It's too much for us to see so many religious titles, official ranks conferred on the monks and so many largesses given so frequently to them! And the ranking was so disordered that today it is just confusing, for example, in March the and year of Zhishun (1330, Shajin Aihuchi Bila Tena Shili (i.e. Bilan Nashih) and Tibetan Monk Xuni Die Bala Ban were conferred the title Tripitaka State Preceptor (Sanzang Guoshi, ) successively, but the former got the jade seal while the latter a gold seal, (jinyin) !Essentially jade seals were exclusively given to the national religious leaders such as dishi during the Yuan Period, but actually not only dishi got such laurels, but also other monks. Furthermore, during the years of Zhishun, because more and more monks and Taoists evaded tax, the Yuan court had to recover the tax by conferring titles. Thus the Yuan court publicly proclaimed, "all the monks who pay tax will be given religious titles".

During the time of Shundis reign, the problem of proliferating religious titles and noble ranks became unmanageable so that the government had to "prohibit the immoderate conferring of title or rank on the monks" in the 5th Year of Zhiyuan (1339).54 However, it was too late to do so because the Yuan Dynasty could never cast off ingrained habits overnight and therefore could do nothing but wait to die. No one could save the Yuan, not to speak of the fatuous Emperor Shundi who indulged in secret tantra all day long and never cared the government affairs!

( 3 ) Land, subject civilian (minhu) and property Today its really very difficult for us to list and state all the Buddhist institutions or monk's yamun, the extensive conferring of titles and ranks, because the historical records that survive can never cover all the historical facts. But one thing is sure: the Tibetan Buddhist monks in Yuan Dynasty who had been conferred different religious titles or noble ranks took different official salaries according to rank or title. Besides, they frequently got much largess directly from the emperor so that a great deal of land became the temple's estate and a large amount of property dropped into the monk's pockets:

(P.S. Click on the picture to see large version)　

Just as with land and homesteads listed in the table above, the exact number in total is already 166,420 qing and 80,000 mu. If we convert the latter according to modern values to be 800 qing, the total number will be 167,zzo ging,17 which does not cover the total records as follows: In Summer (April) the 3rd year of Zhida (1310), Sanbaonu (Tib: bzang-po nor) was conferred on the Duke of Chu with Changzhou lu as his allotted land. In the 4th year of Zhida (13H), Da Puging Temple got 8o,ooo mu of farmland together with 400 tenements as largess; 59 In the 2nd year of Tianli (1329), the field of Mamade Quan, the late queen mother of Song Dynasty was vouchsafed to Da Chengtian
Husheng Temple as eternal estate; In the 1st year of Zhishun (1330), the field of Yingguo Gong, the Song Emperor Zhao Xian, was given to Da Longxiang Jiging Temple as eternal estate; In the 2nd year of Zhiyuan of Shundis reign (1336), the mansion of Yan Tiemu'er was vouchsafed to Guanding Guoshi Nangge Xingji and renamed as Da Juehai Temple , and so on. As to the total amount of the land not recorded or clearly recorded in historical sources, no one knows now. However, the most conservative estimate is at least probably equal to the amount we can calculate todayl0. If so, the total number of the land donated by Yuan court to the monks and temples might be 330,000 qing or so. And the monks and temples were mainly Tibetan Buddhism, and the fact shows Buddhism had been respected so much during Yuan just because of Tibetan Buddhism.

How can we understand such a situation? In vo1.93 of Shihuo Zhi in Yuanshi, the record of barren and cultivated land of the provinces is: Henan province has 1,180,769 qing; Jiangxi province has 474,693 qing; Jiangzhe province has 995,081 qing. That is to say, the land occupied by Buddhist temples was more than a quarter of Henan, or a half of Jiangxi, or one third of Jiangzhe!

It was a feudalist relic for the Mongol governors to vouchsafe land to maharajas and nobles in the Yuan Dynasty. Like Mongol people, Tibetans also belong to favorable races; the Tibetan Buddhist monks were the same as the Mongol maharajas and nobles. Then it was very natural that the emperor or an court donated much land to them! The vouchsafed land listed in the table above is just of Tibetan Buddhism. If we add it to what awarded to the Mongol maharajas and nobles, the total amount of vouchsafed land during Yuan period can be described as "shocking". Such immoderate land donation resulted in a great deal of land had been occupied by very few maharajas, nobles, monks and temples and the poor tillers had no land to furrow. In the end of Yuan Dynasty, with uprisings appearing here and there, one of the reasons must be the land problem. i.e. the monks and temples had occupied too much land!

Land largess obviously continued the relic of Mongol feudalism of land distribution (fengjian fenfeng zhi), and then it must be a retread of the serf feudalism (fengjian nongnu zhi) to donate civilians to temples as "eternal civilians" (yongye hu). It must be one of such example that the civilians in Jindi District (jindibu) including Liu Yuanliang, more than 24,000 in all as stated in the above table, were transferred to Da Zhaoxiao Temple on Shouan Mountain as eternal civilians.

As to other donated property listed above, not including what cant be calculated today, the exact record is like this: 7,250 Liang of gold; 35,700 liang of silver; 131,000 ding and 550,000 guan of banknotes; 69,9oo rolls of cloth and silk; and 2o,ooo cassocks. Nearly half of them were directly donated to dishi, the imperial preceptor, the Saskya Temple and its lamas or other Tibetan monks: 5,750 lung of gold; 28,2oo liang of silver, 43,ooo ding and 50,000 guan of banknotes, 54900 rolls of cloth and silk; and 20,000 cassocks! It was therefore very reasonable for Zheng Jiefu recorded in Xin Yuanshi to heartbrokenly exclaimed, "today half of the national income has been given to Tibet (jin guojia caifu ban ru xifan )"!6' This shows that im- moderate donations during the hundred years of Yuan Period, especially to Tibetan Buddhist temples and monks, really damaged the structure of the country and harmed the peasants interests in inner China while the Yuan court attended to trifles and neglected the essentials!

5. Monks are the first ones to dodge and evade tax

During the whole period of the Yuan Dynasty, it was one of the "national policies" to esteem Buddhism. All things concerning monks and nuns are all given the green light without exception. In past feudalist dynasties of Chinese history, transportation and construction were invariably the poor working peoples obligatory labor, i.e. service (laoyi), but none of the Buddhist monks or Taoists would be called up to serve. Such situation had been existed since the time of Genghis Khan:

The decrees issued by Emperor Genghis Khan, Emperor Yurjihe, and the late Emperor clearly record: Do not ask anyone of the Buddhist monks, Erkehuns or Taoists to serve whatever errands. 12

Such decrees were frequently issued by almost all the emperors of Yuan dynasty to strengthen the policy63.Since the time of Genghis Khan, the decrees to exempt the monks and Taoists from tax and service commonly occurred. Khubilai Khan had inherited such a convention when he founded the Yuan Dynasty and this convention was over stressed by his successors.64 especially since Tibetan Buddhism got the support of the Yuan court and climbed to the highest position, the Buddhist monks and temples ran riot and did as
they wanted!65

At the beginning of Yuan Dynasty, with vPhags-pa's help, Khubilai Khan once sent an envoy to have the posthouse system renovated in Tibet .66 But later the monks from Tibet and Hexi came and went at will transported goods were just smuggled goods for their own interest. They often used the best horses and personnel without measure so that the posthouse system could not stand such deadweight and was damaged again. Their tyrannizing posture was clearly recorded in historical sources:

In the and year of Taiding (1325), Xitai Yushi Li Chang said: "When I was once passing by Pingliang Fu, Jing Zhou, Hui Zhou, Dingxi Zhou and so on, I found many Tibetan monks (xifan seng) wearing round brands with gold characters (jinzi yuanfu) were going up and down on the roads along the posthouse and many horses and personnel were thus occupied. It's said that if the posthouses could not accept all of them, they even found some excuses to live in people's houses and chased the men out and raped their women."67

The monks did not only misuse the posthouse system, but also dared to strike royal members of the Yuan court arrogantly and illicitly:

(In the 2nd year of Zhida, 1309) ... while the i8 people including the monk named Gong Ke were quarrelling about the priority to pass the road with Tukeqideji, the wife of the prince Halabaer, they barbarously pulled her down from the carriage and attacked her. Besides, they had said something against the emperor. But when the emperor was informed of the event, he ordered the mobs should be let go and not condemned.

And the common people and the lower officials were even nothing in the eyes of the monks:

In the ist year of Zhida (1308), The Tibetan monks of Kaiyuan Temple in Shangdu forcibly bought the folks firewood, and the victim accused them of violence in the Office of Liushou Li Bi. When Li was inquiring about the matter, the monks and their fol- lowing rushed in to the office with sharp blades in hand and graped Li's hair and dragged him over the desk down to the ground and kicked his private part. Then they dragged Li back and locked him in an empty room. It took quite a long time for Li to get free."

The Emperor Shizu dispatched Tongshi Tuo Tuo to escort the Tibetan monks to pass Zhending. The monks thumped the posthouse official there so hard that the latter almost died. ',

Now that the monks in the Capital under the emperor's nose, dared to beat the prince's wife, and tyrannize the common people, then it was reasonable for Yanglian Zhenjia, the Buddhist Governor of Jiangzhe to steal the treasures in the tombs of the Emperor Huizong of Song Dynasty and his successors in Hangzhou, not to speak of having killed the common people, accepted innumerable mistresses and treasures as gifts, and covered for those who had dodged tax and duty:

The Emperor Shizu as the Buddhist Governor in charge of Jiangnan, once appointed Yanglian Zhenjia. In order to collect the jewelry and treasure, he had dug ioi tombs of the former imperial Zhao family and of the ministers of the Song Dynasty at Qiantang and haoxing. He had killed four civilians and accepted innumerable mistresses and treasures as gifts. Besides, he had seized or purloin by force lots of property: 1-700 hang of gold, 68oo hang of silver, 9 jade belts, iii jade articles of big or small size, $2 pieces of sundry cowry, So hang of big pearls, 116,200 ding of money and 23, ooo mu of farmland. He covered up for 23,000 families of the tricky civilians who had dodge the taxtation
and service. And it's really inestimable how much of his hidden have not been discovered so far. 70

And it's not strange that Bilan Nashili, the Buddhist dignitary who was accomplished in Buddhism and Anxi prince Yuelu tiemuer were finally sentenced to death because of their rebellion:

In Summer (April) the 3rd year of Zhishun (1332) Yuelu Tiemuer, the son of Anxi prince Ananda, were discussing with the Ugyur monk Yuni Dabadi Labadi, the state preceptor, guoshi Bila Tena Shili (i.e. Bilan Nashili) Shajin Aihuchi about their rebellion. The emperor ordered the princes, zongwang and ministers to collaboratively torture them who finally confessed and were put to death and their families were confiticated. Bila Tena Shili Shajin Aihuchis wife named Chouchou was given to Tongzheng Fushi Bo Lan, and his jade saddle given to Sa Dun. The rest of their yeomen, livestock, land, seven precious boxes, gold pearls, precious jade, banknotes, etc. were transferred to Da Chengtian Husheng Temple71.

　　　　
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Reference (Zhang Suobi Lun Duikan Yanjiu)

Since Buddhist monks and temples occupied a great lot of land, they certainly should have paid taxation on the land income. But unfortunately they never did because the court repeatedly issued decrees to exempt them from tax and service. Not only did they did not pay taxation; they even covered up for the civilians who avoided tax. This is recorded in the Biography of ZhengJiefu in vol. 193 of Xin Yuanshi: Since all the monks were free of duty and tax, the tricky civilians, by offering some wealth to the temples, always tried to dodge taxation in the name of the monks. Then the state revenue had been swindled away and transferred to the useless Buddhists. "And Yanglian Zhenjia mentioned above actually" covered up for 23,000 families of the tricky civilians who had dodged taxation and service. And those evils he did which are not known to us to- day are innumerable!