The fiscal structure of Ritsuryo administrative offices

In order to clarify further the fiscal structure and historical characteristics of central administrative offices in ancient Japan governed under the Ritsuryo律令 legal codes introduced from Tang China, the author of the present article focuses on discourse conducted to date on the aspects of budgeting and fiscal management, in particular comparing the duties of the Tax Revenue Accounting Office (Shukeiryo 主計寮) of the Civil Affairs Bureau (Minbusho民部省) with the fiscal management agencies of the Tang Dynasty’s central government.<br> The funds necessary to operate the Ritsuryo state’s administrative apparatus were allotted on a project-by-project basis through a process of application and approval deliberated by the Shukeiryo. In contrast to the Tang emperors formally receiving annual budget reports from their fiscal management office, the Takushi 度支, the emperors of Japan did not participate in state fiscal operations. Moreover, in Japan the project funding applications submitted by administrative agencies gradually became predetermined, thus formalizing the Shukeiryo’s budgeting function.<br> In terms of the procurement of administrative funding, the Tang Dynasty Takushi not only relied on the general taxation system, but also a system of trade that utilized local fiscal resources. At the initial stages of the Japanese Ritsuryo system, provisions allowed only for institutions procuring the wherewithal for rites and ceremonies from exclusively within the capital (Kinai畿内) region, in stark contrast to the revenue procurement function of Tang Dynasty fiscal managers, revealing institutions continued from pre-Ritsuryo times. With the increased need for funding as the central bureaucracy expanded, the demand was met by the expansion of a system of trade in-kind procuring revenue sources from outside the capital region to fund the central government.<br> With respect to budgeting, it was the Tang Dynasty Office of Auditing (Hibu 比部) that kept accounts of the whole country’s annual fiscal situation. Also in Tang China each administrative office possessed its own independent source of funds called gongxie 公廨, the use of which the Hibu auditors also prepared an accounting settlement. The duties of the Hibu were assumed in Japan by the Shukeiryo, which dealt less with annual budgeting than confirming the conditions of each administrative office's store supplies, revealing that at the early stages of the Ritsuryo system in Japan each administrative office did not possess its own independent sources of revenue, thus reducing the significance of accounting settlement procedures.<br> The author concludes that in all fiscal functions---budgeting, procurement and settlement of accounts---the Japanese Ritsuryo institutions differed markedly from those of the Tang Dynasty, indicating the dominance of the pre-Ritsuryo custom of ruling elites at the center redistributing tribute submitted from the provincial regions.