What are the basic characteristics of the ancient Chinese agricultural economy

(1) Economic Composition: Ancient China's agricultural economy was characterized by planting as the main industry, supplemented by family rearing.

(2) Production technology: the increasingly perfected agricultural production method of intensive farming by borrowing ox plowing and continuously improved production tools and production technology was one of the characteristics of the ancient Chinese agricultural economy.

(3) Mode of production: the natural economy of self-sufficiency based on the combination of agriculture and cottage industry, with the family as the unit, was the basic mode of agricultural production in the feudal society of China. This "men plowing and women weaving" type of small peasant economy is another characteristic of China's ancient agricultural economy. Under the small peasant economy, peasants possessed certain means of production and had a certain degree of motivation; the small scale of operation made an important contribution to intensive cultivation.

Extended information:

Production structure

Since the Warring States period, there were formed the agricultural and nomadic nationalities zones which were roughly bounded by the Great Wall. There were also a number of farming indigenous ethnic groups in the pastoral areas, but the nomadic economy with its monolithic tendencies was dominant. The pastoral areas, with their weak cultivation base, are economically dependent on the agricultural areas and need to import some of their agricultural and handicraft products from the agricultural areas. The agricultural areas also need the pastoral areas to supply some of the livestock and animal products.

The two economic zones practiced economic ties through official and private, legal and illegal, mutual markets, and when it was impeded it often went to war. This particular structure of production, entwined with ethnic relations, had a great impact on the economic and political development of ancient China.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Traditional Chinese Agriculture