Rulers of past dynasties practiced various methods of farming farmland at the same time. What are the main aspects?

First, advocate being close to the people. The so-called people's settlement means that the mainland people go to the frontier areas to reclaim land. The specific measures are to recruit or force exiled criminals to cultivate in border areas. Of course, there are also a large number of poor farmers who go voluntarily because of natural and man-made disasters. For example, the Records of Food in the History of the Ming Dynasty recorded some regulations of the Ming government on private villages: "institutionally, whether immigrants go to the countryside leniently or recruit or condemn immigrants as private villages, they all have their own departments." According to historical records, only during the Hongwu period in Ming Taizu, the Ming government took various measures to move millions of mainland people to the frontier and set up folk villages. In addition, in the process of recovering Xinjiang in the late Qing Dynasty, Zuo also adopted the measures of both official villages and civilian villages. He clearly stressed that we should not take into account military provisions and people's food, and stipulated that the main tasks of official villages are to build water conservancy projects, promote sericulture, build roads and bridges, develop frontier transportation, build iron works and manufacture farm tools, and create favorable conditions for civilian villages, while civilian villages are mainly engaged in farming. The organic cooperation of the two has made Xinjiang's economy leap to a new level.

Second, encourage entrepreneurship. The so-called Shang Tun means that businessmen come forward to organize wasteland reclamation activities in the frontier. This practice has been very common since the Song Dynasty. For example, in order to limit the high profits of salt merchants, the Song and Ming governments stipulated that salt merchants must transport food to the border areas where there is a shortage of food, so as to obtain the certificate of salt trading right issued by the government, and salt merchants can freely sell and profit from it after extracting salt with the "salt guide". In this way, in order to solve the problem of high cost of transporting grain from the mainland to the frontier, some salt merchants hired people to settle in the frontier, and paid the grain on the spot with the harvested grain in exchange for the introduction of salt. Shangtun not only saved a lot of freight expenses, but also prospered the frontier economy, so it was officially advocated and became a unique way to reclaim land and develop the frontier.

Third, in addition to official villages, civilian villages and commercial villages, successive dynasties also implemented a unique form of farming, "committed farming". The so-called "crime" means that the government forcibly exiled criminals to the frontier to farm. "Offending Tun" appeared in the Qin Dynasty and was implemented on a larger scale in the Han Dynasty. For example, in the second year of the Xuan Di Land Festival of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (68 BC), the Han government sent ministers such as Ji Zheng and Sima Xi, saying, "Criminals are exempt from punishment, so they can attack cars and drive with grain. When the autumn harvest comes, Ji will send troops to attack the car driver, and the car driver will surrender. " The "prison camp" in the Qing Dynasty was even larger. For example, in order to develop the northeast frontier, the Qing government exiled some prisoners to the northeast. Put into production. With the arrival of a large number of prisoners, the frontier areas that have always been desolate, such as the east bank of Heilongjiang near Aihui, are crowded with merchants and noisy markets, and their prosperity is not even inferior to that of the Central Plains.