How long has the history of cultivating fields and guarding borders been?

"Stationing up wasteland and guarding the border" has a long history in China, mainly military and private.

As early as the Western Han Dynasty, the Han government summed up the lessons of the failure of the Western Expedition and began to "establish a captain to plow the fields" to create conditions for the Han Dynasty to unify the western regions. After the unification of the western regions in 60 BC, the garrison of the Western Han Dynasty in the western regions was further expanded. The soldiers stationed in the western regions were also soldiers, peasants and peasants, which not only provided food and grass for the army and ensured its combat effectiveness, but also developed production, prospered the economy, promoted social progress in the border areas, and was also an important force in maintaining social stability and developing the economy of the western regions. Therefore, since the Han dynasty, all dynasties have taken reclamation as an important measure to unify and manage the western regions. Among them, the Tang Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty were the largest and achieved the most remarkable results.