The Evolution of Ancient Land System in China

Primitive society is the initial stage of the development of human society. Due to the low level of productivity, it is difficult to resist the harsh natural conditions. Therefore, the production mode of collective labor is adopted, and the products obtained by collective labor are evenly distributed, which determines that the land on which human beings live and engage in production activities belongs to all members of society. Therefore, the basic land system of primitive society is: public ownership of land.

2. Slavery Society (Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties)

The land ownership of slave society is the national land ownership of slave owners. The monarch is not only the supreme ruler of the slave-holding country, but also the supreme owner of the land. Among them, the Jingtian system is typical, which originated in the Shang Dynasty and flourished in the Western Zhou Dynasty.

The main feature of the ancient well-field system is that the land is divided into nine pieces, each of which is 100 mu, of which eight pieces are private fields, and the middle piece is public fields, which looks like "wells", so it is called "mine fields".

Serfs must work on public land for free before they can farm on private land, and all the income from farming on public land belongs to slaves. "Under the sky, is the land of kings? Wang Chen described the well field system. The essence of jingtian system is the national land ownership of slave owners represented by monarchs.

3. Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, China was transformed from a slave society to a feudal society. During the Spring and Autumn Period, mankind entered the Iron Age, productivity improved, and the well-field system gradually disintegrated.

During the Warring States Period in 594 BC? In 2000, Lu implemented the "initial tax mu", recognized the legitimacy of private land, and taxed according to the number of mu of land. Shang Yang's political reform in Qin State, "Abandoning mineral fields to open buildings", actually confirmed the feudal private ownership of land in the form of law.

4. Qin and Han Dynasties

During the Qin and Han Dynasties, after Qin unified the six countries, the famous farmland system was implemented throughout the country. The Han Dynasty practiced "recuperation" and adopted the land system of the Qin Dynasty.

On the basis of the rank system, the title system controls the land according to the household registration, and divides different titles and different amounts of land according to the size of military service. Land granted by the state becomes privately owned and the state will not take it back. "People are allowed to reclaim wasteland and land can be bought and sold freely."

5. From the Northern Wei Dynasty to the Middle Tang Dynasty

From the Northern Wei Dynasty to the mid-Tang Dynasty, the system of land equalization was implemented, and landless land was distributed to small farmers for farming according to population. The land is state-owned and belongs to them after a certain number of years of cultivation. After the middle Tang Dynasty, the population increased, the land annexation became more and more serious, and the land equalization system was abolished.

After the abolition of the land equalization system, two tax laws (household tax and local tax) were implemented in the Tang Dynasty: each household paid household tax according to assets and local tax according to mu, and all miscellaneous taxes were abolished. A year is divided into summer and autumn, so it is called two tax laws. It changed the people-oriented tax system since the Warring States period, indicating that the feudal government relaxed its personal control over farmers.

6. Northern Song Dynasty

Wang Anshi's reform in the Northern Song Dynasty implemented the tax law of equal land: the government re-measured the land and collected taxes according to the amount of land occupied by each household and the degree of poverty, and bureaucratic landlords were no exception, which objectively increased the national fiscal revenue.

7. Ming dynasty

Zhang, the first cabinet official of the Ming Dynasty, carried out the whipping method in the whole country: the combination of rent and tax, and the land tax, the corvee and the handyman were all divided into fields, converted into silver, and taxed according to the fields. Realized the transformation of China's tax system from material tax to monetary tax.

Baidu Encyclopedia-China Ancient Land System