Why Clan Practices Are More Prevalent in Southern China

Reasons for the Difference in Clan Settlement in Han Chinese Settlements in Southern and Northern China

Abstract: Clan is a traditional organization, and there is a situation in which "in ancient times, the north prevailed over the south, and in recent times, the south prevailed over the north". There are three main reasons for this north-south difference: firstly, population migration, secondly, cohort aggregation after migration, and thirdly, the relationship between the organization of state power and clans.

Keywords: north and south; clan agglomeration; reasons for the difference

The "Erya - Interpretation of Relatives" cloud: "the party of the father is the clan" [1]. That is to say, clan refers to a group of people linked by patrilineal blood relations. The tradition of Chinese Han population living in clans originated in the north, and this custom was already formed in the Central Plains during the Zhou Dynasty, and the pattern of clan settlement in the north reached a state of full bloom in the Wei, Jin, and North-South Dynasties. In contrast, clan settlement in the south was far less prevalent than in the north. Since then, with the migration of people from the north to the south, "the center of economic gravity shifted to the south", the strength of clan settlements in the south and north of the reversal of the trend. As Mr. Lv Simian said: "the wind of settlement, the ancient north is more prevalent than the south, the recent south is more prevalent than the north" [2]. And generally Yu South Yu Sheng, Yu North Yu decline. To the provinces as a unit, in the south, Lingnan region of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, southern Zhejiang, slightly inferior to Fujian, Guangdong, Hubei, Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and weaker than the aforementioned provinces, Sichuan clan settlement is weaker. In the north, the clan settlements in Shanxi and Shandong are stronger, but still weaker than those in the Yangtze River Basin, Henan, Hebei, and Shaanxi are weaker than those in Jin and Lu, and the three northeastern provinces are the weakest among the Han Chinese settlements in the country. Further, there are also great differences in clan settlement within each province. For example, in the southern part of Henan Province, which is a northern province, there are more clans, while in the northern part of Anhui Province, a southern province, the clans are closer to those in the north. For example, in the so-called "Jiangnan" region in the south, the clans are also less developed.

There is a lot of literature on the clans of the Han Chinese population in different parts of China, and some of it discusses the reasons for the different clans in different areas and the different strengths and weaknesses of the clans. Of course, different scholars discuss or emphasize different reasons. In this paper, the author believes that the reasons for this difference are manifold, and it is impossible to exhaust all the reasons in the text, and it is also difficult to exhaustively involve all the regions, but only as far as possible to synthesize the literature that the author has seen, from the population migration, the population settlement of the same family agglomeration and the organization of the state power and the relationship between the clans in the three aspects of the formation of the north and south of the clans to the formation of the causes of the differences in the strength of the clan settlements.

I. Population Migration and Clan Settlement

From the history of population migration and the situation of clan settlement in different regions of China, the early and late formation of population migration and population settlement patterns in various regions is closely related to the degree of clan settlement and the strength of clan power. In a region, the earlier the first ancestors of the current population moved into the region, the stronger the clan settlement in that region. On the other hand, the later the ancestor of the current population moved into the area, the weaker the clan settlement. Although this is not an absolute law, it is quite universal. As far as most of the regions in the north and south of China are concerned, the pattern of population settlement was formed earlier in the south than in the north. It can be said that the process of population migration has largely determined the pattern of clan settlement in modern China, with the south prevailing over the north.

From the general trend of China's population migration history, the process of large-scale southward migration of the population of northern China since the last wave of the Northern and Southern Song Dynasty came to an end, and since then the population migration basically turned into the north and south of their respective internal population migration, to the neighboring regions and even to overseas migration.　　Among the existing Han Chinese population in southern China, a small number of them have ancestors who lived in the south during the ancient times, and most of them have ancestors who migrated from the north to the southern provinces after the Jin Dynasty. As far as most of the five provinces and cities of Anhui, Jiangxi, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang in East China are concerned, despite the fact that Wu and Yue were established during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, and were later incorporated into the state of Chu, the population was still quite sparse during the Han Dynasty. According to historical records, "the population of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River accounted for no more than one-tenth of the country's population during the Western Han Dynasty". During the Jin Dynasty, due to civil unrest such as the "Eight Kings" Rebellion and the southward invasion of northern minorities, Han Chinese continued to migrate southward. "From 313 to 450 A.D., the number of people who moved southward from the north of the country was about 900,000, accounting for one-sixth of the official population of the Southern Dynasty and one-seventh of the population of the Northern Dynasty, and the number of other unrecorded migrants was probably more than one million. Among them, especially in the Yongjia period is the most famous, so there are a lot of historical books on the "Yongjia south migration" records. After the end of the Sui and Tang dynasties, "the Anshi Rebellion and the end of the Tang Dynasty war, and a large number of northern Han people migrated south to the Tang Kaiyuan period, the lower reaches of the Yangtze River population has accounted for 40% of the national population, and to the Northern Song Dynasty, Emperor Shenzong Yuanfeng years has accounted for half of the national population" [3]. At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, Jin and Yuan successively invaded the south, and once again drove the Han people to move south, which is the most famous, known as "Jingkang Nandu". By the time of the Southern Song Dynasty, East China, located on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, had become the most densely populated region in China. Since then, in addition to some of the Hakka people from Lingnan moved back to Jiangxi, this area has no large-scale population migration. During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period, the population of the junction area of Suzhou, Zhejiang and Anhui decreased substantially, and a large number of immigrants moved in, however, these immigrants mostly came from the surrounding areas less affected by the war, and fewer long-distance migrants [4].

From the perspective of South China, historical records, Han people migrated into Guangdong Province began in the Qin Dynasty, but the migration of Han people in Guangdong to the Song Dynasty is mostly, especially the southward migration in the late Northern Song Dynasty and the late Southern Song Dynasty from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River to Lingnan. There are two major ethnic groups in Guangdong, the so-called "Tu", i.e. the Guangfu people. The Guangfu people in the Pearl River Delta say that their ancestors migrated southward from Zhugui Lane in Nanxiong to avoid living there because of the scourge of Princess Su (or Princess Hu) in the Song Dynasty. The Hakka people in Guangdong say that their ancestors moved from the Central Plains to Gan, then from Gan to Fujian, and then to Ninghua Shibi in Tingzhou, and then to the Meijiang area in eastern Guangdong. The Han people moved into Fujian later than Guangdong, since the Sun-Wu period Han people into Fujian, through the two Jin Dynasty, the North and South Dynasties, the migration of the Sui Dynasty, to the Tang Yuanhe years (AD 806-820), Fujian Province, there are only 74

467 households, to the Northern Song Dynasty Taipingxingguo years (AD 976-983), increased to 467,815 families In the Southern Song Dynasty (1162 AD), the number of households increased to 1,390

566.[5] It is clear that the Han Chinese in Fujian Province migrated mainly during the Tang and Five Dynasties and the Song Dynasty, with the Song Dynasty accounting for the majority of the migrants. After the Yuan Dynasty, the population pattern of Guangdong and Fujian basically stabilized, and by the Ming and Qing Dynasties, these two provinces were transformed from a place of migration into a place of migration, in which part of the population moved back to Jiangxi and other places, and even more part of the population moved to Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

Hunan and Hubei provinces in central China in the Qin and Han dynasties, in addition to a few areas for the Han Chinese settlement, most of the area is still the southern ethnic minorities settlements, the population is also quite sparse. Since the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Central Plains, every major war, there will be a large number of Han Chinese population influx. In particular, the "Yongjia South Migration" and the subsequent period of the North and South Dynasties was a peak period of Han migration to central China. During the Tang and Song dynasties, especially during the "Anshi Rebellion" and the "Jingkang Southern Crossing", a large number of Han Chinese moved in. Among them, most of the Han Chinese who moved into Hubei Province were directly from the Central Plains. The majority of those who moved into Hunan Province did so through Jiangxi. According to Cao Shuji's research, by 1947, the descendants of immigrants in Hunan accounted for 90% of the province's population, and 56% of the province's population was descended from immigrants before the Yuan Dynasty; about 70% of all immigrant descendants came from Jiangxi, and 58% of them were descended from immigrants before the Yuan Dynasty [7]. The southward movement of Yuan soldiers and the war at the end of the Yuan Dynasty resulted in a heavy loss of population in the two lakes region. In the early Ming Dynasty, a large number of people from Jiangxi moved into the two lakes, including some immigrants organized by the government, which is known as the "Jiangxi fill Lake Canton". The middle of the Ming Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty, is the two lakes of Han people to the surrounding mountains and Sichuan migration period. So far, the population of the two lakes formed and stabilized the pattern of settlement.

Sichuan is ancient Ba Shu, Qin and Han Han people moved in large numbers, the Chengdu Plain has become a Han Chinese settlement. The Sui and Tang dynasties through the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms to the two Song dynasty, the Sichuan region of relative social stability, became the "Kingdom of Heaven", the rapid increase in the Han population. At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, the wars in Sichuan were extremely fierce and lasted for half a century, resulting in a drastic decrease in population. The population increased in the Yuan Dynasty, but the wars at the end of the Yuan Dynasty caused the population to decrease greatly. In the early Ming Dynasty, by the Shan-Shaan, especially Hubei moved into a large number of Han Chinese population, so that in the square records, inscriptions, genealogies and oral traditions, the Sichuanese people say that their ancestors from Hubei Macheng Xiaogan Township into Sichuan. And to the turn of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Sichuan Han people and suffered a great disaster, the population declined sharply. In the early Qing Dynasty, there is a large-scale Han people continued for more than a hundred years into the Sichuan immigrant tide. In the early Ming and early Qing dynasty two waves of immigrants to Sichuan, Hubei people mostly, therefore, the two waves of immigrants known as the "Hubei and Sichuan". Since the late Qing Dynasty, Sichuan has been quite densely populated, the beginning of the period of migration to neighboring regions.

From the point of view of the southern provinces and regions, Guangdong, Fujian, the Han Chinese population settlement history, although relatively late, but its migrant population tends to be settled, it is less populated again to rebuild, and therefore the formation of its pattern of agglomeration time is earlier. In East China, the settlement pattern of Suzhou, Zhejiang, Anhui and Gan was even earlier than that of Fujian and Guangdong. Hubei and Sichuan still experienced large-scale population reconstruction after the Song Dynasty, and the settlement pattern of Sichuan was formed after the two times of "filling Sichuan with Hunan and Guangdong" during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Before that, there was a process of "Jiangxi filling in Huguang". In addition, affected by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom War, Suzhou, Zhejiang, Anhui border area, many villages have experienced the process of population reconstruction here need to point out in particular, according to Fei Xiaotong in the "Jiang Village Economy" (Jiangsu People's Publishing House, 1986) described in a book, Jiang Village for the village of multiple surnames, clan power is weak, in addition to the ancestral tombs of the village clan, "there is no any **** with property! " and few clan activities. This description often creates an illusion, especially for some foreigners studying China, that the clans in Jiangnan are not well developed. In fact, Jiangcun happens to be in the junction area of Suzhou, Zhejiang and Anhui, this area of the population settlement pattern, in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period was a huge impact on the formation of the existing population settlement pattern contains reconstruction factors, but the degree of clan settlement and clan power is indeed weaker than the majority of South China and East China, and with the Central China region roughly the same, but still stronger than Sichuan.

The north of China is the birthplace of the Han nationality. However, since ancient times, the five provinces and cities of northern China, namely Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Lu, and Henan, have suffered frequent invasions by northern minorities, and were under the rule of northern minority regimes during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the Southern Song Dynasty, the Yuan Dynasty, and the Qing Dynasty. Each inter-ethnic war resulted in massive population decline and population migration. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the population of North China was quite sparse. The basic structure of the later population centers in North China was formed during the Hongwu and Yongle periods in the early Ming Dynasty. A survey of Hebei and Lu provinces by Shanxian Ganshu found that most of the villages were founded in the Hongwu and Yongle periods of the Ming Dynasty, as evidenced by the material in Mantei's "Inertia Tunes" [9]. Cao Jinqing's survey of Henan in recent years also reflects this situation [10]. From a large number of inscriptions, genealogies, as well as a survey of oral traditions of local residents and other information can also be seen, a significant proportion of the current residents of North China, their ancestors were early Ming Dynasty Hongwu, Yongle years from Shanxi Hongdong Dahuishu moved. Of course, this claim is not entirely reliable. The Ming Dynasty people Qiu Joon in the "area of the Gidian descending barbarians" wrote in an article, the early Ming Dynasty, "the country was pacified, where Mongolia, the colorful people scattered in the states, more than the name has been changed, mixed in the folk. For a long time has been forgetting each other, and it is not easy to recognize." [11] Admitted by the Hongdong Da Huishuijiazhu migrated to the people may be part of the "Mongolia, color people scattered in the states". At the end of the Ming Dynasty, North China and a large number of population loss, and the early Qing Dynasty, there are some immigrants moved into the region, but its scale is not as large as the early Ming Dynasty. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, this area has become the migrant out of the place.

Shanxi, Shaanxi provinces since the Han Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, has been the border area of successive generations. Before the Ming Dynasty, its population migration is more frequent, the source is more mixed, which, a large number of mixed with the Northwest minority populations, and compared with other provinces in the Mainland, by the minority regimes for a longer period of time, after a long period of ethnic integration, the formation of the modern Han population. For example, during the period of the two Jin dynasties, a large number of northern nomads moved inward. Historical records say, "At that time, 'all the counties in the northwest were inhabited by the Rong', while the Guanzhong region was 'half inhabited by the Rongdi. ...... In the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, Hu Sansheng lamented in the note "Ziji Tongjian", saying: "Whoops! Since the Sui Dynasty, the name of the person who raised in the time, the children and grandchildren of Dai Bei ten in six or seven carry on!'" [3]. Northern Qi, Yan Zhidui said China's northern and southern sound is: "South dye Wu Yue, northern mixed barbarians and captives." In the Tang, Song, and Yuan there were again a large number of northern minorities integrated into the Han population. It can be said that, in the Han population, the Han people in the northwestern region into the northern minority blood and customs of the most. Since the Ming Dynasty, in the population migration, Shan and Shaanxi provinces are mainly as a place to move out, and less people moved in from other provinces.

Compared with North China and Northwest China, the Northeast region (including Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces) was fully developed much later. In the long ancient history before the Qing Dynasty, except for some parts of Liaoning, other areas have been inhabited by ethnic minorities, and even these areas of Liaoning were only really incorporated into the central government's sphere of influence during the heydays of history, such as the powerful periods of Han, Tang and Ming. At that time, the population of the Northeast was quite sparse, and most of the ethnic minorities were still living a nomadic life. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, there were only a small number of remaining defenders, and almost all of them were Manchu, with a population of only a few million. Until the Opium War, the Qing government has been to control the Han people to the northeast "Longxing land" immigration. In 1850, the population of the Northeast was only 289-8 million. Since then, the Qing government's control of immigration began to loosen, moved into the Northeast Han immigrants began to increase, especially after the Sino-Japanese War, the Qing government further implementation of the "real border" policy, began to encourage immigration. By the second year of Xuantong (1910), the population had grown to 2

1,580,000-220,000 people. The figures are from Xu Daofu - Statistics of Agricultural Production and Trade in Modern China; cited in Li Zhiting: A General History of the Northeast, Zhongguo Ancient Books Publishing House, 2003, p. 563 -. Apparently, most of the new population in this period were immigrants migrating from Guannai, most of them from Shandong, followed by Hebei. Since then until the 1950s and 1960s, there have been a large number of immigrants moving into the Northeast, and even in the 1970s there were still a small number of farmers from Guan-nei migrating to the Northeast until the population density of the Northeast was basically on a par with that of Guan-nei provinces in general.

From the time of the formation of the existing pattern of population concentration in various regions, by and large, the south earlier than the north. In the South, East China, South China, the formation of the existing population settlement pattern of the earliest, generally in the Song Dynasty, the two lakes formed in the early Ming Dynasty, Sichuan was formed in the early Qing Dynasty, with the exception of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period of East China's Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui border area of the population and its settlement pattern of large changes. In the north, the existing population settlement pattern of the formation of the earliest northwestern region, largely formed in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, North China was formed in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the formation of the Northeast after the late Qing Dynasty. In addition, from the historical examination of the existing villages can also be seen, in the south, the Tang and Five Dynasties to the Song Dynasty formed a considerable number of ancient villages, while in North China, except for Shanxi Province, the villages are basically formed after the Ming Dynasty.

According to historical records, in ancient China, the most important cause of population migration was war. In general, in the long history of China, large-scale wars were more frequent in the north than in the south, and many of them were caused by the invasion of ethnic minorities in the north, which was usually more severe and resulted in greater population loss and migration. Since the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, after the adjustment, the situation has changed fundamentally: in addition to the migration caused by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, in the north and south of the hinterland area, almost no large-scale population migration. The Qing dynasty, the mainland area is more stable, and since the end of the Qing dynasty into the era of hot weapons, although the lethality of weapons has increased greatly, but for the ordinary people, relatively speaking, the war is not as cruel as in ancient times, large-scale massacres of civilians are less, a war caused by the population of a country or a large area of the population halved or even a small number of remnants of the population of the situation no longer occurs, the war is no longer the main reason for the population to migrate. Therefore, Fei Xiaotong said, "Even if the grassroots population movement caused by such a big event as the War of Resistance, I believe it is still negligible" [13]. Of course, large-scale natural disasters can also cause population reduction and migration. Especially in North China and Northwest China, where the climate is dry, the water table is low, rivers are few and their flow is unstable, and rainfall varies greatly from year to year and is concentrated in the summer months, there are often floods and droughts that cause famine. However, the population movement caused by such natural disasters is usually accompanied by the return of the population after the disaster, which has little effect on the long-term population settlement pattern. For example, the Huayuankou incident during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression caused a large number of displaced people, but after the water was over, the villages were able to rebuild in the yellow floodplain.

The reason why the early or late arrival of the first ancestor of the existing population has an important impact on the strength of the clan settlement is that it takes time for the population to multiply and the clan to form. Early population migration means that a clan settled in a place for a long time. If the settlement lasts for a long time, it is possible to form a larger group of the same clan through natural population growth.

Secondly, there is the difference in the state of clan settlement and the mode of population transfer in the place of migration. As mentioned earlier, the clan settlement of the Han Chinese originated in the north and reached its peak during the Wei, Jin, and North-South Dynasties, and up to the Northern Song Dynasty, clan settlement was still quite common in the Central Plains, and clan organizations were quite developed. When the population of this region was forced to migrate, it was usually the entire clan that did so. This was especially prominent during the southward migration of northern people in the Jin Dynasty. Wang, Xie, Yu, Huan and other major clans of the Eastern Jin Dynasty were not a clan to move south, until the population of the Northern Song Dynasty to move south, there are still a significant portion of the clan to move.

After the Song Dynasty, there was very little migration of the whole clan, and most of the population migrated in small families, and a considerable part of the population migrated only part of the family members migrated, or migrated in individual units. Population migration in China's history has been mainly spontaneous, but some populations have also been organized or even forced to migrate by the government. However, in the case of government-organized migrations, again, before the Song Dynasty, most of the migrations were of whole clans, while after the Song Dynasty, the migrations were mainly of small families or individual units. Before the Song Dynasty, there are often cases in the history of the government in order to prevent rebellions and enrich the capital city or the border and the migration of the great families. In the early Ming government organizations from Shanxi to other provinces in northern China, although the government mobilization and even forced, but also to individual or small family unit, first to the designated place to concentrate, receive a small amount of government issued relocation fee, and then migrated to the designated areas for settlement, and even often adult brothers were arranged to move into a different place. Since the end of the Qing Dynasty, the people who migrated to the Northeast have been more likely to migrate part of their family members first, and the rest of their family members migrated only after the first ones settled down.

The change in migration patterns before and after the Song Dynasty is related to the degree of clan settlement in the place of migration. Before the Song Dynasty, clan settlement was very common in the northern part of the country, but after the Song Dynasty, clan settlement in the north declined. When clan settlement did not exist in the place of emigration, the process of migration certainly did not involve the raising of clans. However, in the South after the Southern Song Dynasty, clan migration was gradually replaced by individual migration. Southern Song dynasty when the demise of the population migration, the history of most of the "escorted by the south", "although there is also a family and move, but no longer for the mainstream form of immigration to individuals and small families as a unit" [14]. Ming and Qing dynasties, "Jiangxi fill Lake Canton" and "Lake Canton fill Sichuan" in the process, is also an individual or small family migration migration mode.

The change of migration mode before and after the Song Dynasty is also related to the cause of migration and the nature and duration of the war. Generally speaking, the migration caused by war may be the overall migration of the township clan, and the migration caused by non-war is mostly in a decentralized way. Due to population growth in the place of emigration, population migration caused by population pressure is generally not clan-raising migration. Generally speaking, after the Song Dynasty, population migration within each of the north and south was more often caused by population pressure, which was also an important reason why the way of population migration was very different from that before the Song Dynasty. As for war-induced migration, occupation wars in which ethnic minorities advance from north to south are also different from wars between regional powers in that the former may cause large-scale migration with a clear direction, while the latter causes migration without a clear direction. In addition, the duration of the war or the speed of occupation by the invaders is also related to the scale of migration and the mode of migration. Prior to the Song, northern minorities advanced southward at a slower rate after invasion. After the Song family moved south, the Southern Song regime was still maintained for a considerable period of time, which allowed time for people to migrate in clans. When the Manchus entered the country, the speed of occupation was faster, and the duration of the Southern Ming regime was also very short. The Qing army into the customs and the speed of the advance to the south is faster than the speed of migration, the Han population is often too late to move to the south, their homes have been occupied, and even less time to organize the overall migration of the townships.　　

In short, compared with the south, the northern population is not only the existing population of the ancestor moved into the time relatively late, and in the initial migration of the population, move out of the place itself does not have the custom of living together, the way to move into the small family and individual-based. As a result, few clans were formed at the beginning of the migration. In the south, however, more clans still remain. The same conclusion can be drawn from the evidence of some areas in the south where the population moved in later. For example, in Hubei province in central China, the degree of clan settlement is weaker than that in most parts of southern and eastern China, and the power of the clans in Sichuan is even weaker.

In addition, the process of cohorting, which will be discussed below, also takes some time. This is one of the reasons why the length of time for the formation of the existing population settlement pattern is correlated with the strength of clan agglomeration.

Second, post-settlement cohorting

Whether people settle in a territory and live together with other families or live scattered as a family unit is determined first and foremost by whether and to what extent they need to cooperate with others. Although, as many scholars have pointed out, the frequency and degree of interactions and cooperation among peasant families were very low in traditional agricultural societies compared to modern societies, the need for cooperation existed after all, and the need for cooperation among peasant families was multifaceted, ranging from cooperation in daily production and life to cooperation in case of conflict with the outside world. As a result, in China during the traditional agricultural society period, as well as in the vast majority of countries and regions around the world, people lived in villages, and diaspora patterns were not common. Whether these village-dwelling peasant families live together with cohorts or with non-cohorts is also related to the amount and degree of the need for cooperation. The need for cooperation does not in itself guarantee its implementation. Compared with the modern society, in the traditional agricultural society, cooperation among peasant families requires more traditional relations such as blood and geography as a bond to link different peasant families together in order to form effective cooperation [15]. In China, where the clan system has a long history and is strongly supported and sustained by ideology, blood relations, especially patrilineal blood relations, are undoubtedly a stronger and more resilient bond, and it is more effective to use this relationship as a bond to organize cooperation, with lower transaction costs. Therefore, there is a strong positive correlation between the need for inter-family cooperation and the degree of clan concentration. The need for cooperation among peasant families is different in different geographical areas, which is also an important reason for the difference in the degree of clan aggregation among different geographical areas.

1. Cooperation in farming activities and clan settlement

In traditional agricultural societies, cooperation among peasant families in production, that is, in farming. Many scholars have distinguished between rice farming and dry farming in their studies on the subject, arguing that more inter-farmer cooperation is needed in rice farming than in dry farming. For example, in discussing cooperation in rice farming, Moore writes: "In bringing the soil to a certain slurry consistency suitable for planting seedlings, a great deal of water is required. Since only a small number of fields can be supplied with water at any one time, it is necessary for the group to work together, one field after another, so as to save the time spent in transplanting in each field. In order to complete the transplanting work at the right time, it was necessary to gather more members than individual family members could gather together" [16]. Daisaku Ikeda, on the other hand, says, "Since rice-growing agriculture cannot be practiced by a single family, but rather by a village, it forms a close-knit ****some. For example, rice-growing paddy fields require a large-scale water conservancy system. Water from cisterns or rivers is diverted to flow through many family-owned paddy fields. Or, the water from a small river is allowed to be equally divided among the paddy fields of each family. ...... In addition, rice-planting or rice harvesting operations are centralized in a ****same operation. The practice is: today the whole village goes out to plant rice seedlings for family A; tomorrow there is a general outing to plant rice seedlings in family B's field" [17]. Lin Zhouji has also made a similar statement: "In a rice-cropping society, when a paddy field needs to be flooded or drained, people have to do it at the same time; if a paddy field at a high place is fertilized, the fertilizer will definitely flow into someone else's field located at a low place, and vice versa, if it is waterlogged, the paddy field at the low place will definitely be the first to suffer. If there is an advantage, there must be a disadvantage. All this means that the village ****s are necessarily subject to the ****same fate. They are both a village ****some and a destiny ****some. This determines that rice culture is not only different from hunting peoples, but also from peoples in wheat-cropping societies"[18].

In dryland farming, cooperation beyond the family scale is rarely required. Although in some areas of dry-crop farming, plowing required more animal and human **** to work together, this cooperation was on a smaller scale and was only needed for a few days during the year. Huang Zongzhi has remarked that "the cultivation methods of northwestern Ji-Lu use more animal power in plowing. On the surface, these farming methods seem to require close clan ties: uncles and brothers work in partnership for this purpose. Such collaboration, however, only lasted a few days in the overall agricultural cycle. While some small farmers also partnered with clansmen, many did not confine themselves to the same clan but partnered with friends or neighbors. The collaboration required for plowing alone was not sufficient to bring together married brothers who could not get along without separating them, nor was it sufficient to be the economic basis of a strong clan organization"[18].

In short, according to most scholars, the need for inter-farmer cooperation in dry farming activities is neither frequent nor small enough to promote clan aggregation and strengthen clan organizations. In contrast, in rice farming, the need for inter-farmer cooperation is much greater. In the south of China, however, rice farming is extremely common. In the north, including northwestern, northern, and northeastern China, dry farming is predominantly practiced (much of the contemporary rice cultivation in the north began only in the modern era). As a result, some scholars have suggested that the difference between rice cultivation and dry cultivation is one reason for the different levels of clan settlement in southern and northern China.

Those who emphasize the need for cooperation in farming usually address the "water problem," stressing the importance of hydraulic engineering for cooperation. In northern China, rainfall and river flows are very unevenly distributed within and between years, with frequent droughts and floods. This greatly increases the cost and reduces the efficiency of canal irrigation. Overall, the north suffers from water shortages and more droughts than floods. During severe droughts, many rivers have very little water or even cut off their flow, thus rendering irrigation channels useless. As a result, during the period of traditional agricultural society, there were fewer canal irrigation projects in the north. According to Huang Zongzhi, water conservancy projects in northern China tended to be at two extremes: on the one hand, large-scale projects to govern large rivers that required state-organized construction and maintenance, and on the other hand, well-drilling projects that required only a small amount of labor input. "The contrast between large-scale flood-control works, built and maintained by the state, and small-scale irrigation wells, dug and owned by individual farmers, is sufficient to show a strong contrast in the structure of the political economy, namely, the stark difference between the vast state apparatus and the decentralized small-farmer economy. In this respect, the difference between North China and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River or the Pearl River Delta is striking, if one compares them". There is one difference between droughts and floods: while droughts cause famine, floods not only cause famine but also directly take human lives and property. As a result, the water projects organized by the State were focused on preventing floods. Obviously, such large-scale projects were not spontaneous inter-farm cooperation. Drinking water for human and animal consumption and, to a lesser extent, irrigated agriculture in the north was mainly based on wells. The drilling of wells usually required only a family's labor plus a few helpers and could be completed within a few days, and use and maintenance were usually limited to one family. In areas of extreme drought and water scarcity where deep wells are required, it is true that under traditional technological conditions the cooperation of the entire village is often required, and the well water is enjoyed by the entire village*** in terms of its use. But even in this case, it is only in the process of drilling the wells that a larger number of people need to work together, and in the process of maintenance, it is usually enough for people not to intentionally destroy it, and only in a few areas and in times of extreme drought, it is necessary to cooperate in the distribution of water.

In the south, however, village-based waterworks systems are quite common. Of course, the North was not devoid of canal irrigation projects during the period of traditional agrarian societies, but there were far fewer medium-sized water projects requiring the regular cooperation of a number of peasant families than in the South. Moreover, even for water conservancy projects of the same size, the inter-farmer cooperation generated in the north was weaker than in the south. Wang Jiange compares the canal irrigation projects in North China and South China, using the examples of irrigation water conservancy in the upper Busan River in Hebei Province and in the Tianjin area. He points out that, due to water scarcity, the water rights in the popular water conservancy system based on private ownership in North China showed at least a certain degree of divisibility; in the rice area of Jiangnan, not only were the water rights basically indivisible, but they were also often a kind of group responsibility. As for the Tianjin paddy fields in the Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty and the small station-controlled fields in the late Qing and Republican periods, the land was owned by the state at the beginning of the period, and the construction and daily management of the channels were the responsibility of the government [20]. Huang Zongzhi concludes that "the scale of clan organization in the Yangtze and Pearl River delta regions corresponds to the scale of water conservancy projects". "The North China Plain was mostly a dry-crop area, and even if irrigation equipment was available, it was mostly limited to one-family well irrigation. In contrast, canal irrigation and paddock projects in the lower Yangtze and Pearl River Delta required more labor and collaboration. This difference can be seen as the ecological basis for the different roles of clan organizations in the two regions" [19].

In addition, some other scholars have pointed out that reclamation activities in newly opened territories required more inter-farmer cooperation and thus favored the formation of clan settlements and the development of clan power. For example, Friedman pointed out that one of the reasons for the development of clans in the Southeast was that the development of virgin land in the frontier areas required more cooperation among people. Ye Xianen and Liu Zhiwei pointed out that the development of Shatian created quite favorable and unique conditions for the development of clan power in the Pearl River Delta region [21-23].