What was the land system during the Sui and Tang dynasties?

There were developments in the land system during the Sui and Tang dynasties. During the primitive clan communes in China, the system of communal land ownership within the clan was practiced. After entering the slavery society, the land ownership system of clan communes was replaced by the land state ownership system of slave-owning aristocrats. During the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, the productive forces demanded further changes in the relations of production, and the slave owners had to distribute land to individual peasants for rent and labor, and many of them were transformed into newly emerged feudal landlords, and the well-field system, which was based on the state ownership of land, began to disintegrate. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, the emperor was the highest and largest landowner in the country. Land ownership and power were united in him, and his supreme ownership of land was recognized. The first emperor of Qin carved a stone to praise himself: "Within the Six Harmonies, the land of the emperor", "wherever people go, there is no one who is not a subject". Han Shu - food and goods on the Zhi ":" on the so about the law to save prohibited, light field rent of five and tax one, the amount of officials, degree of official use, to the people; and mountains and rivers, gardens and marketplace rent people, from the Son of God to the feudal monarch of the Tang Mu Yi, are each for private support, do not receive in the Son of God's funds." After the Wei and Jin dynasties, the equalization of land was gradually implemented. The Western Jin Dynasty stipulated that both male and female peasants could be allotted fields, a kind of occupied field that did not pay rent to the state, and a kind of coursed field that paid rent to the state.485 In 485, the Northern Wei Dynasty enacted the equalization of fields system, which stipulated that the granted fields could be divided into dew fields and mulberry fields.

When Emperor Wen of Sui continued to implement the equalization system, it was stipulated that each man was entitled to 80 mu of dew field, 20 mu of mulberry field or hemp field, and 40 mu of dew field for women. The dew field was to be returned to the state after the death of the recipient, and the mulberry or hemp field was a permanent field that could be passed on to descendants and could be bought and sold in limited quantities. The number of people who could receive fields for slaves and maids was the same as that of commoners, but there was a limit on the number of people who could receive fields: 300 people in the family of a prince, 60 people in the family of a commoner, and 60 mu of fields for a cow, with a limit of 4 cows in a family. All princes and governors were given permanent fields, decreasing from 100 hectares to 100 hectares. The Beijing officials were all given a field for their duties, which was reduced from one crystal to five hectares according to their rank. In addition to the official fields, foreign officials were also given a certain number of light-house fields. The income from these fields was part of the official's salary, while the income from the light house fields was used to pay for the office expenses of the government office. In the early Tang Dynasty, this system was basically followed, and this measure had a restraining effect on the annexation of land and increased the number of homesteaders, which was conducive to the recovery and development of agricultural production. As a result, the Tang Dynasty reached its heyday during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong Kaiyuan. Du Fu's poem "Remembering the Past" says: "Remembering the days of Kaiyuan's heyday, a small town still housed ten thousand families. The rice was white, the public and private granaries were abundant. No jackals and tigers on the roads of the nine states, and no need to travel far to get out on an auspicious day. The roads in the nine states are free of jackals and tigers, and there is no need to travel on an auspicious day."

But after the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the equalization system was completely destroyed. This is because, although the system of equalization of land is becoming more and more complete, it has no restriction on the sale of land, which provides an opportunity for land annexation. Not only did the equalization system fail to suppress land annexation, but it also objectively fostered the development of large private land ownership by feudal landlords. With the social and economic prosperity of the early Tang Dynasty, the commodity economy prospered as never before, increasingly breaking the closure of the natural economy, prompting the growing privatization and commercialization of land, leading to the rapid intensification of land sales and land annexation. In the process of land annexation, aristocrats, bureaucrats, landlords and rich merchants became the dominant forces. The book of Yuan Gui - field system" said: "princes and officials and rich and powerful families, than set up farmland, wanton annexation, no fear of the statute." In addition, due to the development of the monastery economy, the monk landlords were also an important force in the annexation of land. They "drove the fields, accumulated goods, plowed and weaved for a living, assessed and sold into the industry" to plunder the peasants. During the reign of Wu Zetian, the economy of the monasteries developed even more, and "the rich and beautiful industry, doubled to get more; water mill manor, the number is not small". And when the Tang Dynasty Emperor, "where the capital of the field of beauty, more to the temple, the officials can not be ruled".

While the rich and powerful families were building their farms, the peasants became the main target of land annexation. They were increasingly plunged into poverty and bankruptcy, fundamentally breaking the original pattern of equalization of land. In the middle and late Tang Dynasty, the economy of manor houses was particularly prosperous. This tradition, inherited from the Southern Bi Dynasty, had existed since the early Tang Dynasty. When Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty was in power, Wang Fangyi "opened up dozens of hectares of land, decorated pavilions, and planted bamboo and trees". Since then, bureaucrats and landlords to seize the land set up manor abound, and boast. Manor is also known as the mountain village, the field, the manor house, the other industry, etc., there are a large number of Tang poems on the description of the manor, which can be seen in the manor of the economy to the impact of the culture.