accounted for 25 per cent of the budget. It cost much less to pay
tribute than to maintain large armies and go to war. Financial
considerations played a great part during the Sung epoch. The taxation
revenue of the empire rose rapidly after the pacification of the south;
soon after the beginning of the dynasty the state budget was double that
of the T'ang. If the state expenditure in the eleventh century had not
continually grown through the increase in military expenditure--in spite
of everything!--there would have come a period of great prosperity in
the empire.

2 _Administration and army. Inflation_

The Sung emperor, like the rulers of the transition period, had gained
the throne by his personal abilities as military leader; in fact, he had
been made emperor by his soldiers as had happened to so many emperors in
later Imperial Rome. For the next 300 years we observe a change in the
position of the emperor. On the one hand, if he was active and
intelligent enough, he exercised much more personal influence than the
rulers of the Middle Ages. On the other hand, at the same time, the
emperors were much closer to their ministers as before. We hear of
ministers who patted the ruler on the shoulders when they retired from
an audience; another one fell asleep on the emperor's knee and was not
punished for this familiarity. The emperor was called "_kuan-chia_"
(Administrator) and even called himself so. And in the early twelfth
century an emperor stated "I do not regard the empire as my personal
property; my job is to guide the people". Financially-minded as the Sung
dynasty was, the cost of the operation of the palace was calculated, so
that the emperor had a budget: in 1068 the salaries of all officials in
the capital amounted to 40,000 strings of money per month, the armies
100,000, and the emperor's ordinary monthly budget was 70,000 strings.
For festivals, imperial birthdays, weddings and burials extra allowances
were made. Thus, the Sung rulers may be called "moderate absolutists"
and not despots.

One of the first acts of the new Sung emperor, in 963, was a fundamental
reorganization of the administration of the country. The old system of a
civil administration and a military administration independent of it was
brought to an end and the whole administration of the country placed in
the hands of civil officials. The gentry welcomed this measure and gave
it full support, because it enabled the influence of the gen