I would like to know, about the history and evolution of the indentured tenancy system in China?

In feudal China, landlords rented out land to peasants, thereby exploiting and enslaving them. It was a form of feudal production relations that emerged with the feudal mode of production since the Warring States period. From the Warring States period to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, this system continued for more than 2,000 years, during which time it continued to develop and change, and it was similar to the general and specific feudal production relations of other countries in the world. The personal dependence of tenant households was strongest at the time of the labor rent, and then gradually eased. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the "Law on the Escape of Customers from the Royal Government Estate" was enacted, stipulating that only the customers themselves could be enslaved, but not their families; they could not be forced to sell their farms and owe debts to the customers; after the death of the customers, they were allowed to allow their wives to remarry, and their daughters were allowed to be married off by the customers themselves, and so on. This is the explicit provisions of the tenant-client dependence weakened. However, the development is uneven, the Ming and Qing dynasties there is still a strong dependence of tenant servants and so on.

The two Han dynasties

The tenant relationship in the Western Han Dynasty was recorded in the Book of the Han Dynasty (汉书-食货志) in the words of Dong Zhongshu, "or cultivate the fields of the rich and powerful people, and see the tax of Shifu". Tang Yan Shigu (581 ~ 645) notes that: "the lower households of poor people, since the landless and cultivation of the rich and powerful family fields, ten percent of the five to lose the owner of this field." Wang Mang criticized the Western Han Dynasty for letting "the rich and powerful encroach on the countryside, and divide the fields to rob them". Yan Shigu explains "divide the field" as: "the poor have no field but take the field of the rich to cultivate, **** share their income", "fake" as "the poor lease the field of the rich", and "rob" as "the poor lease the field of the rich". The word "false" means "the poor leasing the fields of the rich", and the word "rob" means that the rich robbed the poor of their rents and invaded and cheated the poor. According to the Historical Records of China, Ning Cheng said that Ning Cheng "bought more than 1,000 hectares of pei fields and made use of them to serve thousands of poor people". This was to rent the fields to the poor and make them work the fields. Since the Eastern Han Dynasty, the tenancy system continued to develop. Zhong Changtong's "Changyan" mentioned that the rich and powerful families at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty had "acres of land connected to the square country" and "fields full of cream", so they could "have thousands of rooms and famous eups to serve", or "have thousands of houses and famous eups to serve". They were able to "have thousands of rooms and famous euphonies in service" or "attach themselves to tens of thousands of people". Since the Qin and Han dynasties, the system of the landowning class enslaving the peasants with land has been increasingly consolidated and popularized.

Wei-Jin-Southern and Northern Dynasties

Wei-Jin-Southern and Northern Dynasties, there were some new situations:① Cao Cao widely practiced cantonment, using the official wasteland to order sharecroppers and cantoners to cultivate, using the official oxen to cultivate the official field, then six percent of the harvest went to the government and four percent to the sharecroppers; using the private oxen to cultivate the official field, the official and the sharecroppers split the harvest. The two han in the border and the interior have carried on the cantonment, but like the cao wei this universal use of the government field to recruit the people to cantonment, the implementation of the share of the grain method, or for the first time. This form of tenancy on state-owned land was practiced to varying degrees in the subsequent dynasties (see the colorful drawings [Tunken (mural painting, unearthed in No. 3 chamber of a tomb of the Wei and Jin Dynasties in Jiayuguan Pass, Gansu Province)], [Herding Horses (mural painting, unearthed in No. 5 chamber of a tomb of the Wei and Jin Dynasties in Jiayuguan Pass, Gansu Province)], [Hunting (mural painting, unearthed in No. 5 chamber of a tomb of the Wei and Jin Dynasties in Jiayuguan Pass, Gansu Province)], [Holding Camels (mural painting, unearthed in No. 6 chamber of a tomb of the Wei and Jin Dynasties in Jiayuguan Pass, Gansu Province)], [Hunting (mural painting, unearthed in No. 6 chamber of a tomb of the Wei and Jin Dynasties in Jiayuguan Pass, Gansu Province) )]], [Postman's Drawing (Mural Painting, Excavated in Tomb No. 5, Wei and Jin Tomb, Jiayuguan Pass, Gansu)]). ②Feudal government for the first time by decree to provide for the system of tenants according to the shade of the official rank. Jinshu - Wang Xun biography" recorded Cao Wei, was given to the Secretary of the following different amounts of rent cattle customers, "the door of the noble power, moving a hundred". In Taiyuan, the Huns and Hu people were used as field customers, and there were thousands of them. Nobility and gentry, more than "privately placed name", forcing poor farmers to become their tenant households, the Western Jin Dynasty government ordered to prohibit the ineffective, so after the Ping Wu, it is stipulated that according to the official rank of the shade for tenant households, the first and second grade tenant households shall not be more than fifty, the third grade ten households, the fourth grade seven households, the fifth grade five households, the sixth grade three households, the seventh grade two households, the eighth, The ninth grade had one household each. During the Southern Dynasties of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the number of tenants in the shade was reduced to 40 households for the first and second grades, and the number of tenants for the following grades was greatly increased. The ninth grade was also increased to five households, and it was stipulated that "the tenant's grain was to be divided with all the households" and "the tenants were to be registered in the household register". These provisions transformed the tenancy relationship from an unwritten law into a decree, and the tenancy system became more legalized. During the Southern Dynasties of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the people of the Central Plains moved southward because of the war and chaos, and most of them relied on the big family names as tenants, so there were more and more tenants.

Sui-Tang

Sui-Tang was a time of prosperity for the feudal economy, especially after the destruction of the system of equalization of land, and the tenant-tenant relationship had a new development. The feudal emperors and the government's imperial estates, official estates, official fields, public light-house fields, and camp fields, etc., forced peasants to tenant and pay rent. The rents for official fields in the capital had to be sent to the capital by the tenants, or else they would be charged for transportation. Tang Yuan Zhen (779~831) mentioned in "Tongzhou Zhanjian Tian" that the rent of the official field was three dongs of corn per mu, three bundles of grass, and one hundred and twenty pieces of foot money, which was paid to the city of Tongzhou; for those who were sent to the capital, the tenants also had to change the rice and hire a car to transport them, which was a very heavy exploitation. The tenants on the camping fields also share the government fields and pay the rent. Private landlords and monasteries of the manor or manor, more rented with the bankers, tenants farming. For example, Wang Thao of Xiangzhou in Tang Tianbao had a particularly wide range of manor houses with more than 200 tenants. The New Tang Book - Duan Xiushi Biography recorded that Jiao Lingchen, a general in Jingzhou, "took people's fields and occupied them for himself, and gave them to the farmers, returning half of them to them when they were ripe," i.e., charging 50 percent of the land rent. Lu Zhi of the Tang Dynasty mentioned in his book "Equalizing Taxes and Compassion for the People" that the rent for one mu of private land was one stone, or five buckets, which was twenty or ten times higher than the official tax. The modern discovery of the Tang Dynasty tenancy agreements, some of the rent is heavier than this.

In Dunhuang and Turpan, there are a lot of pre-Tang Dynasty to Five Dynasties tenancy contracts found. The Turpan unearthed documents, book five, "Gaochang Yanchang 24 years of the Taoist Zhijia summer field deed", recorded in 584 AD Zhijia rented one acre of permanent field, pay the rent of five silver, this acre of tax, the renter does not bear the burden of the field; irrigation canals if the canals are broken overflowing, the owner of the field is not responsible for. The remnants of the Lv Caiyi lease deed contained in Dunhuang Data recorded that a person who was the owner of the money paid four hundred and fifty wen to rent two mu of standing field at Lv Caiyi. In the deed of land lease of Jia Renzi, it is stated that Linghu Fazhi rented the land to Jia Renzi for the purpose of "searching for expenses". Suo Heinu rented land from others because he "owed the land". These tenancy agreements prove that: ① Tang Dynasty tenancy relations developed to a new stage, the tenant and the landlord to contractual relations with each other ② "Jin Book - Zuyao biography" began to see the word "landlord", and the contract is written in the "landlord" or "landlord", "landlord", "landlord", "landlord", "landlord", "landlord", "landlord", "landlord", "landlord", "landlord", "landlord", "landlord". landlord", "landlord", "landlord" or "summer field", which shows the new development of the tenant relationship. (3) It was stipulated in the contract that the rent to be paid included grain, money, silk, etc., and monetary rent appeared. Some of those who rented out their fields were short of money and rented out their fields to get money to use, which was a pawn rent. Some of them rented out their fields to get money for use because their farmland was scattered, and they rented out more concentrated farmland for easy cultivation. Only those who lacked fields and those who did not have fields were real tenants or leaseholders, which was the key to the formation of the tenant system. [Zhao Huaiman's lease deed of the 17th year of the Tang Dynasty (unearthed in Turpan, Xinjiang, in 1959)]

The emergence of the tenancy system was another new development of the Tang Dynasty tenancy system. The Tang Laws Review - Miscellaneous Laws said: "The official fields and houses were borrowed by the private sector, and people were allowed to share the food. Or private fields and houses borrowed by someone, also make tenant." Said government fields, private fields have the original owner, the borrower or sharecropper, as a person, plowman three, only as a person or plowman is the real tenant, sharecropper is only to the original owner of the field package to the intermediary leased to the person again. This situation of two owners of one field has been further developed in later generations.

Song and Yuan Dynasties Song and Yuan Dynasties, the tenant relationship continued to develop. In the Song Dynasty, it was clear that the household was registered as the owner and the client, and that the client was the person who rented the land from the landlord without any land of his own. The division of the household register in this way shows the prevalence of tenancy relations. At this time, the government and the people's land or farmland, mostly rented with the customer tenant farming. The big landlords in Sichuan often had hundreds or thousands of clients. Song Dynasty further tightened the organization of the government Zhuang, "Song Hui Yao Series Draft - food and goods" recorded in the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, the provisions of the field five hectares for a Zhuang, called the Zhuang household five families to protect each other, to become an A, push a person for the head of the A, * * * cultivation of these five hectares of land. Alternatively, one of the landowners who was above the third-class household was the supervisor of the village. A head or supervisor is an agent of the landlord or feudal government to supervise the tenants.

The phenomena of "withdrawing tenants" and "tenanting" emerged in the Song Dynasty. In the Song Dynasty, the phenomena of "removal of tenants" and "tenancy" emerged. "Removal of tenants" meant that a new landowner who had acquired a certain piece of land could drive out the original tenant, and "tenancy" meant that a tenant was willing to increase the rent in order to acquire the land that had been previously tenanted by another tenant. The landlord class used these methods to oppress the tenants and raise the rent. The establishment and dissolution of tenancy relations were freer than in the past. At this time, the relationship between landlords and tenants, as Su Xun "field system," said: "rich people's homes, the land is large, wide, connected to the road, call floating guests, divided into plowing which, flogging and driving, depending on the slaves, sitting in peace and looking around, commanded in the middle of it. And the service belongs to the people, the summer for the hoe, the fall for the win, no one against its rhythm to play. And the field of the income, has got its half." Therefore, the sharecroppers increasingly poor and hungry, the landlord is increasingly rich.

Ming and Qing Dynasties The tenancy relationship in Ming and Qing Dynasties continued to develop along with the previous generation. At this time, the tenancy contract than the Tang Dynasty, detailed, in addition to writing the number of acres of tenant, rent, generally written "located" where, "to pull the people" or "to the guarantor" for tenancy, pay rent on time! The words "do not dare to default" were usually written. After the deed signed by the tenant and the tenant or guarantor, the landlord does not sign his name. At this time, the imperial estates, government estates, school fields and private landlords of the fields, along the tenant farming to pay rent. As the land became more centralized, more and more peasants did not have land, so they had to rent land for farming. Gu Yanwu "Zhi Zhi Lu" mentioned that only one-tenth of the people in Suzhou had their own land, and nine-tenths of the people who had no land but tenant farming. A mu received, more than less than three stone, less than a stone more. Rent per mu of heavy one stone two or three buckets, light eight or nine buckets, there are today's rent tomorrow begging to survive. So the peasant revolts in the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty has always been. More importantly, during this period, the system of perpetual tenantry and rent-bonding generally developed. Under these conditions, laborers had to pay a certain amount of "capital" in order to become tenants. At the same time, the form of land rent developed from mainly divided rent to mainly fixed rent, the landlord's intervention was reduced, and the economic independence of the tenant farmers was greatly enhanced.

Taking an overview of the tenancy relationship in China through the ages, in terms of the form of rent, the early rent in kind is more common, while there may be a considerable proportion of the rent of servitude, the Warring States period of the "division of the land", the Han Dynasty, Ning Cheng's "servitude thousands of families" that is. In the Wei, Jin, Sui and Tang dynasties, the rent in kind increased even more. In the Tang Dynasty, monetary rent also appeared in the tenancy contract. However, servitude, in-kind and monetary rent are sometimes intertwined. The amount of rent has a fixed rent, such as Suo Heinu land lease contract stipulates that each mu rent of one stone and two buckets that is. There were divided rents, such as the pair of cents, four or six cents, three or seven cents and two or eight cents on the tundra. There were also rent deposits as security, gifts to the landlord at festivals, and small rents. The personal attachment of the tenants was strongest at the time of the labor rent, and gradually slowed down later. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the "Law on the Escape of Customers from the Royal Government Estate" was enacted, stipulating that only the customers themselves could be enslaved, but not their family members; they could not be forced to sell their farms and owe debts to their customers; they were allowed to allow their wives to remarry after the customers' deaths, and their daughters were allowed to marry off their daughters, etc. This was a sign of diminishing dependence of tenants. This is the explicit provision of the tenant client to reduce the dependence. However, the development is uneven, the Ming and Qing dynasties there is still a strong dependence of tenant servants and so on. In short, the Chinese tenantry system had the same generality as the feudal production relations of other countries in the world, but also had different particularities, and its contents were complex and varied. This tenancy system, in the semi-colonial and semi-feudal old China, also continued for a long time.