692 REFORM OF GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION
taxation, Chang Sun-p'ing, established special relief granaries in rural villages
called Righteous Granaries (i-ts 'ang) or Village Granaries (she-ts 'ang) located
at the village shrine to the spirit of the earth (she) and financed by contributions
of one picul (shih) per family, under the supervision of the village chief to store
grain for relief in time of famine. These village granaries performed their func-
tion for a while, but they declined when the managers of the granary carelessly
spent the reserves, used them all up for famine relief, or turned them over to the
prefectural magistrate - an example that should have made later statecraft thinkers
wary of the benefits of local elite control over district magistrates.
In any case, the village granaries were reestablished in the reign ofT'ai-tsung
in the T'ang dynasty in the early seventh century, but the same process of decline
occurred when the government was forced to take over the Righteous Granary
reserves to meet expenses during national fiscal crises in the reigns of Empress
Wu (r. 690-705) and Emperor Chung-tsung (r. 705-710).37
Yu cited the commentary of Hu (Hung?) of the Sung who said that although
the Righteous Granaries of the Sui were not that well stocked, they were effec-
tive because they were located in the rural villages and the starving peasants
had close access to them. By contrast, after the Sui dynasty the Righteous Gra-
naries were situated in the district towns, at some distance from the villages,
and the dispensation of grain was controlled by the yamen clerks who obstructed
relief grants by their bureaucratic paperwork or embezzled as much as they could
get for themselves. The only beneficiaries of these urban Righteous Granaries
were those who lived nearby.
Hu lauded the act of Emperor Shih-tsung of the Chou dynasty for granting
relief to the starving popUlation in 959, but he also remarked that relief loans,
as opposed to direct grants, presented problems to the peasants. While the peas-
ants were saved from starvation, they did not have the economic capacity to repay
the loans. Furthermore, the government's wastage or interest charges gave offi-
cials a reason to dun the peasants for interest payments even though they were
unable to repay the principle. Some clerks pocketed all repayments without record-
ing them, or collected too much from the peasants during bumper crop years,
but in times of famine they were stingy in granting relief and failed to grant tax
exemptions in compensation for natural disasters like flood and droughP8
Yu also cited Ch'iu Chiln's (Ming dynasty) praise of Hu's criticism of the
evils attendant on grain loans and his comment that in the Ming period mal-
administration of Righteous Granaries was just as bad as what Hu had described.
Granary clerks were indiscriminate in collecting or buying grain for storage
and often sold it in normal times to prevent spoilage from rotting. When they
granted loans during a famine, they did not always give it to the needy. In col-
lecting repayment, they were too strict in adhering to deadlines, added wastage
or interest charges, demanded repayment in cash for grain loans to profit from
the rate of exchange, or drew up false papers indicating that a loan had been
made as a pretext for extorting payments from ordinary peasants. In summary,
Ch'iu concluded that