The close relationship between grain transportation and military farms of the Ming dynasty is revealed by the term “Military Farms for Grain Transportation,” (ts’ao-yün t’un-t’ien 漕運屯田) referring to the farms of the Guards and Battalions (wei-so 衛所) that supplied the transportation grain. Taking Chiang-hsi as an example, this essay illustrates that, once the military farms were fully developed after 1404 and assigned to grain transportation in 1414, many of the transportation-troops (yün-chün 運軍) were recruited from the farm-troops (t’un-chün 屯軍) whose families owned military farms. After these farm-troops had left home for their transportation duties, the cultivation of their military farms was left to the remaining adults of their families or even to their tenants, while the transportation-troops continued to receive rents. However, while the burdens of the transportation-troops grew steadily after 1465, their military farms were increasingly taken over by bullies or, due to the loss of registration records after long years, lost to their tenants. Without the economic support of their military farms, many transportation-troops were impoverished. After 1573, some places like Kan-chou Prefecture (贛州府) and Chi-an Prefecture (吉安府) began to allot transportation duties according to the productivity of the military farms or by ranking the military households by property and adult population. In other cases, surplus from rents was used to subsidize the living and vessel construction expenses incurred during the grain transportation. These elements worked to form a close relationship between military farms and grain transportation, which the Ch’ing dynasty inherited and consolidated.
Ming dynasty, Chiang-hsi, Guards and Battalions, military farms, grain transportation
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