors. With the disintegration of the systems of land equalization and regular tax,the function of supervising agriculture of the rural grassroot organizations designated by the upper level gradually lost its institutional basis and internal motivations,and tended to die out in the later historical development.