從清末剛毅、鐵良南巡看中央和地方的財政關係

Late Ch'ing Centre-Province Fiscal Relations as Seen in the Imperial Missions of Kang-i and T'ieh-liang in 1899 and 1904

歷史學家研究晚清歷史時，常聚焦於中央和地方之間權力此消彼長的問題上。早前史家咸認為太平天國革命被鎮壓後，無論就軍權、政權，以至財權各方面，中央控制日益式微，尋演變為督撫專政之局。1960年代末期以降，前述論點不斷備受質疑；論者指出中央既未如成說所云大權旁落，督撫亦未如想像中那樣為所欲為。儘管後一說法在學界中漸居優勢，惟直至最近，督撫權力膨脹，中央集權體制瓦解的舊調，仍為不少學者所信奉。1899年清政府任命剛毅為欽差大臣，南下到江蘇和廣東整頓財政；五年後，又以鐵良為欽使，南赴江蘇理財。在全面討論清末中央和地方的財政關係前，作者擬先就這兩次欽使南巡作個案研究，針對諸如：使命的指標、中央頒予兩位欽使訓令的明確度及落實可能性、他們舉措建言的影響、所完成的任務的有效地落實程度及督撫對二人作為的反響、使命的政治含義等問題，詳加探討。作者發現剛毅、鐵良二位欽使只專注於短期內獲取更多的財源，其作為對所巡視有關省分的財政管理體系，並不具長期性的影響。中央雖仍握有掌控督撫仕途榮枯的行政權力，卻因對省財政安排茫無所知而無從落實有效的管治。相應地，督撫面對下層盤根錯節的貪污舞弊，亦因各種制約而無力整頓。對晚清中央和地方的財政關係，吾人實不能簡單地以非此即彼的「零和」視之。

Historians have always focused on the issue of the rise of endemic regionalism at the expense of the central government in their study of the history of late Ch'ing China. Earlier on, there existed a consensus among historians that after the T'ai-p'ing uprising, the central authorities had lost their political, military and fiscal power, which fell into the hands of the provincial governors-general and governors. From the late 1960's on, the validity of such a claim has been questioned continuously; historians have pointed out that the centre did not lose its power to the province, while the provincial authorities were not free to do as. they pleased. In spite of the fact that this argument has gradually attained ascendancy, up to now many scholars still believe in the conventional line of interpretation. In 1899 a politically sensitive mission to the affluent provinces of Kiangsu and Kwangtung for financial reorganization was entrusted to Kang-i; for similar purposes a second mission led by T'ieh-Iiang was dispatched to Kiangsu five years later. Before proceeding to discuss centre-province fiscal relations in all their aspects, the author conducts an in-depth case study of these two imperial missions, in order to explore the following issues: the rationale and aims of their mission, how specific and realizable their instructions were, the impact of their recommendations, the effectiveness of their accomplished tasks, the response of the provincial authorities to their actions, and the political implications of these two missions. My findings indicate that their extractions and political manoeuvring merely concentrated on gaining larger short-term revenues; they produced no long-term effects on the structure of the fiscal administration system of the provinces. The experience of these two missions reveal that while the centre was accepted as political arbiter, the central financial system clearly was lacking in administrative capacity. It should be noted that like the central government, the financial power of the governors-general and governors was much circumscribed by their clerks and subordinates in the revenue-collecting process, as a great part of the taxes collected were embezzled by this substratum even before they reached the higher levels of the provincial official hierarchy. Viewed from this perspective, we simply cannot regard the centre-province fiscal relations in late Ch'ing China as ''zero-sum''.