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Concentration and dispersion of land rights in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, Five Dynasties and Northern Song Dynasty

During the late Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty, there were many examples of land merger, which reflected that the situation of land merger was really serious at that time. Many scholars have come to the conclusion that "in the Song Dynasty, due to the rapid expansion of large land ownership, more than 60% or 70% of the country's cultivated land has been occupied by the landlord class". I think these scholars overestimated the degree of land concentration in Song Dynasty. According to the five-class household version, the land occupied by the landlord class accounts for about 45% of the total cultivated land in the country, and the land occupied by farmers accounts for about 55% of the total cultivated land in the country. In the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty, the land occupied by the landlord class dropped to about 35%, and the land occupied by farmers rose to about 65%. The above calculation results show that in the feudal society of China, the change of land ownership is not always more and more concentrated. At the same time of land concentration, there is also a trend of land dispersion, which are in opposite directions and offset each other to a great extent. Whether the result of the change of land ownership tends to be more centralized or relatively decentralized varies from time to time and cannot be generalized. The main reasons for the dispersion of land in this period are: first, the sale of land; Second, the separation of production; Third, the government's policy of recruiting soldiers, encouraging land reclamation and privatizing government land has trained many yeomen and semi-yeomen farmers.

First, the trend of land concentration

After the ninth year of Taihe in the Northern Wei Dynasty (485) and the first year of Jianzhong in the Tang Dynasty (780), the Sui and Tang governments in the Northern Wei Dynasty passed land legislation, and restricted land merger by administrative intervention means such as setting the maximum land occupation for officials and people and restricting land sales. Although these measures can't completely curb land annexation, they still have certain effects. After the "land equalization system" existed in name only, the government basically gave up the traditional policy of restricting land occupation by administrative means through land legislation. Land can be bought and sold freely, and the landlord's land ownership and customs of monks have developed significantly. For example, around the second year of Bao Li's reign (826), Cao Nan, a monk from longxing temple, Hangzhou, "cultivated ten hectares of fertile land" for Huayan Economic and Social Society. During the Daiwa period (827 ~ 835), the Buddhist temple in Tiantai Mountain was inscribed with an inscription, with a field of 12 hectares. When the temple covers an area of more than 10 hectare, such as Kaicheng (836 ~ 840) and Huichang (84 1 ~ 846), Longzhou Daxiang Temple is "the size of the official village is * * *, and its jurisdiction is 533 hectares of 5 16 mu triangle" (3). When Tang Wuzong "destroyed the Buddha", the temple economy suffered a heavy blow, and the temple "thousand hectares of fertile land" [6] could not be sold or distributed to temple handmaiden, temple supporter or other landless peasants. After Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty (847-860) ascended the throne, most of the destroyed monasteries were repaired one after another, and some of the lost land was returned to the monasteries. In the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, many monasteries still had a lot of land. For example, Wutai Mountain 10 Temple Guanzhuang 42 has 300 hectares of fertile land. In the last week of the second year of Xiande (955), Zhou Shizong once again "destroyed the Buddha" and abandoned 30,336 temples. The strong momentum of temple economic development was frustrated, and the phenomenon of large-scale occupation of land by temples in the north was greatly reduced. However, Taoist temple seems unaffected. During the Xiande period of the Zhou Dynasty (954-960), there was "20,000 hectares of farmland" in the gate of Wuxianguan Mountain in Liling County, Langzhou. Although these 20,000 hectares of land are not necessarily all places in Wuxianguan, there will be many places in Wuxianguan. In the southern region, which is not under the jurisdiction of the Later Zhou Dynasty, the number and scale of temples have also increased. According to Sanshan records, under the rule of wuyue, the number of temples in Fuzhou increased from more than 500 to more than 700. During the Five Dynasties, Yan Jun, the king of Min, used eight states' property to divide it into three classes, and rich households gave Taoist temples, so the temple economy once flourished. In the early Song Dynasty, Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province also had a lot of land. According to the Records of Lingyin Temple (Volume II), in the third year of Song Tiansheng (1025), Empress Dowager Cixi paid for land acquisition, including 5 hectares of woodland in Qiantang County, 0/000 hectares of paddy field in Siting Township, Yan Guan County and 0/000 hectares of paddy field in Jishan Township, Chongde County, Xiuzhou.

Bureaucratic landlords also generally own a lot of real estate. For example, Wei Zhou's Taiping Guangji (Volume 499) quoted Bei Meng as saying: "Prime Minister Wei Zhou is a good student. There is also an industry in the east of Jiangling House, with fertile land, exquisite production and the most fruitful results. Grain accumulation is late. At the beginning of Xian Tong, Lingnan was granted our time, and Zong Yi took Panyu as the land of pearl and green, and hung the ring of greedy springs. Zhou calmly said, "There are still 7,000 heaps of valleys in Jiangling Village, so don't be greedy." The emperor said,' This is the so-called full valley Weng'. "It's hard to estimate how much land is produced in Wei Zhou. Another example is Wang Guan Village, Zhongtiaoshan, in the four-hole map. " The beauty of spring stone, more than ten miles a week, tops a mountain. Waterfalls and springs flow into the valley above Beiyan, irrigating dozens of hectares of fertile land "[13]. These dozens of hectares of fertile land are only part of Sikongtu's field production.

Volume 20 of Wu Ji, Epitaph of Mao Jun in Taiping Prefecture, records that Mao gave way to Jishui in Luling in the Southern Tang Dynasty. "History of the Old Five Dynasties" Volume 132 "Hereditary Biography" contains: Fengxiang was the eldest son of our time (Li). ..... There are thousands of acres of fields and thousands of acres of bamboo between ancestors. In Sanshui Xiaoyu, the article "The daughter hired by Zheng Wang is a son-in-law" wrote: "The daughter ordered by the governor is a son-in-law and a well-dressed family ... and she stopped working in Xian Tong, so she set up another job in the northwest of the county, where the land is fertile." The words "thousand acres", "thousand hectares" and "ten thousand hectares" mentioned here are not exact, but they also show that they occupy a lot of land.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, the merger of bureaucrats and landlords became more active. For example, in the early Song Dynasty, Wang Zuo (the father of Wang Pu) said, "A diligent shepherd can raise wealth and goods, and wherever he goes, there are farmhouses and his family is poor.". Shi Baoji (son of Shi Shouxin) has shown that "several generations live under the same roof, and the family is rich, where can there be a luxury villa?". Li Cheng, an official who specializes in wine affairs in yi county, also has Li Chengzhuang (⒄), which is "Fei Fang Li Li, the river runs through it, especially fat, and hundreds of tenants". Wang Mengzheng, a noble prince, said, "Holding a chapter to provide the relatives of the Queen Mother will occupy more Tianjiazhou" and "invade the territory of hundreds of people". At that time, the bureaucrats occupied a lot of land, so that Tian, an imperial envoy in the fifth year of Xianping (1002), marveled at the memorial ceremony: "The land of minister's capital is known to be with Beijing." In the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty, bureaucratic landlords merged more severely. Secretary Ren Zongchao saved Zuo Langchen's "thousand acres of fertile land" in Changxing, Huzhou [2 1]. Fan Zhongyan "bought thousands of acres of fertile land in Gusu near Guo, which is a righteous village" [22], and also bought thousands of acres of fertile land in Yunxian County, Songzhou, and published it as a table of poor people [23]. Only Fan Zhongyan and Li Shizhong's "Yizhuang" have reached "1,000 mu", and their total land property is naturally more. During the period of Emperor Yingzong and Zongshen, "it was really the history of the Ministry, with a land of more than 700 hectares" [24]. At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhu Kuang, a big bureaucrat, lost all his wealth, and even more, his land reached 300,000 mu [25]. The whole situation, as Yuan Xie said, "I think today's people come back from official tours and rarely buy land" [26].

There are few records about the occupation of land by unidentified landlords, and occasionally some cases are seen, some of which occupy a considerable area. For example, it is recorded in the volume of Sanshui Xiaoyu: between Xian Tong (860-874) and Ganfu (874-880), Wei Qing, editor of Rufen, cultivated a big ball, so "the cultivated land is 2,000 mu, and it is called the rich man in ten years." Xu * [Huo+Bo] Record of Snow Peak (Volume 8) The Society's Tian Zhai is Fan Yuzhi's Meeting records that in the eleventh year of Xian Tong (870), there were "20 Tian Zhai" in Lanpeng, with an unknown area. Judging from its grain production of 2585.5 stone and annual rent of 10 100 stone, the abandoned land should be 60. In the early Song Dynasty, Li Yu, who was supposed to be the land of abundance, "had more than a hundred hectares of land" [27]. Mo Quan, a woman from Zhaozhou, "Farming a hundred hectares, facing the Shuizhu Villa Pavilion" [28]. Song Zhenzong, Tan governor Sha Yanxu's "dozens of hectares of land" [29]. Zichuan Cai also "owns dozens of hectares of land" [30]. Wang Gao is located near Hubei County, with "fertile land and a hundred hectares" [3 1]. Those who lived in harmony with Guo were once "with hundreds of hectares" [32]. In the period, the Yao family in Yongle "owned dozens of hectares of land" by the river [33]. On the occasion of the Song Dynasty, Lu De, Yongkang and Wuzhou "once had a thousand acres of land" [34]. Zhang Guaiguai, a local tyrant in Huaidong, "his family's annual income is 700,000 Hu" [35].

With the development of big land ownership, it is inevitable that some small landlords will sell their land and even become poor and bankrupt. According to the mu of guoyuan, a monk of Zhaocheng Temple in Tokyo during the Zhenyuan period of Tang Dynasty, in the 21st year of Zhenyuan (805), Sanggu Village, Yin He County, Tokyo (now Taohuayu, Xingyang, Henan Province) bought 386 mu of land, which increased the area of guoyuan, a monk of Zhaocheng Temple, to 179 1.5 mu. Among them, there is an inscription that records the reason why the original owner sold the land: "A piece of land was picked up by Mu, Donghu Needle, Xihe, Nansuqianhe and Beihe, bought, guaranteed by the landlord and repaid by the guarantor; A section of 10 mu meandering land passes through East Lake, East Zhao Cheng Temple, South Sitianchang and Beiguan River, so it is difficult to sell the landlord Hu Zhen's mother Zhao Xin. The first section has 12 mu of land, in the river bank and in the river. That is, buy, east to Joline, west to Dahe, south to Sitian and Beiguan River, and the landlord guarantees the sale of debts; Bought a 50-acre mountain, and the landlord Zhang Qia and his brother died and sold it "[36]. There are similar records in Dunhuang unearthed documents. For example, last year (827), the people celebrating the safety of the tribal people "refused to repay the sudden land debt" [37] and sold 10 mu of land; After nine days (909), Anlizi sold 7 mu of land "for lack of use" [38].

The intensification of land annexation and the suspension of the rich and the poor have certain universality. In the middle Tang Dynasty, Lu Zhi said, "There is no end to chaos, poor border administration, and the consultants will swallow it. The rich have tens of thousands of acres of land, and the poor have no place to live. Rely on the strongmen, think of themselves as selfish, lend them food and rent land, work all year round and rest for five days. If you use up what you borrowed, you will often suffer from shortage of supply. If you have a farm, you will be taxed on grain [39]. In the early Song Dynasty, Dr. Guo's son also said: "The rich have a place of hope, but the poor have no place of talent." "The strong have no fields to plant, and those who have fields are unable to plow. ..... The rich benefit from more livestock, and the poor can't help themselves "[40].

The History of Song Dynasty (volume 173) and Food Records also said: After Song Renzong, "after a long period of security, the rich surname of the powerful minister occupied the land indefinitely, and the merger and acquisition were forged, and the customs became accustomed to it, which could not be stopped."

Second, the trend of land dispersion.

At the same time of land concentration, there is also a trend of land dispersion. As far as the whole country is concerned, it can be said that land has always been centralized and scattered. The main reasons for the dispersion of land in this period are: first, the sale of land; Second, the separation of production; Third, the government's policy of supporting farmers. The first two points are long-term factors, from Qin and Han dynasties to the past. The third point is closely related to the land policy of the government in the late Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty, which encourages land reclamation and privatization of official land. This will be discussed below.

(a) sale of land

In the late Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty, land ownership changed very frequently because land sales were no longer restricted by law. Therefore, there are the sayings of "changing the Millennium field to 800 owners" [4 1] and "changing the frequency in Zhuangtian" [42]. In the frequent land sales, many disputes and lawsuits have been triggered. Among all kinds of lawsuits at that time, lawsuits related to land issues were the most frequent. In view of all kinds of disputes caused by land sales, since the sixth year of Tang Yuanhe (8 1 1), the government has issued many regulations to deal with land disputes. In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, Dou Yi and others said: "Since the Tang Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty and the next six years, there have been different styles of selling property" [43]. In the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, Yuan said: "The rules in the palace are the most detailed, but the transactions are the most detailed" [44], which reflects this reality.

The flow of land rights is multi-directional: there are both land rights flows within the landlord class and land rights flows within the peasant class; Both farmers' farmland flows to landlords and landlords' farmland flows to farmers. The flow of land rights between the landlord class and the peasant class will not affect the proportion of land occupied by the landlord class and the peasant class. The flow of land rights between landlord class and peasant class will affect the proportion of land occupied by landlord class and peasant class. Commentators may say: "In the Song Dynasty, due to the low proportion of land owned by yeomen and semi-yeomen, the transfer of land ownership was mainly due to the convection between landlord classes, that is, from one landlord to another." "It is only an individual phenomenon that poor peasants (including tenant farmers) acquire land through purchase or other means and become landlords. On the contrary, another convection of land, that is, sporadic land in the hands of poor peasants is plundered by bureaucratic landlords and ordinary landlords, is a frequent phenomenon. " The general trend is that the land is gradually concentrated in the hands of a few big landlords "[45]. We believe that from one household to another, the probability of farmers buying land is indeed much lower than that of landlords. However, because the total number of farmers is 10 times more than that of landlords, it varies from place to place and cannot be generalized.

Some customers rise to be main households, some semi-yeoman families rise to yeoman families, and some yeoman families rise to be landlords, which often takes a long-term accumulation process. "Song Wenjian" volume 106, Lu Dajun's "People's Discussion" said: "For the sake of the country, don't rush to protect the people. The importance of protecting people lies in caring for landowners, luring customers to buy land and thinking that they are landowners. The owner is proud and the state is self-sufficient. " It shows that it is entirely possible for tenant farmers to raise their cultivated land to the main household.

Volume 47 "Qingyuan Chapter Tax Book", quoted from the Tax Book, also said: "Counties and counties set up tax collection books, and in case of harvesting, officials will immediately note (original note: household statistics, county officials hanging on their feet. To set up an innovative account, it must be said that on a certain day of a certain year, a certain household in a village will set up an agricultural account, and your account book will be placed in the county magistrate's office, and it will be easy every three years. " The "innovative account establishment" mentioned here does not mean that the original owner "innovative account establishment" because of separation and analysis, but specifically refers to the customer "innovative account establishment" without property tax because of "buying land". When Qingyuan Law talks about "tax rent cancellation", it specifically mentions that customers without product tax "set up innovative accounts" because of "buying land", which also shows that this situation is not uncommon.

Throughout the ages, especially in the late Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties and the Song Dynasty, bureaucratic landlords and ordinary landlords sold their land because of corruption. The third volume of "North Dreams" talks about "in Tang Xiantong, there was a scholar named Tang Wujing in Jingzhou, who was well-read and versatile, but he was actually a scholar. The purport is very high, and people admire each other. It has been collected for 500 generations, and it is self-sufficient by training. It has the wind of Xihe Jinan, and you can swim with it. People often say:' Children who don't eat human fireworks have three changes: the first is to become locusts, which means to eat in the village; The second is to become a mullet, which means eating books and eating; The third one becomes a worm, that is, selling handmaiden to eat. Three generations of food, no generation' ". Then, such remarks are more common: for example, Liu Tsai said that "there are many officials and doctors in my hometown, one of whom is a farmer, and then he was immersed in micro-technology, which is different from those in the village" [46]; Liu Kezhuang said, "Jiangsu and Zhejiang giant room, one day for Tao Zhu, one day for Qian Lou" [47]; Zhu said, "People's land is only five or six years old, so they don't ask themselves, the rich are poor and the poor are rich. When you are sick and defeated, you will fly and hide, and you will find everything. It must be thirty years to see "[48]; In the Southern Song Dynasty, Hu Hong said, "Looking back, a famous public official and a great minister, Qin Xin set up a portal, but did not immediately corrupt and despise those who heard it" [49], which reflected this situation. That's true. The super-rich mentioned above, such as Wei Zhou, Gao Yan and Li Congyan. , are unknown after several generations. The wealth of the rich may still flow to the rich, but it may also flow to the original poor, thus causing a translocation between the rich and the poor. Yuan Xie once said, "The rich and the poor have no orientation, and the farmhouse has no owner. Money can buy, no money can sell "[50]. He also said that "the rich will be replaced" [5 1]. Huang Zhen also said that "wealth is nothing but foreign things, and the rich and the poor have long been easily translocated" [52], and Xie Yi also said that "I have been learning things for forty years. It can be seen that land sales can not only concentrate land, but also disperse land. In the past, many researchers only emphasized that land sales in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty led to land concentration, saying that land sales could also lead to land dispersion, which was contrary to historical facts and dialectics.

(2) division of property

At the latest, from Shang Yang, China has implemented a property inheritance system in which all scholars share equally. Even in the so-called "land equalization system" period, the Hu Ling of the Tang Dynasty also stipulated that "all those who should get land and houses and their property should be shared equally by their brothers (note: after my grandfather died, I lived in a different place, and after more than three years, I fled for six years, but I had no father and no ancestors, so I had to live in my old place, house, shop, mill and music." If the brother dies, the son will inherit the father's share. If all the brothers die, all the sons will share it equally (note: his father Yong and Tian Ci will share it equally, so let Kubanden teach the younger generation. If there are few fields, it is also divided according to this method). If you are unmarried, don't engage in wealth. If there is an aunt or sister in the room, the employment of men will be reduced by half. Widows and concubines without men will be divided into husbands. If both husband and brother are dead, the same son will share it (note: if there is a man, don't share it. It is said that he will leave his ambition in his husband's house. If it is adapted, it can be seen that Qu, Handmaiden and Tian Jia are free of charge and should be divided equally. "[54]. At that time, although there was a saying in Hu Ling that" Kubenden was the youngest son ",in real life, all land properties including" Kubenden "were mixed and shared equally by all scholars [55]. After entering the Song Dynasty, the provisions on property analysis and inheritance became more and more detailed, but its basic principles remained unchanged.

The property inheritance system that all scholars share equally promotes the decentralization of land rights, especially the land property of wealthy families. The population growth rate of poor farmers is roughly the same as the social population growth rate, but slightly lower. It was 6 years after Xianping in the Northern Song Dynasty (1003) that the number of national accounts was completely recorded. If the number of households in the first six years of Pingping is 100%, then by the end of Zhiping (1064- 1067), the total number of households in China is 200%, and by the second year of Daguan (1 108), the total number of households in China is 3,000. In other words, it takes an average of two or three generations for poor farmers to change from 1 to 2. Therefore, relatively speaking, the frequency and scope of land property division of poor farmers are relatively slow. Rich people are not. Rich people have good economic conditions, good health care conditions and get married early, so the intergenerational interval is shorter. Moreover, its fertility rate and infant survival rate are relatively high, so there are many adult families in general, and usually each generation has several descendants with male surnames. Therefore, the rich will experience property division almost every twenty or thirty years, and usually it is not divided into two, but into three or four. Not only do descendants of male surnames have to divide fields, but daughters usually have to divide some fields for plastic surgery when they get married. As a result, the land of the rich family dispersed very quickly and fiercely. Without a hundred years, the land output of each household is likely to be less than the original110. After the children of rich families divide their property, some will definitely start a new round of entrepreneurship, but more will gradually become ordinary farmers and even go bankrupt. That is, as Zhang Dai said: "People who suddenly get rich today can only last for thirty or forty years. Build a house and everything. If you die, your son will be divided. If you don't do it, your family won't exist "[56]. "Yuan Fan Shi" volume also said: "If the son of a rich family is easy to lose everything, he will build things for good or ill, and the scale will be huge. If he still follows the old pattern, he will divide the property and set up several portals, which will double the cost of the previous day. ..... It's very difficult to hold big noble's house, and it's easy to take a stand. Although the idleness is cold, the salary is also rich, and there are many legacies ... Those who have no salary, legacy or envoy the day before are caught the next day, and their daily expenses must be paid, so they have to make a fortune. The situation is analyzed and the expenses are Shang Tong, so they are not broken. " It can be seen that the inheritance system in which all the scholars share equally has effectively promoted the land dispersion of the rich. Relatively speaking, there are fewer poor farmers who are broken by property division. When poor farmers need to split up, it usually means that the family has more labor (such as two brothers, etc. With more labor, it is possible to start a business again, or to reclaim wasteland or buy farmland. As the saying goes, "getting married and starting a career" means buying land.