Abstract: Historical research on rent resistance must include studies of government policy and legal regulation. Much of the previous research on rent resistance however, has focused on the status of tenants as defined in the tenancy law of the fifth year of the Yongzheng reign, while ignoring concrete evidence from the actual struggles of tenants. Based on extant legal cases of peasant rent resistance, this article finds that, contrary to the received wisdom, the government usually did not permit increases in rent. When they could not collect rents fully landlords sued to reclaim tenancy rights but this was often very difficult to accomplish. In lawsuits over rent, landlords had no special advantages and were treated the same as any other type of creditor.

摘要： 研究历史上的抗租行为，不能不涉及有关的政策和法律问题。但这一直是研究的一个薄弱点，或有也是想当然地从“地主阶级的国家”推出结论。以往不多的具体研究中，虽谈及雍正五年条例，也是从佃农身份地位的变化的角度出发，对如何处理租佃纠纷争执的发生，则注意不够。本文通过分析现有的案例发现：与一般想象的相反，官府是通常不允许增租的(因为朝廷早有“不加赋”的规定)；地主因收租不足而夺佃时，往往也难以如愿；打官司时地主所面临的情况，亦与债主相差不多，等等。看来与此有关的问题，都还值得重新探讨。