Abstract:

The organization and change of local society had a close relationship with the evolution of tax and labor reform. This essay uses Shouguang county in Shandong province as a case study to demonstrate how magistrates were able to collect enough taxes and services despite the lack of adequate and records and maps. This study shows that by the end of the Qianlong era the magistrates had carried out the "conform with the village"method to reorganize grass roots administrations. This tax collection method identified the tax-paying villages based on the actual residential patterns of the people and then recorded their tax quotas, rather than following the lijia organization. The method was simple, but it had great social significance. With the establishment of this method, village heads played a more important role in collecting and remitting taxes