This study aims to reveal the system of levying taxes on the village, with Kyeyon(計烟) and Kongyon (孔烟) in Silla Village Register(新羅村落文書 SVR).
The SVR was completed in the 4th year of King Hyoso(695 A.D.), and taking a census of the village subordinated to the royal household. Among the various details of the SVR, the item of the population is the most important for studying the tax system in the Unified Silla. The population of each village is compiled every three years, widely classified in two categories, household (烟) and heads (人). I inferred the item of the population was connected with the imposition of each village section, through a comparative study on the administrative and financial documents in the Tang (唐) and Ancient Japan.
The summation of Kyeyon was a total volume of tax which each village must burden. It was calculated with number of Kongyon by the state for the use of finance statistic. On the other hand, Kongyon was household to pay tax. It was divided by the state into Kudungho(九等戶), nine grade of household, for drawing a distinction of levies between households. I think the criterion of the distinction of Kudungho is labor for household, such as head of a(丁), semi-adults (助子) , slaves(奴婢), and so forth, which constitute the basis of tax system in the Unified Silla.
Kongyon is widely classified in three types. The first is blood relative family. The second is a household that the state units each poor family in order to levy tax. The third is a household that a wealthy family subordinates a few subject family(上烟) to oneself. At that time, the greater part of Kongyon in the village was the subject family and the lowest grade household (下下烟) .
Like this, the financial structure of the royal household in the Unified Silla was based on ruling village system of levying tax by the heads and household. But in the end of the unified silla. tax-collection on the basis of heads and household broke up and was restructed into the developed system of Choncho(田租), that is levying tax according to land productivity connected to acreage.