Reform of Public Stipend Silver for the Green Standard Army during the Mid-Qing Dynasty
Public stipend silver(gongfei mingliang)was the nominal military salary received by officers to meet the public needs of the troops.Under the basic principle of Haoxian guigong,Yongzheng emperor attempted to strictly distinguish between the public stipend silver and the regular taxes,hoping that local military officials could manage autonomously.But with the establishment of the system that public stipend silver accounts for 2％of the soldiers'pay,as well as the intervention of governors and chief secretary in the management,its nature gradually became indistinguishable from regular taxes at the provincial financial level.To address military expenditure during the Qianlong reign,the widespread practice of shifting funds has led to an increasingly blurred boundary between public stipend silver and regular taxes.Eventually,it was transformed into regular taxes in the forty-sixth year of the Qianlong reign.The reform of public stipend silver represented a structural adjustment within the military finance system,providing the Green Standard Army with an independent and institutionalized source of public funding.However,the use of these funds was also difficult to effectively implement due to the increasingly rigid system of quota reported accounts.
Qing Dynastythe Green Standard Armypublic stipend silverhaoxian guigongmilitary fiscal
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维普
