Section 3 The Main Agricultural Systems in Ancient China
1. Small-peasant economy in the context of natural economy
In his famous essay “Peach Blossom Spring,” Tao Yuanming (365-427), a pastoral poet of the Jin Dynasty, depicted a fictitious land of peace with fertile farmland, clean water, crisscrossing paths, the sounds of crowing cocks and barking dogs, and contented and happy people cultivating the land. In actual fact, during the slow course of China’s long history, this kind of ideal small-peasant production economy and lifestyle has existed and evolved through to the present day.
China’s small-peasant economy gradually evolved from the “large farmer” mode after the Sui and Tang dynasties. According to historical records, Emperor Xiaowen of Wei issued the equal-field edict in 498 (the ninth year of the Taihe reign) which stipulated the allocation of 40 mu of farmland (2.6 hectares) to males over the age of 15, and 20 mu (1.3 hectares) to women. Men were also given 20 mu (1.3 hectares) of mulberry field for private use, which they did not need to return for their lifetime. The Tang Dynasty issued the same order in 624 (the seventh year of the Wude reign), stipulating 100 mu (6.6 hectares) of land apiece for younger and adult males, of which 20 mu (1.3 hectares) was theirs in perpetuity and could be inherited, and the other 80 mu farmland for life. According to preexisting historical data, China’s man/land ratio (land area/population) fell to around 5.5 mu (0.3 hectare) per person after the Southern Song Dynasty, and the vast majority of peasant households had farmland of under 25 mu (1.6 hectares). The figure further decreased to 2.8 mu (0.1 hectares) per person in the Qing Dynasty.
The so-called small-peasant economy has two features. One is that agricultural production is scattered with little concentration. Chiefly, the household is the basic unit of productive life, and this economy combines agricultural production, animal husbandry, and artisan industries. Second is that the main aim of production is to directly meet the producer’s consumption and taxation needs rather than for exchange or profit. It is a kind of subsistence natural economy. There are many reasons for the small-peasant economy taking shape in China. One, population increase. From the Shang and Zhou dynasties to the beginning of the first century, China’s population numbered about 60 million. By the 12th century and the Northern Song Dynasty, that figure exceeded 100 million. Having surpassed 200 million in the Ming Dynasty, the population fell to fewer than 100 million at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing, but climbed to 430 million in the mid-19th century. Two, farmers’ dependence on the landlord class. After the Spring and Autumn Period, China established a system of private land ownership that allowed the selling and buying of land, which inevitably caused annexation of land. In history big land-owners owned great amounts of land, whereas the serf class of owner-peasants and tenant-peasants could only exist as small-peasants. Three, the tax system. In the early period of the Qing Dynasty, farmland tax accounted for about 80 percent of national financial revenue. Large amounts of land rent paid to landlords by tenant-peasants were an easily collected and controlled source of tax revenue, so this form of economic organization was clearly good for the country’s taxation.
In order to understand China’s agricultural issues, we must recognize and understand the reality that small-scale peasant household will exist for the long run in China. Even though China has a population of more than 1.4 billion and an urbanization rate of 70 percent, there are still more than 400 million people living in villages. Changing this small-scale and scattered agricultural operation model will need improved systems and technologies. And, of course, it will take time.
Therefore, the small-scale peasant household economy will be a fundamental for China’s agriculture for a long time to come, and changing this situation will be a long-term historical process requiring enough patience. At the same time, we should be aware that, even though China still has many small-scale peasant households, they are different in nature from those in the past, since most of them produce for exchange of goods in the market rather than for self-sufficiency.
2. From the well-field system to private ownership of land
A complex variety of land ownership systems have been practiced in Chinese history; in terms of system there was the well-field (Jingtian), land-limit (Xiantian), land allocation based on social hierarchy (Zhantian) and equal-field (Juntian); in terms of tenure, there was public ownership, private ownership, and military ownership.
The Western Zhou Dynasty implemented state ownership under the“well-field” system. The Book of Songs wrote: “All land under heaven belongs to the king.” The Zhou Emperor exercised the right of land ownership on behalf of the whole country. He enfeoffed vassal lords, who dispensed the land to senior officials, who in turn bestowed the land to their children and allegiant officials. The Zhou Emperor had the right to give and take land, whereas nobles of different ranks could only use the land, not own it, so the land was only inherited for use rather than being sold, bought, or transferred by their posterity. Those enfeoffed were obliged to pay taxes to the emperor. The term well-field system actually presents a vivid image of the reality. In the Western Zhou Dynasty, land was divided into square patches of fixed sizes, surrounded by boundaries and divided by ditches inside. Seen from afar it was like a grid of crisscross paths resembling “井,” the Chinese character for a well. Every person cultivated about 100 mu (about 70 acres) of land, which presented itself as a square and was called “one field.” In terms of land management, the Zhou Dynasty mainly adopted the “system of state and wilderness(9),” which was the most primitive “urban and rural binary system.”The “state man” had total ownership of land, whereas the “wild man”could only use the land. They were taxed in two different ways called respectively “che” and “ji.” “Che” was a system whereby people turned over one-tenth of their land’s harvest to higher authorities (a 9:1 division) and help in cultivating the land. It was the forerunner of the later “tithing.” The system “ji” arranged ten households of slaves into one farming unit who would work together cultivating the landlord’s crop fields. Once the authorities had collected their harvest from these lands, the wild men could make their living by cultivating their own small pieces of land. So the “wild men” performed labor service for the “state men.”
From the end of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods, the well-field system gradually evolved into a land-bestowal (Shoutian) system. The main reason for this was the popularization of iron farm tools and ox-drawn plowing. Higher productivity made possible small-peasant production based on individual households. Because slaves were more willing to work on “private land,”and with more and more land being privatized through transfer, seizure by force, and bestowal between aristocrats, public land progressively went out of cultivation.
Different vassal states of the Spring and Autumn Period also tried to carry out land reforms from different angles. After land gradually became state-owned, it was allocated to individuals in the state’s name. After the allocation, crisscross paths between fields would be built and the right to occupy and use would be settled. The Warring States Period, generally speaking, entered the “land-bestowal” stage. Owing to the fact that once land had been bestowed it could be passed on for generations, the“land-bestowal system” brought about private land ownership, despite the fact that it was implemented on state-owned land. Later, the Qin Dynasty issued the policy of “granting the people true private land(10),” which allowed farmers to cultivate and privatize new land on their own account, indicating that the state had started to acknowledge private land ownership. By now, state land ownership and private land ownership were starting to develop in tandem, building up the overall structure of China’s feudal land system.
During the two Han dynasties, land came under state ownership or private ownership. The state mainly owned mountain forests, public fields(11), grass fields(12), and imperial enclosed fields, which the state managed directly or through renting out and other means. In terms of private land, the government granted the owners the right to free trading.(13)
In the Cao Wei period they practiced the garrison field (Tuntian) and household levy (Hudiao) models. There were two types of Tuntian, military and civilian. The military Tuntian, a kind of agro-colony, was based on camp units(14)of garrison troops, who had to hand over all their grain harvest to the state. Soldiers who cultivated the land collected their living needs on a daily or monthly basis. Civilians were under the unified management of the Grand Minister of Agriculture, and turned over a proportion of their grain.
The two Jin dynasties and the Northern and Southern dynasties mainly practiced Zhantian land ownership based on social status. Generally speaking, farming households were allowed to own more private land than taxable land. Every man owned 70 mu (4.6 hectares) of land, 50 mu (3.3 hectares) of which was taxed. Every woman owned 30 mu (2 hectares) of land, of which 20 mu (1.3 hectares) was taxed. In fact, farming households usually owned less land than their legal entitlement, but the taxed land area remained the same. It is necessary to explain here that officials of different ranks were allowed to own large amounts of land, but gentry clans were limited in terms of the maximum land area they could own. At the same time, gentry clans did not have taxable land, and they could keep tenants who were not liable for national tax. This kind of landownership to some extent encouraged farmer households to open up wasteland, while at the same time imposing restrictions on the annexation of land.
The equal field system and the rent-tax-labor-substitution (Zuyongtiao) system were implemented from the Northern Dynasty (386-534) to the mid Tang Dynasty. The equal field order enacted in the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534) stipulated that men, women, and slaves could all receive bestowed land(15), which could be divided into farmland, mulberry field, and hemp field. Of these, farmland and hemp field had to revert to the state after the person retired from an official post or died, and they could not be traded; mulberry fields were allowed to be passed on from generation to generation and not required to revert to the state. Because this was a type of land division based on unified standards after combining public and private land, it was also a process of privatizing stateowned land. In terms of management, the equal field system, the three heads system(16), and the new renting system(17)were integrated. By the time of the Tang Dynasty, the equal field system was further improved. As the population grew, land was granted only to men and widows, and was divided into inheritable land and land granted on the basis of household population(18), i.e. the responsibility field system and the subsistence land of today. Land granted on the basis of household population was returned to the government on the death of the grantee, whereas officials were granted land in perpetuity. In principle, people were not allowed to trade these two types of land, but exceptions would be made when they moved or died, in that they could trade inheritable land and even houses and the population-based land on the condition that the trading amount could not be more than the amount they were legally supposed to own. By contrast, aristocrats and officials had total property rights over their land and could sell, mortgage, and rent it. Under such circumstances, fewer restrictions were imposed on the trading of land. Consequently, as time went by, greater concentrations of land came about, farming households drained away in large numbers, giving rise to displacement of people on a large scale.
The Song Dynasty adopted an “unrestrained annexation” approach to land ownership. It imposed very limited direct control on land, and on establishing its rule it adopted the policy of “unrestrained annexation,”which did not bring about large-scale concentrations of land since the process of land annexation accelerated transfer and dispersal of land ownership. “Song of the Frog” in the first volume of the Anthology Left by the Ravine recorded: “In ancient times land was owned by the same person for eight hundred years, but now it changes hand every year.”This was an accurate depiction of the situation where land ownership switched rapidly between people. Land trading was carried out basically with money. Those with money could purchase and those without it could sell, the only restrictive condition being the preemptive right of relatives and neighbors. From this we can see that trade in land was greatly marketized, which pushed the Song government into establishing strict land trading regulations including detailed and elaborate stipulations on intermediary organizations, certificates of ownership, contracts of sale, contract content, cash used in the transaction, and the transfer of land ownership – all elements of the modern market economy.
Land in the Yuan Dynasty was mainly owned by the government or on the Tuntian model. It started to change the Song Dynasty situation of“occupying land through money” into one of “occupying land through rights.” Agricultural production under the Yuan was basically in the service of the military, so the Tunian model represented the major proportion.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the marketization of land became increasingly conspicuous, and land ownership was further separated and stripped away from various kinds of land. In terms of the Ming Dynasty, government-owned land experienced a trend of further privatization, and gradually came into private ownership. After the mid-Ming Dynasty, land was mainly concentrated in the hands of officials and gentry, and went through more frequent transfers. In terms of land ownership distribution, the Ming and Qing dynasties saw increased commercialization and marketization of land. Share ownership of land appeared, and land rights were divided into utilization right and ownership right, which operated separately. In the Qing Dynasty, almost a quarter of all land was under share ownership, and farming-household cultivation appeared in which tenants and owner-peasants dominated. This model lasted until China’s Agrarian Reform(19)in the early 1950s.
3. The agriculture tax system that endured for 2,600 years
On December 29, 2005, it was decided at the 19th Session of the 10th National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee that the Regulations on Agriculture Tax adopted on June 3, 1958 during the 96th session of the First NPC Standing Committee be abolished, with effect from January 1, 2006. That same day, China’s President Hu Jintao signed Order No. 46 of the President of the People’s Republic of China, declaring the complete removal of agriculture tax. With this, agriculture tax vacated the stage of history, but many people are unaware that the agriculture tax system had operated for at least 2,600 years in China.
“Finance is the lifeblood of a country and the foundation of everything.” In China’s ancient society where agriculture was the major industry, the tax system was very broad in its meanings. Generally speaking, it included: poll tax or head tax based on the individual; property tax based on the household; land tax or land rent based on the land area; corvée and military service required of adult males; and various other exorbitant taxes and levies. China has a long history of taxation. Grand History (Lu Shi) recorded the earliest legends on taxation in the time of Shennong. Tributes first appeared in the Xia Dynasty more than 4,000 years ago.
It is generally accepted that China’s earliest agriculture tax levied on the basis of land area started from 594 BC when Duke Xuan of Lu announced the system of “initial tax on land per mu,” and this policy is considered to be the prototype of the modern taxation system. Before implementing the system of “initial tax on land per mu” the State of Lu collected feudal land tax on the well-field basis, and no tax was imposed on privately owned land. Therefore, as privately owned land increased, the contribution from agricultural production in national revenue continued to fall. The system adopted by the State of Lu imposed tax on the basis of land area irrespective of whether it was public or private land. All those who owned land paid 10 percent of what their land produced as tax. More importantly, tax on privately owned land acknowledged the legitimacy of private land ownership, and the state could levy tax from land owners by virtue of its political authority.
This land tax system lasted until the Qin, Han, and two Jin dynasties. The Northern Wei Dynasty implemented the equal field system, which developed into the rent-tax-labor-substitution (Zuyongtiao) system in the Tang Dynasty. After the An Lushan Rebellion (755-762), the Tang Dynasty started to implement the “two-tax system” on the basis of land and property and levied in summer and autumn. This lasted until the Ming Dynasty. In the mid-Ming Dynasty, Zhang Juzheng (1525-1582, politician) proposed combining land tax, corvée, and miscellaneous levies into the “Single-whip Law,” and this carried on until after the founding of the Qing Dynasty. During Qing Emperor Yongzheng’s reign (1723-1735), the government adopted the policy of “assessment according to acreage(Tanding Rudi, also known as Tanding Rumu),” which simplified procedures by amalgamating tax and labor obligations.
Here I would like to highlight several distinctive tax systems in ancient China, namely the rent-tax-labor-substitution (Zuyongtiao) system and two-tax system of the Tang Dynasty, the Single-Whip Law system of the Ming Dynasty, and the Tanding Rumu system in the Qing Dynasty.
The Tang Dynasty implemented the rent-tax-labor-substitution system, predicated on the equal field system, and this collected grain and cloth and imposed corvée. This system ruled that all households under the equal field system, no matter how much land they were granted, should pay a fixed amount of tax and serve corvée. Specifically, every man in a household should pay two dan (200 liters) of millet to the state every year, which was called the rent; each man should hand in two zhang (6.6 meters) of silk, three liang (150 grams) of cotton or two zhang (6.6 meters) and five chi (1.5 meters) of cloth and three jin (1.5 kilograms) of hemp, which was called the tax; each man should serve 20 days of corvée, with two days added in leap years, which was called the labor; if a man was not needed for corvée, then he could substitute his labor by handing over three chi (0.9 meters) of silk, three chi (0.9 meters) and seven cun (0.2 meters) five fen (1.5 centimeters) of cloth a day for 20 days, which was called the substitution. This system was effective on the precondition of the equal-field system, but with the growing population and land annexation in the mid- and late-Tang Dynasty, the equal field system was in disarray, a great many farmers who lost their land and were not granted enough field could no longer meet their tax obligations under the rent-tax-labor-substitution system, and state income plummeted. In order to deal with the financial crisis, in 780 (the first year of the Jianzhong reign of Emperor Dezong of Tang), Prime Minister Yang Yan directed to establish the two-tax system. This new system did away with taxes levied on household population, but instead imposed land tax and household tax according to land area and property amount, taking the household as the basic unit. Thanks to this approach, tax became more balanced; it was a measure suited to the prevailing situation and resulted in conspicuous increase in the government’s tax revenue. It played a role in stabilizing the rule of the Tang Dynasty.
Agriculture was still the economic mainstay in the Ming Dynasty, and agriculture tax and land tax were two major sources of state income, supplemented by household tax and corvée. Initially, the Ming Dynasty adopted the two-tax system. The land tax was divided into summer tax and autumn grain. In its middle period, the Ming Dynasty switched to the Single-whip Law, combining tax and corvée elements. In the early years of the Ming, the government examined household registrations and land conditions for most of the country, and compiled the “Yellow Manual”of household registration records and the “Fish-scale Book” recording the land area. These two were used as the basis for levying taxes.
After the mid-Ming Dynasty, because of onerous taxes, people fled in large numbers, and the tax system became less and less effective, seriously impacting fiscal revenue. In order to deal with the situation, after 1531 (the 10th year of the Jiajing reign), the government implemented the “Single-whip Law” tax reform which combined different taxes and levies into taxes paid in cash as far as possible, taking money in replacement of goods in kind and corvée labor. The main reform provision was that land would be the main object of taxation, and silver would be collected instead of material goods. In addition, all types of county-based corvée were replaced by silver collected according to the population. This head tax, “Dingyin” as it was called, was collected and transported by the government itself rather than by the people as it used to be. The Single-whip Law was a very major reform in China’s ancient taxation system. It replaced taxation in material goods with taxation in money, put an end to the collection of material objects, abolished the outdated corvée system that limited freedom because of forced labor, and loosened relationships of dependency. It replaced the taxation system based on population with one based on assets, which was good for reasonable sharing of the tax burden. The promotion of this law reflected the requirements of the commodity economy of the Ming Dynasty, and in turn helped advance the commodity economy.
From the early Qing Dynasty on, as the economy developed population increased, and as controls on land trades relaxed, it became more and more difficult to tie people to the land. In 1712, the 51st year of Emperor Kangxi’s reign, he announced “any increase in the population size will never entail increased tax.” This was a system that combined corvée with tax, and head tax with land tax and collected them together in silver taels. It abolished the head tax after 2,000 years in existence, and, as the most important tax reform in the late stages of China’s feudal society, it objectively loosened physical control on farmers at the very lowest level of society. The combined land tax and head tax (Tanding Rumu) pushed the opening-up of land and population increase to an unprecedented level, and had a profound impact on China’s social development. By the mid-term of Emperor Qianlong’s reign (mid- to late-18th century), China’s population exceeded 300 million. The policy combining land tax and head tax, set in 1713 (the 52nd year of Emperor Kangxi’s reign) by the Ministry of Revenue, was officially put into law in 1725 (the third year of Emperor Yongzheng’s reign). The combined tax, as a major policy, was written into the legal statutes, illustrating the important legal position of this law relating to national welfare and people’s livelihood.
4. Grain price control and the ever normal granary
In October 1929, the unprecedented economic crisis of the Wall Street Crash was followed by the Great Depression, which had a particularly severe impact on agriculture. The producer price index of farm products dropped from 64.8 in 1928 to 29.5 in 1932, and net farm income fell from US$6.15 billion to US$2.03 billion. After President Roosevelt came into office, in March 1932, Henry Agard Wallace was appointed U.S. Secretary of Agriculture at this critical and difficult moment. He issued two Agricultural Adjustment Acts, at the core of which were provisions that, in the event of surplus agricultural products, the government would grant nonrecourse loans to farmers for storing the products so as to protect prices; when warehouses were overflowing, the government would avoid market chaos by selling the agricultural products by quota to ensure that farmers would not rush to lower the prices; when there was a lack of agricultural products, the government would meet the demands of the market with storage in the ever-normal granary to stabilize market prices of these products. In his journal, Wallace mentioned that his idea had come from the doctoral dissertation “Economic Principles of Confucius and His School” by the Chinese student Chen Huanzhang, in which he described China’s ever-normal granary system.
As early as 422 BC in the Warring States Period, Li Kui (455-395 BC), prime minister of the Wei State started to implement the “Government-controlled Price” method, which divided rich years and lean years into three ranks – big, medium, and small. In big rich years, the government would purchase three-fourths of farmers’ food, leaving one-fourth for them; in medium rich years, the government would purchase two-thirds and leave one-third; in small rich years, the government would purchase one half and leave one half. When natural disasters occurred and years of famine came, the government would sell food: in big lean years, the government would sell all the food it had purchased in big rich years so as to balance the prices, prevent merchants cornering the market and dictating prices, and stabilize agriculture and market supply and demand.
During the reign of Emperor Wu of Han (141-87 BC), Sang Hongyang (152/141-80 BC, minister of Emperor Wu of Han) developed the above mentioned thought and created the Equalizing Strategy (Pingzhunfa), which depended on massive amounts of government capital and materials to stabilize commodity prices through buying cheap and selling dear in the capital according to market supply and demand. During the reign of Han Emperor Xuan (73-49 BC), China officially established the ever-normal granary system. Prime Minister Wang Anshi of the Song Dynasty further improved this system. Before harvesting, the government would lend money to the farmers who could pay back the loan in grain once the harvest was in and they needed to pay tax; also, if the grain price was higher at repayment time, farmers could choose to pay with cash. This was the predecessor of America’s nonrecourse loan. Grain stored in the ever-normal granary during the Song Dynasty was roughly one-sixth of a year’s food consumption, corresponding to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s requirement on minimum food reserves, which is 17-18 percent of yearly consumption.
5. The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and south-north food transportation
The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal was the main artery linking China’s northern and southern waterway transportation. It was also the world’s longest and oldest grand canal. This project started in Beijing, reached Hangzhou at its southern end, passed through Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang provinces, and linked five major rivers – the Haihe River, Yellow River, Huaihe River, Yangtze River, and Qiantang River. The canal was excavated in three stages in history. The first started in 486 BC of the Spring and Autumn Period with the Hangou Canal, which was the first ancient canal that connected the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers; the second started in 605 during the Sui and Tang dynasties; the third was in the 13th century after the Yuan Dynasty made Beijing its capital. In 1293, the whole project was completed, the total process taking 1,779 years. The canal, now more than 2,500 years old, is still open to navigation for parts of its length.
Why was it that the Chinese would build such a mega-project? In ancient China, the political and economic focus was always in the Yellow River valley, so the North was more developed than the South. However, in the Wei and Jin and Northern and Southern dynasties, profound social changes set in. Four centuries of chaos and turbulence severely damaged the North’s economy while the South’s developed rapidly. Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, and Hubei provinces became China’s major food production and supply belt, and were dubbed “lands of fish and rice.” At that time, people had the saying that “when the Two Hus (Hubei and Hunan) and the two Guangs (Guangdong and Guangxi) bring in the harvest, the whole country has enough to eat.” After the Sui Dynasty unified the country, it strengthened management of the South and transported food and material resources of the South to the North. Emperor Yang of Sui decided to open the Beijing-Huaihe River section to south of the Yangtze River, with a length exceeding 2,000 km.
After the excavation of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, all subsequent dynasties until the late Qing Dynasty, under united or fragmented administrations alike, attached importance to the excavation and improvement of the canal and utilized it fully for transporting grain. The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal became the major route of south-north water transportation. According to historical records, in the Ming Dynasty, as many as 9,000 ships carried grain cargos along the Grand Canal; in the Qing Dynasty, as much as 54,000 tons of grain annually was transported from the South to the North via the Grand Canal. Besides, in the Ming Dynasty, cotton was commonly produced in the North, while the region south of the Yangtze had an advanced textile industry. As a result, cotton was transported to the South, and cloth to the North. Every year hundreds of thousands of bolts of silk and cotton fabrics produced in Suzhou and Hangzhou would arrive in Beijing.
In the 13th century, the Italian traveler and merchant Marco Polo described his journey south via the Grand Canal in The Travels of Marco Polo. He traveled around Suzhou and Hangzhou, and finally arrived at Citong port (today’s Quanzhou City, Fujian Province). He praised every city and town on either side of the Grand Canal: Of the very many types of product on the Jiangling (Dezhou City) section, the most numerous were silk and spices. Jining had well-developed commercial and handicraft industries, with “unbelievable numbers of ships.” He described the splendor of Dadu, the Great Capital of the Yuan, where “larger wharfs and the most animated scenes are concentrated around the Yinding Bridge and Yandai Street area near the Drum Tower. The most splendid scene is when ships cover all the water in the pool.”
Over the next 600 years, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal became a key transportation thoroughfare in the true sense; commercial transportation thrived and scores of commercial cities and towns prospered on both sides of the canal, which contributed immeasurably to China’s economic development. The Grand Canal played a crucial role in promoting economic and cultural development and exchanges between the north and south of China, notably in promoting agriculture, handicraft economy, and urban development in areas bordering the canal. The Grand Canal continued its role until the 19th century with the rise of ocean shipping and the operation of the Tianjin-Pukou Railway.
6. Blood ties and the clan system in traditional villages
Founded on the development of traditional agriculture, millions of natural villages are scattered across China’s vast territory. The time of their formation varies greatly – from decades to millennia; people were accustomed to spending their entire lifetime in the village where their family settled. All village people were engaged in agriculture, and there was little difference between them in terms of production activities. The elder generation basically performed the same production activities as the younger one.
The family was the core of rural social life. Family was not only the center of economic life, but also the center of social interaction, education, and entertainment. Depending on the family, village people passed on traditional moral ethics, customs and other social regulations. With family as the core, village people helped each other, lived, worked, worshiped, and had fun together. At their formation, the main bond in many villages was blood relations, which gradually became a larger system of one or several clans. Members of a village society shared close ties, and went on gradually to form a community of interests based on geographical integration and intermarriage. Therefore, the rural areas attached great importance to family and blood relations. People in rural areas chiefly associated based on kinship and geographical relations, i.e. clansmen, relatives and neighbors, rather than with close relatives and business connections as in urban areas.
In terms of festival customs, many have been passed down over millennia, for instance: the yearly offerings and family reunion dinner on the eve of the lunar New Year; the lantern parade and eating of Yuanxiao dumplings on the 15th of the first lunar month; worshiping ancestors, sweeping tombs, and the spring outing on Tomb-Sweeping Day in the third lunar month; hanging dried mugwort leaves on the door, racing dragon boats, eating Zongzi, and drinking realgar wine at Dragon Boat Festival on the 5th day of the firth lunar month; appreciating the moon and eating mooncakes on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. No matter how these customs have varied between time and place, their main content and form have persisted for generation upon generation.
In different periods, the relationship between the family and the state and the way of managing the family also differed. Before the Spring and Autumn Period, family management meant governance by the King of Zhou with no separation between the family and the nation; from the Eastern Han to the Northern and Southern dynasties, rural society was controlled by a minority of noble families; after the Song Dynasty, rural society was organized and managed by clans, by then mass-oriented and all-pervasive. Nevertheless, there was one basic common characteristic amid all the changes; namely that officials did not directly engage in the management of rural society, but rather relied on the internal systems of families and clans to control and govern themselves. Until the mid-1930s, although the government strove to replace clan organizations with regional administrative organizations to weaken the power and lower the position of clans, power was still exerted via the clan, which dominated in the rural society.
After the founding of the PRC, the power of families and clans was strictly restricted. They lost legality in organization and action, and were no longer organizations in rural social management. However, kinship and geographical relations inside villages were formed over a prolonged period and were an objective reality. In particular, most traditional moral ethics and village regulations were directly related to this relationship. The fact that villagers settled together, shared a blood line, helped each other, and knew about each other could not be changed in a short time. The Chinese-style village will survive in the long term and exert profound influence on rural economy, society, governance, and culture. Of course, with changing socioeconomic development and lifestyles, rural communities will also evolve with the times.
(1) An ancient emperor in the legends of China’s ancient history. Originally a great ancestor of an ancient ethnic group and a representative figure of the Huaxia tribe, he was later revered as the“Cultural Ancestor” of the Chinese nation.
(2) Yu, China’s legendary emperor, a representative from pre-history who battled against and prevented floods. It is said that Yu managed the waters by blocking or channeling according to the topography while at the same time making use of forests and swamps to develop agriculture, and finally ensuring that people had food. Yu has been respected by generations of Chinese for his deeds in fighting against and preventing floods.
(3) See “Jin Xin Xia” of Mencius, an article presenting Mencius’ remarks on making the people the priority of a state.
(4) Ban Gu: Book of Han (Han Shu).
(5) Sima Qian: Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji).
(6) Sima Qian: Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji).
(7) Exposition of the Tang Penal Code (Tang Lü Shu Yi).
(8) Veritable Records of the Hongwu Emperor (Ming Tai Zu Shi Lu).
(9) “State” was where the ruling class lived, and “wilderness” where the governed lived. The former was called “state man” and the latter “wild man,” who were the slaves of the former.
(10) Sima Qian: Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji). Qin Shi Huang issued this policy in 216 BC (the 31st year of his reign).
(11) This came from three main sources: wilderness opened up by garrison troops under government organization; private land confiscated by the government; and abandoned land taken by the government.
(12) Mainly wilderness not previously cultivated.
(13) For example, in the early Western Zhou Dynasty, Xiao He “bought large amounts of land,”Zhang Yu “bought as much as 400 qing (2,667 hectares) of land, which were irrigated by the Jing and Wei rivers and very fertile and precious,” the wife of Wu Han of the Eastern Han Dynasty“bought land after Wu went to the front,” and even Emperor Ling of the Eastern Han Dynasty“went back among the common people and bought land as well as houses.”
(14) “One camp unit was set in every five li (2.5 km), consisting of 60 men who could choose to cultivate land or safeguard the nation.” Soldiers were not permitted to live in the same region as their families.
(15) The Xiaowen Emperor of the Wei Dynasty issued the equal field system in 498 (the ninth year of the Taihe reign): Males above 15 are granted 40 mu (2.6 hectares) of farmland, women 20 mu (1.3 hectares). Farmland and fallow land were placed side by side for the convenience of management. 20 mu (1.3 hectares) of mulberry land is granted to men as private land that needs not be returned. Slaves enjoy the same amount of land as their spouses. Farmland and hemp land is not tradable. Scarcely populated areas can be cultivated at will without any restriction.
(16) The three heads system meant five households counted as a neighborhood (lin邻), with one appointed head; five neighborhoods counted as a borough (li里), which should have one borough head; five boroughs counted as a village (dang党), also with one appointed village head. Such arrangements were mainly for the government to regulate household registration and examine land area.
(17) The new renting system broke the Wei-Jin “taxation system of nine ranks of goods” and levied tax on hemp, cotton, cloth and silk, taking a husband and wife as one taxpaying unit.
(18) In 624 (the seventh year of the Wude reign period of the Tang Dynasty) orders were issued on the equal field system and Zuyongtiao method. The equal field system ruled that younger and adult males should be granted 100 mu (6.6 hectares) of land each, of which 20 mu (1.3 hectares) was inheritable, and the other 80 mu (5.3 hectares) land granted based on household population. The government took back for redistribution 50 mu (3.3 hectares) of the population-based land when people grew old and the remainder on their death. The inheritable land could be passed on to later generations. Widows should be granted 20 mu (1.3 hectares) of the population-based land. For people in commerce, the amount of both types of land should be halved, and those in densely populated areas should be granted no land.
(19) This refers to a land reform carried out in rural areas around the founding of the People’s Republic of China.