Abstract
The actual operation process of the local financial system in the late Tang Dynasty was limited to historical data and it was difficult to research.However,some new perspectives could be provided by the epitaphs of local officials,hall wall records and virtue memorial tablets for the study of financial history.Local officials,such as Lu Shiqiong,took broaden sources of income and reduce expenditure as the two major ideas for dealing with financial funds,and formed a national and county assessment by perfecting the conversion of prefecture and county taxes into grain payments.A three-tiered price system was formed:the state purchased grain price,the prefecture and county converted grain price,the market price.After cutting down fiscal expenditure items such as manual labor and horse raising,which were difficult to distinguish between public and private,and standardizing the implementation process of systems such as purchases grain price and public kitchen,fiscal reforms of Henan Prefecture and Tongzhou were completed.According to the epitaphs of local prefectures and county officials,we can see the specific process of local officials handling financial affairs and dealing with financial problems in the late Tang Dynasty,that was the"financial practice"of officials.The analysis of local officials'handling of financial affairs shows that the study of financial history should change from the research mode of explaining the provisions of the financial system to the research orientation of analyzing the process of financial practice with people as the center.
万方数据