Content and significance of farming system

After the establishment of the unified empire in the Western Han Dynasty, it shared the same interest with the people at home and pro-Xiongnu abroad. However, the Huns still "make small profits when they enter, and make big profits when they leave." They have been harassing the border and stationing troops on a large scale, which has made the government expenditure heavier and heavier and increased the burden on the people, which is inconsistent with the original domestic policy. In order to solve this contradiction, an immigration entity was established to awaken wasteland to reduce transportation difficulties.

Secondly, the primitive production and combat of Xiongnu nomadic people are very different from the agricultural areas of Han nationality. Because the army can feed on grazing livestock, and the Han army will inevitably run out of food, it is greatly restricted militarily and its combat effectiveness is greatly reduced. At the same time, the system of changing service implemented in the Han Dynasty was at a military disadvantage. In order to change this situation, the western Han dynasty adopted the method of static braking, moved to the real border and settled in the field.

There are two basic conditions for the policy of immigrants to settle down in the land: first, they have land to settle down, otherwise those who are forced to move can't make a living, and the system of settling down in the land can't be implemented for a long time; The other is that there are people who can migrate. If people live and work in their original places, no one will want to move to other residences. At this time, both conditions can be established. In this way, on the one hand, it can solve part of the problem of rations transportation, on the other hand, it can also solve the problem of refugees, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone. In this way, the real immigration border policy was successfully implemented.

There is no detailed record of the effect of immigration policy at that time in the Western Han Dynasty, but it can be seen from "On conquering Xiongnu in invincible time" that the effect is not very great. At first, Liang Wudi hoped that the people would still provide troops, probably because the scale of immigrants was not very large. Later, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty listened to Wang Hui's suggestion and started a large-scale movement after fighting the Huns, which achieved remarkable results.

Meaning:

The division of labor between soldiers and farmers is an inevitable historical phenomenon under centralized power, which means that military labor has to pay taxes, and it is an excessive expression of labor to physical objects. However, military operations still need a lot of financial, material and human resources to replenish losses. But at that time, due to the dominant position of natural economy, productivity could not be provided to the army and could not meet their needs. The measure of withdrawing troops from agriculture is actually a historic recovery of hard labor in a special period.

The system of reclaiming farmland in the Western Han Dynasty not only solved the above-mentioned problems of long-distance transportation and insufficient wages, but also had a great impact on nomadic people. Nomads are good at fighting horses in mountainous areas, while Han people are good at fighting horses on flat land, in order to change such military problems. The adoption of immigration and border stabilization policies and static braking strategic policies has had a positive impact.