U368 Mongol Conquest
Week 8, Wednesday:  How Ögedei got the balish

 

  1. New Mongol currency
    1. Local coins in Middle East, local paper in China (silk as reserve)
    2. Central currency:  Silver ingots (ding, yastuq, balish):  50 taels=c. 4 pounds
      1. Borrowed from Jin and Song practice
  2. N. China and Trans-Oxiana chief sedentary areas under direct rule
    1. Zhenhai/Chinqai is Ögedei's key clerk (Christian Uighur)
    2. Yila Chucai over N. China; Mahmud Yalavach over Trans-Oxiana
      1. Yila's plan:  "evolve" the dynasty; he fights Yalavach, Mongol generals
      2. Over 50% of households under imperial clansmen; Yila can't eliminate this
  3. Taxes:  Mongol and Chinese
    1. Mongol tax principle:  empower the one who needs the goods to grab them
      1. Paizas gave messengers, army commanders right to grab anything
      2. Strength:  no bureaucracy; weakness:  big damage to producers
      3. Repeated attempts to regularize it as silver tax; never permanent
    2. Chinese land and commercial taxes:  1230:  officials set up to collect it
      1. Land tax paid in grain by all, based on land and household size
      2. Census taken 1233:  730,000 households; in 1236:  1,830,000
    3. Household taxes and monopoly taxes
      1. Household tax:  traditional silk tax & new silver tax
        1. Total silver quota:  10,000 ding (1231) > 22,000 (1236)
      2. Salt, vinegar, fishing, gold, silver, iron-work monopolies
    4. Despite regular system, habit of ad hoc taxation persists
      1. Mongol rulers make "drafts" on Chinese revenues (Juvaini, p. 233)
  4. Ortaq "partners" (Uighurs, Muslims) make the silver tax go further
    1. Ortaqs borrow capital from Mongol rulers >> trade and money-lending
    2. Lending silver (from taxes!) to Chinese to pay silver tax:  huge profit
      1. 1st silver tax in Chinese history; 1st gov't not to provide bronze coin
    3. Demand for silver raises price, interest rates >> ortaq & rulers' profit
      1. 1207:  Silver/gold=12/1; 1255, Qara-qorum:  9/1; 1282: 7.6/1 (1235, Iraq=7/1)
      2. 1240:  Ögedei makes gesture, repays civilian creditors, limits interest
  5. Yila Chucai's system ruined by Turkestani profiteers (and Ögedei's demands)
    1. 1239:  'Abd ur-Rahman bids to farm household silver; quota to 44,000 ding
    2. Tax farming replaces officials for silver and monopoly
      1. Contractor agrees to supply fixed quota of profit for Mongols
      2. Extra over quota pays costs of collection, profit for contractor
      3. Contractors bid for quota >> constant push to raise quotas
    3. 1241:  Yalaqach over North China, son Mas'ud Beg over Trans-Oxiana
      1. Bidding wars on household silver tax, monopolies, and commercial taxes
      2. Yila Chucai vainly remonstrates, dies without influence