The writer treats in this article a few problems of the "Handen-Shuju-no-Ho" or the System of Distribution of Farmland. The first problem is that we can hardly learn the details of the system from the description in the Nihon Shoki. The second is that there was a difference between the rate of land tax prescribed at the time of the Taika Restoration (646) and that exercised in the third year of Hakuchi (653). According to the description in the Nihon Shoki concerning the events of 653 -six years after the Restoration- the distribution of farmland (ricefield) was completed in that year and the rate of land tax for tax payment in kind was 1.5 soku 束 of paddies per tan 段. However, it had been fixed at the time of the aforesaid Restration that the people should offer paddies of 2 soku and 2 ha 把 out of 1 tan harvest. In this respect, the writer of this article presumes that the rate adopted in the Nihon Shoki was described by the compilers in accordance with the revised rate of the third year of Keiun (706). Considering the description mentioned above, those which were introduced in the Nihon Shoki at the explanations of the systems of land distribution and census registration at the time of the Restoration, might be the accounts corrected in accordance with the provisions of the Codes issued in later ages. There have been various reports on the odd volume of a census register that was found in northern Kyushu. In this respect, the writer of this article is of opinion that the odd volume of census register was not the one which was compiled in accordance with the Kiyomihara Ryo (The Code issued by Kiyomihara Court in 689) but with the Taiho Ryo (the Taiho Code, compiled in 701 and promulgated in 702). Accordingly, the writer presumes that the distribution of farmland was exercised in Kyushu every six years in accordance with the provisions of the Taiho Ryo. The writer believes, therefore, that at the time of the first distribution in Kyushu, all persons older than one year of age were allowed to have farmland, and the acreage allowed to each person was to be rearranged in the next distribution year.
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