嘉禾吏民田家莂的生成、性質及其功能

The Production, Nature, and Function of Contract Agreements莂of Farming Households in the Three Kingdoms Period

嘉禾吏民田家莂的同文符號、剖分線、殘字和同文莂等遺存形態表明，田家莂符合券莂「大書中央，中破別之」的特徵。同文符號的橫筆橫跨左、中、右三莂，不少券莂兩個「文」字騎縫，兩側遺存「剖分線」，或者削去兩側文字，以及左、右同文莂不能拼合，且能識別出一些中莂，均體現出田家莂很可能是經過兩次破莂生成的一式三份的「三辨券」。其形制特徵與漢晉時期券莂的形態基本相同。
田租類竹簡入受莂與田家莂雖然皆為「三辨券」，但兩者的行政功能不同。田租類竹簡入受莂當屬於「出入券」，反映的是運繳管理者鄉部與倉庫物資收受的關係，作為物資送交憑證使用。理論上鄉部持「出券」（左莂、出受莂），倉持「入券」（右莂、入受莂），另一份「入券」（中辨券、中莂、入受莂）提交給倉曹或縣廷監管機構，以供檢校。
田家莂反映的是鄉部與田家、田戶曹三方的關係。鄉部代表孫吳官方，依據「出券」以及戶口、田畝數據，逐一製作各戶田家莂，詳細記錄每戶田家田租完納、送繳至倉庫的具體情形，左莂給田家，右莂自存，中莂（中辨券）提交給田戶（經用）曹。田戶（經用）曹依據倉曹或監管機構保管的「入受莂」（中辨券）以及掌管的戶口、田畝、倉庫收受物資等數據，對各鄉部田家莂進行檢校。田家莂兼具三大功能：田家完稅憑證、物資輸納憑證和對帳功能。孫吳券莂制度大體上承續秦漢「三辨券」的傳統。

Features found on contract agreements, namely bie莂, of the farming households of officials and of commoners from the Jiahe era of the Three Kingdoms period (232–238), such as contents stretching across multiple portions of the originally intact tablet, dividing lines, residual broken characters, and repeated text, reveal that these agreements conform to the characteristic of“writing large characters in the center and breaking them from the middle.”In many cases, the horizontal strokes of the character tong同stretch across the left, middle and right portions of the agreement, division lines are visible, or traces remain of the two wen文written at the junction of the edges of two pieces of the tablet after it was split. When two copies, namely portions of the original tablet, remain of a specific agreement, the left and right cannot always be spliced together, evidence of a missing third; moreover, some middle portions have been identified. All of the above evidence indicates that the contract agreements of farming households were likely produced in triplicate on one tablet that would then be divided into three, shapes and characteristics of which are roughly the same as those of similar agreements from the Han to Jin dynasties.
“Entry and reception”contract agreements produced on bamboo slips related to land tax were also made in triplicate, but their administrative functions differed from those of the contract agreements of farming households. The former, used as a form of proof of delivery, were produced to record the goods entered into and taken out of granaries and warehouses, thereby reflecting the relationship between the district, which was in charge of transportation, and the granaries and warehouses receiving the goods. The district office retained the left side of the agreement which recorded the delivery, whereas the granary or warehouse kept the right side detailing that they had received said goods. The middle portion of the tablet, which likewise recorded the reception of the goods, was submitted to the granary bureau or the supervisory body of the county court for inspection.
In contrast, the contract agreements of farming households reflect the relationships between the districts, households, and related bureaus. The district, representing the Sun Wu dynastic state, produced these forms based on contract agreements indicating“delivered [goods],”household registers, and landholdings registers, and each recorded the household’s land rental payment as well as the goods they had delivered to the granary or warehouse. The left side of the certificate was given to the household, the right portion was retained by the district, and the middle of the tablet was submitted to the supervisory bureau. The bureau officials overseeing the fields and households then checked the contract agreements of the farming households from each district according to the“entry and reception”agreements, namely the middle section of the tablet, kept by the granary bureau or related supervisory agency as well as according to the goods received from the households, fields, and granaries and warehouses within their jurisdiction. The contract agreements of farming households of the Jiahe era thus held three functions: certifying that the households paid their taxes, confirming that their goods had been delivered, and reconciling the potential discrepancies between documents. In this way, the contract agreement system of the Sun Wu state inherited the traditional practice of“contracts in three divisions”of the Qin and Han dynasties.