清雍乾時期八旗米局的興革: 制度史的考察

In order to adapt to the new situation after 1644and keep the Eight Banners System continuously operating, the rulers of the Ch'ing dynasty devised many new measures, one of which was the creation of the Eight-banner Bureau of Rice (Ba chí mi jyu). Emperor Yung-cheng established the Ba chí mi jyu in 1728 especially to prevent bannermen in Beijing from suffering losses while buying and selling rice. However, his successor, Emperor Ch'ien-lung, thought that this institution suffered from systematic problems and ordered the closure of the Ba chí mi jyu in 1725. It is very unusual that an institution that aimed to take care of bannermen only remained in existence for twenty-five years. From the perspective of the operations of the Ba chí mi jyu, the scope of its work increased alongside excellent management and strict assessment, and it seemed that the institution could carry on. On the other hand, from the perspective of its institutional structure, the Ba chí mi jyu had numerous flaws: its function overlapped with the Rice Bureau of the Five Administrative areas of the Capital (Wu chen mi jyu); the emperor dispatched officers to the Ba chí mi jyu without considering the relative importance of their duties in their former positions, and the institution had little understanding of bannermen's actual grain consumption. These defects were probably the reasons why the institution was discontinued, rather than the officially stated reasons that officers were slack in their work or could not bear the competition from nongovernmental merchants. Therefore, this article will analyze the business model and administrative management of the Ba chí mi jyu and the influence of its preservation and abolishment on the lives of bannermen. Through comparative analysis, this study discusses the evolution of the Ba chí mi jyu and its relationship to the economy, politics, and society of the Ch'ing Dynasty in the mid-eighteenth century.