Abstract: The Board of Revenue and the Imperial Household Department were in charge of the national and the royal finances Respectively. During the early Qing period, each had its own responsibilities though they did cooperate on some matters. But in the late Qing, following the foreign powers’ economic plundering of China, the domestic economic vicissitudes and the rapid expansion of the royal expenditure, the Board of Revenue was unable to make ends meet. This eventually led to the thorough collapse of state finance.