In the Western Zhou Dynasty, roads and canals crisscrossed, dividing the land into squares, shaped like "well", so it was called "minefield". The minefield was owned by King Zhou and distributed to the common people. The LORD was not allowed to buy, sell or transfer the minefields, but also paid certain tribute. The Lord forced the common people to collectively cultivate the well fields, with private fields around and public fields in the middle. In essence, it is a system of private ownership of land. Due to the lack of archaeological data about the minefield system, some scholars believe that the minefield system may only be a utopian ideal system. Due to geographical and climatic factors, such a system may never have been strictly implemented.
Origin
Well field system is an effective way to realize public ownership of land before the spring and Autumn Period in China. Minefield system was a popular land system in Western Zhou Dynasty. The meaning of the word is: because the land is divided into many blocks, and the shape is similar to the "well" shape, so it is called the minefield system. In fact, it was the land system of the capital of the Zhou Dynasty, which was divided into public land and private land. Zhou Lizhong's minefield seems to be an ideal land system, which is not feasible and difficult to verify. The word "minefield" was first seen in the 15th year of Xuangong in the biography of Guliang: "in ancient times, three hundred steps were Li, and it was called minefield" "minefield, nine hundred mu, and Gongtian was one."
The word "minefield" was first seen in the 15th year of Xuangong in the biography of Guliang: "in ancient times, there were three hundred steps for Li, which was called minefield." In the Xia Dynasty, the minefield system was implemented. The minefield system of Shang and Zhou dynasties came from summer. During the long-term implementation of the system, both content and form have developed and changed. The minefield system can be roughly divided into two systems: the system of eight families having public fields for wells and the system of nine families having no public fields for wells. It is recorded that eight of them have public fields for wells, such as "the first chapter of Teng Wengong of Mencius": "the wells are located in the square, and the wells are 900 mu. Among them, there are public land, and the eight families are all private, with 100 mu of public land. When the business is over, you dare to govern the private affairs. " It is recorded that his Jiufu was a well and had no public land. For example, it was recorded in Zhouli · diguan · xiaositu that "the well grazed his field through the land. Jiufu was a well, Sijing was a city, Siyi was a hill, Siqiu was a Dian, sidian was a county, and Sixian was a capital. He made tribute and tax according to his duty." At that time, the system of Taxation and servitude was tribute, assistance and thoroughness. They all serve in the public land, and their income is owned by the Lord, while their private income is owned by individuals, which is a kind of "labor tax".
Zhou xingche method. This paper analyzes the two systems of the system of minefield in ancient times by combining the system of taxes and servitude in the three dynasties. Eight of them had the public field for the well, and those who needed to help the law should have implemented it in the Xia and Shang Dynasties. It was only in the Zhou Dynasty that its nine husband was a well without public land. In the Zhou Dynasty, the system of "eight families for wells" was still used in the xingzhufa area, but the number of private and public fields was 100 mu. In the xinggongfa area, a share of the former public fields was distributed to people, so the system of "nine husband for wells" appeared. In ancient times, the system of changing farmland (i.e. rotation farming system) was implemented. Generally speaking, the land that is not easy is 100 mu, the land that is easy is 200 mu, and the land that is easy is 300 mu. The above-mentioned system of minefields should be implemented in difficult places, which is typical. As for how to use well as farming unit to divide the area of one change or another, it is impossible to infer that the boundaries of five ditches and five fields should be set up between the well fields to divide the land and carry out production. The minefield system evolved from the public ownership of land in the primitive clan commune. Its basic feature is that the actual cultivator has no ownership of the land, but only the right to use it. The land is distributed evenly in a certain range.
Evolution
Due to the different understanding of the social nature of Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, the academic circles have different understanding of the nature of the minefield system. Some think it is the state-owned land system under the slavery system, some think it is the rural commune system under the slavery system, some think it is the land lord system under the feudal system, and some think it is the family commune system or rural commune system under the feudal system. However, in recognition of the transition from public ownership to private ownership within the minefield organization, the premise of its existence is the public ownership of land to a certain extent, which is basically consistent in understanding. In the Xia and Shang Dynasties, the system of "eight families for wells" and "raising public land together" was implemented, with more public ownership. After the Zhou Dynasty, the system of "nine husband for well" appeared, and the proportion of individual private ownership has increased, which can be regarded as the private land has been occupied by the tiller. In the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, there were land transactions among nobles, and private ownership of land at least appeared among nobles. Thus, from top to bottom, it further developed into the individual private ownership of land of the actual cultivator.
In the Zhou Dynasty, the system of minefield was implemented, which was not only the salary level unit of the officials, but also the calculation unit of controlling the common people. The land under the system of minefield is not allowed to be bought and sold, and can only be inherited by the same surname according to the patriarchal relationship of the common people. The so-called "minefield" is a square field with certain planning, acreage and boundary. A square field with a length of 100 steps and a width of 100 steps is called a "field". The plot of a field is 100 mu, which is regarded as a "man", that is, a land cultivated by a labor force. The mine field planning is inconsistent in different areas. In some places, the decimal system is adopted, while in some places, nine square fields are called "Wells". Because the nine square fields are placed together in the shape of "well", which is how the name of minefield comes from. The area of one well is one square mile; one hundred well is ten square miles, which is called one "Cheng", which can accommodate 900 labors; ten thousand well is one square mile, which is called one "Tong", which can accommodate 90000 labors.
There are irrigation channels of different sizes between the fields, Li and Li, Cheng and Cheng, Tong and Tong in the minefield; parallel to the channels, there are vertical and horizontal passageways, which are called Jing, he, Tu and Dao. The size, depth and width of various channels all have certain specifications.
Characteristic
Well field system is to divide the cultivated land into several square fields of a certain area, with a boundary around, a ditch in the middle, and crisscross fields, like a well. One person cultivates about 100 mu (about 70 mu today). 100 mu for a square, known as "a field.". The word "Tian" in oracle bone inscriptions also comes from this. One well is divided into nine blocks. The surrounding eight fields are cultivated by eight households, which is called private fields. The harvest of private fields is owned by the farming households; the middle is public fields, which are cultivated by eight households, and the income is owned by the feudal nobles. But in fact, not every minefield is 900 mu. There are special situations such as 800 Mu and 1000 mu.
According to the system of minefield, all land belongs to the state (that is, it belongs to the king of Zhou). The king of Zhou is the highest ruler and the highest owner of land. As the book of songs Xiaoya Beishan said: "under the PU (PU) heaven, is it the king's land, the land of the land, is it the king's minister?"
The king of Zhou enfeoffed the land layer upon layer to the vassals, and the vassals gave the land to the officials, who then gave the land to their children and subordinates. The king of Zhou had the right to seize the land. The feudal nobles at all levels had only the right to use the land, but had no ownership. They could only enjoy the land for generations, and could not transfer or sell it. The enfeoffees also have to bear the obligation to the king, that is, to pay tribute to the king.
On the land granted by the nobles, slaves and common people cultivated collectively. The use of slave collective farming is the main reason for the prosperity of slavery economy. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, the land was divided into "well" shaped blocks, and the cultivated land was crisscross, which was called "well field".
This kind of state ownership of land is not the general sense of public ownership of land, it is the king on behalf of the whole slave owner class to occupy all the land in the country, and then distributed to the slave owners, big and small, while the vast majority of the slaves and common people are completely excluded. Therefore, the slave state and the king of Zhou represented the interests of the minority, and the state ownership of land in slavery was essentially a kind of private ownership of land.
Classification
The rulers at all levels of the Western Zhou Dynasty divided the minefields into three categories. They each left thousands or tens of thousands of pieces of the best part of the land (that is, the flat land near the river and facing the sun behind the mountain) to themselves, which is called "public land". Because of the large area of public land, it is also called "Da Tian", which drives the slaves to cultivate collectively. The suburban land close to the city was divided into fields and cultivated by ordinary laborers of the same family as the rulers. These people are called "Chinese" because they live in "country" (that is, city). Chinese people do not pay taxes, only military taxes and military service. They usually pay a small can of rice and a bundle of forage to the state every year as military expenses. When serving as a soldier in wartime, he prepared his own weapons, grain and military supplies. Chinese people have the right to be soldiers and receive education, so they are also called "Wufu" or "Shi". Their education is mainly military training and etiquette learning. These people are ordinary people in society. On the surface, they were not exploited, and they were self-supporting laborers. However, at that time, wars were very frequent. They were often called to fight and won. The land and wealth they plundered belonged to the rulers. If they lost the war, they were also in danger of being captured and reduced to slaves. In this way, the land was deserted and most of them went bankrupt. Therefore, the status of Chinese people is turbulent.
The feudal lords distributed the poor farmland far away from the city to the common people living in the wild. The common people live in the wild, so they are also called "savages". The Lords despise them and think they are the most stupid, so they call them "hooligans". The common people had no rights but the obligation to cultivate the minefield and perform miscellaneous duties. Every year they had to work in the Lord's field before they were allowed to cultivate their own small piece of land as a subsistence. Therefore, in the Western Zhou Dynasty, "state" and "wild" were opposite.
Collapse
Reason
The spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period are the historical period of China's transformation from slave society to feudal society. The decisive factor to promote social transformation is the development of social productive forces.
In the late spring and Autumn period, the minefield system gradually disintegrated. The material factor contributing to this change is the improvement of productivity. The use of iron utensils and the popularization of cattle farming marked the improvement of productivity at that time.
The use of iron in China began in the Shang Dynasty. By the end of the Western Zhou Dynasty, there were more ironware. Around the beginning of the spring and Autumn period, there were iron farming tools. According to Guoyu · Qiyu, Guan Zhong suggested to Duke Huan of Qi: "in order to cast sword and halberd, try dogs and horses; in order to cast hoe and hoe, try loam." "Dollar" refers to bronze, "evil gold" refers to iron. "Guanzi · Sea King chapter" records: "today's number of iron officials said: a woman must have a needle and a knife The tiller must be a tiller, a tiller, a tiller. "
Niugeng also originated in Shang Dynasty. Oracle bone inscriptions have the word "Li". It was invented in the Shang Dynasty to use the ox to pull the plow. It is mentioned in Guoyu Jinyu that fan and Zhongxing used the sacrifice of the ancestral temple for farming. Confucius Qiu's disciple Sima Geng was named Zi Niu, and ran Bo was named Niu Geng. There is a powerful man named Niu Geng in the state of Jin. Cattle and farming are connected, which is used as the name of people, reflecting that cattle farming method was widely promoted in the spring and Autumn period.
The use of ironware and the popularization of cattle farming have brought convenience for people to open up vast mountains and build large-scale water conservancy projects. The area of cultivated land and agricultural output increased by a large margin. With the development of agriculture, it is possible for the small-scale production with one household as the unit and the small-scale peasant class with the characteristics of individual management to become the social foundation. The collective labor forms of the well field system, such as "one thousand coupling to its cultivation" and "ten thousand coupling to its maintenance", are out of date, while the feudal economic forms of scattered, one individual and one family as a unit have sprung up.
As early as the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, some nobles forced the common people to open up the open space outside the minefield in order to extract the surplus labor of the common people. The land thus reclaimed can not be square, nor can it have a certain acreage. It is a private property that is hidden from the public and does not pay taxes. It is called private land. The inscription of Gebo in the reign of King Gong of Zhou recorded that Gebo gave birth to 30 mu of land with four horses, which is a clear proof, because public land is not allowed to be exchanged. By the end of the Western weekend, the existence of private land had been quite significant. There are more records about the struggle for land and the exchange of land. According to the inscription of San Shi pan in the reign of King li of Zhou Dynasty, Yanren invaded the cities of San Guo and was defeated, so he used two fields to compensate San Guo. During the reign of King li of Zhou Dynasty, there were two bronze wares, one was Cuyou congding, the other was Cuyou congding. The former narrates that he divided the land to youweimu, but youweimu didn't pay him, so it became a lawsuit; the latter narrates that Zhang used eight cities to exchange the land with him, and Liang used five cities to exchange the land with him, and all the transactions were successful. The nobles' desire for private land was growing. When king you of Zhou Dynasty came, they even tried to take the public land as their own. As before, the king of Zhou collected the public land from the nobility, which aroused the strong dissatisfaction of the nobility. "The book of songs · Daya · Zhanmao" records the complaints of the nobles at that time: "if people have land, you will have it; if people have people, you will seize it again." By the spring and Autumn period, the use of iron ware and the popularization of cattle farming had led to a sharp increase in private farmland. Princes and doctors became rich. The king of Zhou could not invade their fields at will. In 712 B.C., King Huan of Zhou Dynasty took the land of Zheng State and got the land of Chou Fen's birth as an exchange. The nobles fought and sued for land one after another. In 580 B.C., the senior officials of the Jin Dynasty competed with Zhou for Yitian, in 574 A.D., the senior officials of the Jin Dynasty competed with Yiyang for Wutian, and the senior officials of the Jin Dynasty competed with changyujiao for Yantian; in 533 B.C., the senior officials of the Zhou Dynasty competed with Jin Yanjia for Yantian; in 528 B.C., the senior officials of the Jin Dynasty competed with Yongzi for Yantian, and so on. All these events show that the land system is undergoing profound changes.
To open up and cultivate a large number of private fields requires a large number of labor. However, slavery can no longer arouse the enthusiasm of producers. "Gongyang Zhuan" he Xiu notes that at that time, "the people were not willing to do their best in Gongtian." Therefore, in order to attract labor, some nobles changed the way of exploitation. For example, the Tian family of Qi State collected taxes from the people, and the Xiao Dou family loaned grain to the people. The Han family, Wei family and Zhao family of Jin State bribed the people by expanding the land area without increasing taxes. In this way, the slaves fled from the public room to the private door one after another, "returning like flowing water." The feudal dependency relationship came into being. In the spring and Autumn period, the words "clan", "hermit", "binmeng" and "private apprentice" in the records all refer to these escaped slaves. Although they are not free, they are different from the common people. They can possess a small amount of means of production and independently manage agriculture and household sidelines related to agriculture. They are already the forerunners of the feudal peasants. The escape of slaves made the public fields of some countries "arrogant". "Aestheticism Jie" became a wasteland. The minefield system can no longer be maintained.
In the system of well field implemented in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the land was nominally owned by the state, but actually owned by the king. (Note: because the class society itself is private ownership, the essence of minefield system is private ownership of land. In order to distinguish it from the land policy of feudal times, many textbooks mistakenly believe that minefield system is state-owned land, which is not advisable.) during the Warring States period, Shang Yang carried out reform in Qin state, abolished minefield system and established private ownership of land. In the long ancient society, land, the main means of production in the society, was mostly owned by landlords, while peasants occupied less land.
Process
In order to increase income, the feudal states represented by the state of Lu carried out tax reform, paying taxes per mu for both public and private fields. In fact, they recognized the legitimacy of private land and promoted the transformation of land from state-owned to private. In 361 BC, Shang Yang carried out the reform in the state of Qin, the main contents of which are: "abandoned minefields", "opening up fields", "people's access to business", and recognition of private ownership of land. From the late spring and Autumn period to the early Warring States period, it completely disintegrated.
Dispute
The historical materials of minefield system only come from Mencius and Zhouli, or refer to the book of songs. Before Mencius, there was no record of minefield system. Some scholars still lack archaeological support to speculate that the minefield system may only be a utopian ideal system, "with a lot of idealistic elements". Due to the diversity of the actual topography, this system may never be strictly implemented. Hu Shi thinks that the system of minefields mentioned by Mencius is a legend plus imagination in his essay "debate on minefields". Guo Moruo admits that there is a system of minefields, which is called "one field" in Zhou Dynasty. But he thinks that the minefields mentioned by Mencius "are completely Utopian idealization of Mencius". Tang Lan believes that "at that time, ten fields is one thousand mu." Fan Wenlan also denied the well field system: "the land boundaries of the Lords of the Western Zhou Dynasty were crisscross, like countless well characters, but there was no division of 900 mu of a well. The well closely related to the city was not the well that Mencius said."
Evaluate
Minefield system embodies the basic political and economic system of Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties in China. It can be defined as: minefield system is a general description of agricultural production mode and institutional structure arrangement of Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties in China, which is based on minefield as an effective property rights supply system; At the same time, it can also be explained as a kind of social, political and economic relationship that how micro economic activities combine with macro value structure to maximize the realization rate of resources, including natural resources and social resources. As a result, with the loss of the effectiveness of this property right system, it lost its practical significance and withdrew from the historical stage.
