The Yellow Book system in Ming Dynasty was formally established in the 14th year of Hongwu (A.D. 138 1), with various functions. The yellow book system is not only the tax law of the Ming Dynasty, but also the household registration system of the Ming Dynasty. However, as far as its primary and basic functions are concerned, it still stays in the aspects of taxation and levy. Therefore, the yellow book of the Ming Dynasty is also called the yellow book. In the Ming Dynasty, the Yellow Book recorded the population and land in detail, that is, the so-called version of people in China. People regard this as their native place, and officials regard it as a bad habit. Together with the Atlas of Fish Scales, it became an important basic system in the social and economic aspects of the Ming Dynasty.

The yellow book system was widely implemented in the Ming Dynasty, which was consistent with the Ming Dynasty. From the 14th year of Hongwu to the 15th year of Chongzhen (A.D. 138 1- 1642), * * * made it 27 times. In the Ming dynasty, almost all yellow books were made according to the system. According to the Records of Houhu, there are as many as 60,000 copies of Yu Ben Yellow Books sent to Nanjing for safekeeping. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were more than 2 million pornographic books. However, due to the frequent changes of dynasties and wars, most of the yellow book documents preserved in the Ming Dynasty are yellow book base books, cursive scripts and copying books. Since the 1980s, Chinese and foreign scholars began to pay attention to the documents and archives when studying the yellow books of the Ming Dynasty. The main findings of the yellow book in Ming Dynasty during this period are as follows:

The Yellow Book of Wu Lihu in Qimen County, Huizhou Prefecture from Yongle to Xuande, and the Directory of Huhu Keepers in Qimen Gong Hong in the 14th year of Chongzhen are collected by the Institute of History of China Academy of Social Sciences. In the forty-first year of Jiajing, the original yellow book of eighteen capitals in Sui 'an County, Yanzhou, Shanghai Library; Ten capitals in Sui 'an County, Yanzhou in the 20th year of Wanli-Jiahuang Book, collected by the National Library of China; Fragments such as Yellow Book of Huhu and Other Households in Shexian County of Huizhou in Yongle Period, Yellow Book of Twenty-four Capitals in Xiuning County of Huizhou Prefecture in Apocalypse Two Years, Yellow Book of Eighteen Capitals in Xiuning County of Huizhou Prefecture in Chongzhen Five Years and Dimethyl Yellow Book of Twenty-five Capitals in Xiuning County of Huizhou Prefecture in Chongzhen Fifteen Years are collected in the National Museum of China. Peking University Library has a Inventory of Jiaxing County in Chenghua Jiaxing House; The Yellow Book of the Twenty-Seven Capitals and Five Drawings in Xiuning County, Huizhou from Ten to Forty Years of Wanli in Anhui Provincial Museum; Wait a minute.

The yellow book literature is the first-hand material to study the yellow book in Ming Dynasty. It not only provides valuable information for the study of the social and economic history of the Ming Dynasty, but also is indispensable for the study of Huangshu itself. The discovery of Huangshu literature broke through the limitation of studying Huangshu in Ming Dynasty only based on general literature records, clarified some basic problems of Huangshu system, and made the study of Huangshu in Ming Dynasty enter a new stage. The discovery of Huangshu shows us what the so-called Huangshu in Ming Dynasty really looks like, what the format and specific content are, and some documents have not recorded it at all. The compilation principles of Huangshu in Ming Dynasty and the main contents published in the literature are as follows.

Register of Yellow Book System in Ming Dynasty

Yellow Books are collected by households, which are divided into "normal" households and "abnormal" households (also called "managed"). It is normal to have a family and be served, and it is abnormal to be widowed and lonely. Each main pipe has 1 10 households, and the number of households with abnormal pipelines varies. Among them, long-term households in Zhengguan 10 households, and first-time households in A 100 households are divided into 10 A, and every 1 long-term jurisdiction 10 A is divided into 10 years. According to the number of grains, tube attached figure. The head of the book is always a picture, which shows the total amount of farmland and tax grain. The name of the head of each household, Tuxiang, household registration (military, civilian, craftsman, stove, etc. ), household (upper middle school) and working year. It is divided into two parts: population and property, and four items, namely, old management, new income, dismissal and reality, are published respectively, commonly known as "four columns", such as mature and immature men, big and small women and so on. The property includes land, tax grain and land sales, as well as houses, raised animals, vehicles and ships. The Yellow Book is published every ten years, and today's old management is the reality created before.

The yellow book documents found are basically consistent with the descriptions of yellow books in Ming Dynasty in various documents, which can confirm each other. However, there are some items in the Yellow Book that are not recorded in the literature. For example, under "new income" and "dismissal", there are items such as "positive income", "transfer income" and "transfer income" respectively. The so-called "positive harvest" and "positive score" mean absolute increase or decrease, such as the birth population, or the reclamation of farmland. The Yellow Book records the positive harvest, the dead population, or the land washed away by water, which is positive score; "Transfer" and "transfer" are relative increases and decreases, such as newly married daughter-in-law or land purchased, which is transfer, and daughter's marriage or land sale is transfer. Obviously, the establishment of items such as "positive set", "transferred set", "positive score" and "transferred score" in the Yellow Book is very convenient for the statistics of various classified data.