A Han official's monthly pay was written down as a number of hu 斛, a grain measure, and two surviving books copy the numbers grade by grade. The two lists are not the same list. One comes from the salary section of the Book of the Later Han, a history of the Eastern Han; the other is a commentator's note printed at the top of the Book of Han's table of officials. Both begin with three hundred and fifty hu a month. The further down the page you read, the less they agree.

Table One: The Later Han List

Juan 118 of the Book of the Later Han is the twenty-eighth of its treatises, 百官五, 'officials, part five'. Near its end sits a short section headed 百官奉, 'the pay of the hundred officials'. It opens with four words, 百官受奉例, 'the schedule on which the hundred officials received pay', and a note in smaller type: 古今注曰，建武二十六年四月戊戌，增吏奉如此，志例以明也. That note dates the schedule to an increase of officials' pay in the fourth month of the twenty-sixth year of the Jianwu reign. It gives no reason. The list runs from the top of the administration down to its clerks, each grade followed by a monthly figure. 石 shi in these names is a grade word and not a quantity, and 比, 'comparable to', marks the grade just below the one named:

  • 大將軍、三公 — 350 hu
  • 中二千石 — 180 hu
  • 二千石 — 120 hu
  • 比二千石 — 100 hu
  • 千石 — 80 hu
  • 六百石 — 70 hu
  • 比六百石 — 50 hu
  • 四百石 — 45 hu
  • 比四百石 — 40 hu
  • 三百石 — 40 hu
  • 比三百石 — 37 hu
  • 二百石 — 30 hu
  • 比二百石 — 27 hu
  • 一百石 — 16 hu
  • 斗食 — 11 hu
  • 佐史 — 8 hu

Two notes hang at the end of the section. The first explains the bottom grade: 漢書音義曰：「斗食祿，日以斗爲計」 — the dou-food clerk's pay was reckoned by the day, at a dou. The second is longer. The 古今注 says that in the third year of Yonghe, 427 clerks of Henan and Luoyang were first given pay of forty-five hu a month, and the annotator 臣昭 answers: 此言豈其妄乎, 'how could this saying be anything but nonsense?' Then he sets out his arithmetic. If every man received forty-five hu, the four-hundred-shi grade would be too generous to be a grade at all; if the sum were divided among them, each would get less than a dou. The page prints the doubt beside the figure and settles neither.

Table Two: The Note in the Book of Han

The Book of Han, juan 19, is the 百官公卿表, the table of officials and ministers. Between the page's title and its preface stands a note introduced by 師古曰, 'Master Gu says'. It begins: 漢制，三公號稱萬石，其俸月各三百五十斛穀 — 'under the Han system the Three Excellencies were styled ten thousand shi; their stipend was three hundred and fifty hu of grain a month each.' The first half of that sentence is a rank title and the second half is pay; the word 號稱, 'styled', is what keeps them apart. The grades follow:

  • 三公 — 350 hu of grain
  • 中二千石 — 180 hu
  • 二千石 — 120 hu
  • 比二千石 — 100 hu
  • 千石 — 90 hu
  • 比千石 — 80 hu
  • 六百石 — 70 hu
  • 比六百石 — 60 hu
  • 四百石 — 50 hu
  • 比四百石 — 45 hu
  • 三百石 — 40 hu
  • 比三百石 — 37 hu
  • 二百石 — 30 hu
  • 比二百石 — 27 hu
  • 一百石 — 16 hu

Elsewhere on the same page 秩, 'rank', is attached to offices rather than to money: 自太常至執金吾，秩皆中二千石，丞皆千石 — from the Minister of Ceremonies to the Bearer of the Gilded Mace all held the rank of full two thousand shi, and their assistants one thousand shi; 自太子太傅至右扶風，皆秩二千石，丞六百石. The last line of the table counts men rather than grain: 吏員自佐史至丞相，十三萬二百八十五人 — 130,285 officials, from the 佐史 clerks up to the Chancellor. The establishment and the payroll are two different accounts printed on one page.

Where the Two Lists Part

Set the lists side by side and the first four lines match exactly: 350, 180, 120, 100 hu. They part at the fifth. For 千石 the Later Han list has 80 hu and the Han shu note has 90. Below that the differences come in a pattern, and the Later Han list is missing a grade the other one has:

  • 千石 — 80 hu in the Later Han list, 90 in the Han shu note
  • 比千石 — no entry in the Later Han list, 80 in the Han shu note
  • 比六百石 — 50 against 60
  • 四百石 — 45 against 50
  • 比四百石 — 40 against 45
  • 六百石 — 70 and 70 again

Three things about the shape of the two lists, all of them visible without reading anything into them. The Later Han list has no 比千石 grade at all; the Han shu note prints one at 80 hu, and the Later Han list's 千石 stands at the same 80. Within the Later Han list the steps do not always go down: 比四百石 and 三百石 are both written 40 hu, where the Han shu note has 45 and 40. And from 三百石 downward the two lists agree again, line for line — 40, 37, 30, 27, 16. Why they differ, neither page says. One page dates its schedule and offers no comparison; the other calls its own figures 'the Han system' and gives no date. No sentence in either list is set against the other.

Half Money, Half Grain

After the last grade of Table One comes a sentence of six characters: 凡諸受奉，皆半錢半谷 — all who received pay received half in coin and half in grain. How the halves were split, at what rate, on what day, the section does not say. What it does print is a third list, quoted from 荀綽《晉百官表注》 and dated to the 延平 years: 中二千石奉錢九千，米七十二斛。眞二千石月錢六千五百，米三十六斛。比二千石月錢五千，米三十四斛。一千石月錢四千，米三十斛。六百石月錢三千五百，米二十一斛。四百石月錢二千五百，米十五斛。三百石月錢二千，米十二斛。二百石月錢一千，米九斛。百石月錢八百，米四斛八斗. This one is shorter: nine grades, coin and grain in separate clauses. It uses 眞二千石, a grade found in neither table above; it writes 一千石 where both tables write 千石; it drops every 比 grade and both bottom grades; and its last line gives grain as 四斛八斗, four hu and eight dou, where the lines above count whole hu. How these coin-and-grain figures relate to the hu totals above, the page does not say, and this article does not work it out. No grain price is given on either page, so the figures cannot be turned into a wage.

The Clerks Below a Hundred Shi

Below the last grade stands another kind of person. The Book of Han's page, in its entry on county magistrates, says 百石以下有斗食、佐史之秩 — below a hundred shi were the ranks of dou-food and clerk — and calls those men 少吏, minor officials, as against the 長吏, the senior officials of 二百石 to 四百石 named a few lines earlier. Its note quotes the 漢官名秩簿: 斗食月奉十一斛，佐史月奉八斛 — the same 11 and 8 as the Later Han list. Down here the two pages stop disagreeing, but these men are named in a different entry of the same page. Neither page says what a hu of grain was worth, whether the grain was husked or in the ear, how the coin half was handed over, or whether the totals covered anything besides the man who held the office. The tax registers, the land tax and the officials' day off are other subjects and other articles; this one asks a single question, what one official drew in a month. To that question the two pages give two answers.

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Sources & further reading

  1. 《後漢書》卷一百一十八·志第二十八「百官五」〈百官奉〉（南朝宋范曄撰；維基文庫本，頁面為白文，頁頭自評 textquality 25%，未與點校本複核） — The section headed 百官奉 opens with 百官受奉例 and a note dating the schedule to 建武二十六年四月戊戌; it then lists sixteen grades from 大將軍、三公 at 350 hu a month down to 佐史 at 8 hu, adds that all pay was 半錢半谷, and quotes 荀綽《晉百官表注》 for coin-and-grain figures of the 延平 years. Its notes also include an annotator's objection (臣昭曰) to a figure given for 427 Henan and Luoyang clerks. The page carries a {{textquality|25%}} self-rating at its head; the sixteen grades used here were counted from the page text itself, and should be checked against a critical edition before any figure is relied on.
  2. 《漢書》卷十九·百官公卿表第七（東漢班固撰；維基文庫本，頁面為白文；月俸表在頁首「師古曰」注中） — The page prints a note introduced by 師古曰 between the title and the preface: 漢制，三公號稱萬石，其俸月各三百五十斛穀, followed by fifteen grades down to 一百石者十六斛. Elsewhere the page gives ranks attached to offices (自太常至執金吾，秩皆中二千石), the entry on county magistrates with 百石以下有斗食、佐史之秩 and a note quoting 漢官名秩簿 (斗食月奉十一斛，佐史月奉八斛), and a total of 130,285 吏員 from 佐史 to 丞相.