The Ministry or Board of Revenue was one of the Six Ministries under the Department of State Affairs in

imperial China The history of China spans several millennia across a wide geographical area. Each region now considered part of the Chinese world has experienced periods of unity, fracture, prosperity, and strife. Chinese civilization first emerged in the Y ...

Name

The term "Ministry" or "Board of Revenue" is an English gloss of the department's purview. It is also similarly translated as the or . In Chinese, the various names of the department never referred to the government's monetary income. Instead, prior to the

Sui dynasty The Sui dynasty ( ) was a short-lived Dynasties of China, Chinese imperial dynasty that ruled from 581 to 618. The re-unification of China proper under the Sui brought the Northern and Southern dynasties era to a close, ending a prolonged peri ...

, it was known as the ''Dùzhī'' from its role in overseeing government expenses. Under the Sui, it was known as the "Ministry of People" (''Mínbù'') from its role overseeing the census and its associated taxation. From the Tang to the Qing, it was known as the "Households Department" (''Hùbù''), again from its role in overseeing a census reckoned in households and its associated taxation.

Administrative level

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...

: subordinate to the Department of State Affairs *

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...

: subordinate to the Secretariat *

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

: originally subordinate to the Secretariat, relatively autonomous after 1380, coordinated by the Grand Secretariat after the mid-1400s

Functions

Charles O. Hucker wrote that the Ministry of Revenue was "in general charge of population and land censures, assessment and collection of taxes, and storage and distribution of government revenues." The ministry was usually divided into specialized bureaus: * Census Bureau (戶部司) * General Accounts Bureau (度支司) * Treasury Bureau (金部司) * Granaries Bureau (倉部司) Each bureau was headed by a director (郎中). The ministry was headed by a minister (尚書).

References

Citations

Sources

* *
Ministry (Board) of Finance
" H.S. Brunnert, V.V. Hagelstrom ''Present Day Political Organization of China'' (1912: reprinted: Routledge, 2012), pp. 119–121. Government of Imperial China Six Ministries

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...