The well-field system is a land state-owned system in ancient Chinese society and was popular during the Western Zhou Dynasty. At that time, roads and channels crisscrossed the land, dividing the land into squares shaped like the word "well", so it was called "well field". The mine field belonged to the king of Zhou and was allocated to the common people. The lord was not allowed to buy, sell or transfer the well fields, and had to pay a certain tribute. The lord forced the common people to cultivate the well fields collectively, with private fields on the periphery and public fields in the middle. The well-field system was a dominant land system during the Shang and Zhou dynasties. It also retained certain forms or shells of land management by rural communes under the primitive social public ownership system, but its nature was already a land exploitation system under slavery. Its essence is a land private system. [Edit this paragraph] Content and rise The term "well field" was first seen in "The Legend of Gu Liang·Xuan Gong Fifteenth Year": "In ancient times, a mile of three hundred steps was called a well field." The well field system was implemented in the Xia Dynasty. The well-field system of the Shang and Zhou dynasties came about because of summer. During the long-term implementation of the well-field system, both content and form have developed and changed. The well-field system can be roughly divided into two systems: eight families with wells and public fields, and nine families with wells and no public fields. It is recorded that the eight families have public fields for their wells, such as "Mencius Teng Wen Gong 1" records: "There is a well within a square mile, and the well has nine hundred acres. Among them is public land, and the eight families all have one hundred acres of private land, and they all raise the public land. After the official business is completed, Then he dared to manage private affairs. "It is recorded that the nine husbands are wells and have no public land, as recorded in "Zhou Li·Di Guan·Xiao Situ": "Then they use the wells to pasture their fields, the nine husbands are wells, and the four wells are towns. The four towns were hills, the hills were hills, the towns were counties, and the counties were capitals. Tributes were ordered according to local affairs, and taxes were collected. "The taxation system at that time was tribute, help, and che. To help is to perform labor on public land, and to pay tribute is to pay real estate in kind. Jingtian System Zhou Xingxue Dharma should be both tribute and assistance. Analyzing the two systems of the ancient well field system based on the tax system of the three dynasties, it can be seen that the eight families with public fields for the wells and those who needed help should have been implemented in the Xia and Shang dynasties. The practice of having nine husbands for wells and no public land was first implemented in the Zhou Dynasty. In the Xingzhufa area of ??the Zhou Dynasty, the eight-household-well system was still used, but the number of private and public fields was changed to a hundred acres; in the Xingzhufa area, a share of the original public land was allocated to others, so there were nine households for the well. appears. In ancient times, the land transfer system (i.e., the rotational farming system) was implemented. Generally, the land that was not transferred was 100 acres, the land that was transferred was 200 acres, and the land that was transferred was 300 acres. The well-field system mentioned above should be implemented in difficult places and is relatively typical. As for how to use wells as farming units to divide areas such as Yiyi and Zaiyi, it is impossible to deduce. Five ditches and five fields were set up between the well fields to divide the land and carry out production. The well-field system evolved from the original public ownership of land in clan communes. Its basic feature is that the actual cultivators have no ownership of the land, but only the right to use it. Land is distributed evenly on a regular basis within a certain range. Because they have different understandings of the social nature of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, each family also has a different understanding of the nature of the well field system. Some think it is the state-owned land system under the slave system, or they think it is the rural commune system under the slave system. Some people think it is the land lord system under the feudal system, or they think it is the family commune system or the rural commune system under the feudal system. However, they are basically consistent in recognizing that the well field organization has the characteristics of transition from public ownership to private ownership, and that its existence is predicated on the public ownership of the land to a certain extent. During the Xia and Shang dynasties, the system of eight households sharing wells and public land was implemented, with more public elements. The Jiufu well system that emerged after the Zhou Dynasty has more elements of personal ownership, which can be seen as private fields being occupied by cultivators. In the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, there were land transactions among nobles, and individual private ownership of land had appeared at least among nobles. From this, from top to bottom, it further developed into the individual private ownership of land by actual cultivators. The Zhou Dynasty implemented the well-field system, which not only served as a hierarchical unit for the salaries of princes and officials, but also served as a calculation unit for controlling the common people. Land under the well-field system was not allowed to be bought or sold, and could only be inherited by the same surname according to the patriarchal relationship. Agricultural commoners who cultivated well fields also belonged to the lord class along with the land. They were not allowed to leave the land for life, let alone change jobs. The so-called "well field" refers to a square field with a certain layout, area and boundaries. A square field with a length and width of a hundred steps each is called a "field", and the area of ??a field is a hundred acres. It is regarded as a "fu", that is, the land cultivated by one labor force. Wellfield planning is inconsistent across regions. Some places use the decimal system, and some places use nine square fields to call a "well". Because the nine square fields placed together happen to be in the shape of a "well", that's how the name of the well fields came from. The area of ??a well is one "li" square; one hundred wells are ten miles square, called a "cheng", which can accommodate 900 laborers; ten thousand wells are one hundred miles square, called a "tong", which can accommodate 90,000 people labor force. Between fields, li and li, Cheng and Cheng, and Tong in the well field, there are irrigation channels of different sizes, called Sui, ditch, 洴, and Hui. Parallel to the channels, there are also vertical and horizontal passages called paths. , Zhen, Tu, Dao. The size, depth and width of various channels have certain specifications. Rulers at all levels in the Western Zhou Dynasty divided mine fields into three categories. Each of them left thousands or tens of thousands of the best parts of it (that is, the flat land near the river, with the mountains behind and facing the sun) to themselves, which they called "public fields." Because the public fields were so large, they were also called "big fields", and slaves were forced to work together to plant bread. The land in the suburbs close to the city was distributed on a field basis to ordinary workers of the same race as the ruler for cultivation. Because these people live in the "country" (that is, the city), they are called "guoren". Chinese people do not bear taxes, only military taxes and military service.
They usually pay a small can of rice and a bundle of grass to the state every year as military expenses. Serve as a soldier in wartime and prepare your own weapons, food and military supplies. Chinese people have the right to serve as soldiers and receive education, so they are also called "warriors" or "scholars". Their education mainly consisted of military training and learning etiquette. These people are ordinary civilians in society. On the surface, they are not exploited and are self-reliant workers. However, plundering wars were very frequent in society at that time. They often went off to war, and their fields and fields were left in ruins, leaving them bankrupt and in debt. If the war is won, the land and wealth plundered belong to the ruler. If the war is defeated, there is the risk of being captured and turned into a slave. Therefore, the status of Chinese people is turbulent. Feudal lords distributed bad fields with poor soil far away from the city to common people living in the wild. Because the common people lived in the wild, they were also called "savages". The lords looked down on them and considered them the stupidest, so they also called them "rascals". The common people had no rights and were only obliged to cultivate the fields and perform other chores for the lord. They had to work on the lord's fields every year before they were allowed to cultivate their own small piece of land as a minimum livelihood. Therefore, the opposition between "country" and "wild" during the Western Zhou Dynasty was not only an opposition between urban and rural areas, but also a class opposition. Spring has arrived and the farming season has begun. A large number of common people were all driven to the lord's "public land". As soon as it dawned, the officials appointed by the lord ("Lixu" and "neighbor chief") sat at the entrance of the village to count the number of workers. The same goes for finishing work in the evening. As early as when preparing for farming in winter, the "Li Zai" would match every two people together according to the physical strength and age of the labor force, which is called "coupling". Two people working together as a pair are called a "couple". This method of planting is called "coupling farming". On the public land of the great lord, there were thousands or even tens of thousands of laborers. They worked under the supervision of the field official ("Tian Zhen"), and sometimes the slave owner himself ("great-grandson") personally went to the fields to supervise. In autumn, the harvests in the lord's fields are as abundant as islands and hills. Thousands of warehouses and tens of thousands of boxes must be prepared for collection. During the off-farm season in winter, the common people had to repair houses, cut grass, twist ropes and do other miscellaneous tasks for the lords; women had to collect mulberries, raise silkworms, spin yarn, weave silk to make clothes, and sew leather robes for the slave owners during the day. to midnight. The lord was afraid that they would be lazy, so he had to gather them together to save light and facilitate supervision. [Edit this paragraph] The disintegration of the well-field system In the late Spring and Autumn Period, the well-field system gradually disintegrated. The material factor that contributed to this change was the increase in productivity levels. The use of iron tools and the promotion of cattle farming were signs of the improvement in productivity levels at that time. The use of iron in my country began in the Shang Dynasty. In the 1970s, an iron-edged copper ax from the mid-Shang Dynasty was unearthed in Rongcheng County, Hebei Province, and Pinggu County, Beijing, respectively. Scientific identification showed that the blades were forged by heating and forging meteorite iron. Such iron tools are naturally rare. Probably by the end of the Western Zhou Dynasty, there were more iron tools. Therefore, the poem "Si Tiekong Fu" appears in "The Book of Songs: Qin Feng", which was a poem written by Qin Xianggong (777-766 BC). Using iron to describe the color of a horse was only allowed after iron became a common thing. Around the early Spring and Autumn Period, iron farm tools already existed. "Guoyu Qiyu" records that Guan Zhong suggested to Duke Huan of Qi: "U.S. dollars can be used to cast swords and halberds to test dogs and horses; bad gold can be used to cast hoes and barleys, and can be used to test the soil." "U.S. dollars" refers to bronze, and "evil gold" It means iron. In the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, the inscription on the Shuyi Bell during the reign of Duke Ling of Qi included the sentence "Make four thousand disciples to live in your enemy's dormitory". " ": is the first text of the word "iron", which shows that the scale of iron smelting in the government at that time was already quite large. No wonder that by the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, iron tools were widely used in Qi State. "Guanzi·Haiwang Chapter" records: "The number of iron officials today is: a woman must have one needle and one knife,...the cultivator must have one plow, one blade and one hammer." Judging from the results of archaeological excavations, iron bars were unearthed from Chengqiao, Liuhe, Jiangsu. and iron blocks, there were iron flakes unearthed from Shalom Cave in Changsha, iron flakes unearthed from Shiziling in Changsha, iron flakes unearthed from Changde De, and several pieces of iron flakes and iron flakes unearthed from the Phase I Chu Tomb in Changsha. All of the above iron objects can be determined to be from the late Spring and Autumn Period. . This shows that in the late Spring and Autumn Period, iron tools were also used in southern my country. Ox farming also originated in the Shang Dynasty. The oracle bone inscriptions have the word "plough". It can be seen that the use of ox-drawn plows to remove soil was invented in the Shang Dynasty. "Guoyu·Jinyu" mentioned that the Fan family and the Zhongxing family used the sacrifices from the ancestral temple to plow the fields. Sima Geng, a disciple of Confucius, was named Ziniu, and Ran Boniu was named Geng. There was a strong man named Niu Geng in the Jin Dynasty. Oxen is connected with farming and is used as a person's name, reflecting that the cattle farming method was widely promoted in the Spring and Autumn Period. The use of iron tools and the promotion of cattle farming made it easier for people to open up vast mountains and forests and build large-scale water conservancy projects. The area of ??cultivated land and agricultural output have increased significantly. The development of agriculture has made it possible for small-scale production per household and the small farmer class characterized by self-employment to become the basis of society. The collective labor forms of the well-field system of "one thousand couples plowing" and "ten thousand-dimensional couples" became obsolete, and the decentralized, individual, and household-based feudal economic form emerged. As early as the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, some nobles forced the people to cultivate open land outside the mine fields in order to extract additional surplus labor from the people. The fields reclaimed in this way cannot be square or square, nor can they have a certain area. They are private property that is hidden from the government and does not pay taxes. It is called private land. The Gebo Gui inscription from the reign of King Gong of Zhou Dynasty records that Gebo exchanged four horses for thirty acres of land, which is clear evidence, because public land is not allowed to be exchanged. By the Western Zhou Dynasty, the existence of private land was quite obvious. There are also more records of fighting for farmland and exchanging land. The Sanshipan inscription from the reign of King Li of Zhou Dynasty records: The enemy invaded the city of Sanguo and was defeated, so they used two fields to compensate Sanguo.
During the reign of King Li of Zhou Dynasty, there were still two bronze vessels, one was Ge Youcong Ding and the other was Ge Congyu. The former narrates that Li You gave away the land to You Weimu, but You Weimu did not pay him, so a lawsuit broke out; the latter narrates that the Zhang family went to Xiang Li to exchange the land for eight yi, and the Liang family exchanged it for 5 yi, and the results were all smooth. make a deal. The desire of the nobles to privately own land continued to grow. When King You of Zhou Dynasty fell, they even tried to take public land for themselves. If the king of Zhou continued to take public land from the nobles as before, it would cause strong dissatisfaction among the nobles. "The Book of Songs·Daya·Zhanmao" records the complaints of the nobles at that time: "People have land and fields, but you have them; people have people and people, so you can take them back." By the Spring and Autumn Period, the use of iron tools and the promotion of cattle farming made private fields Dramatic increase. The princes and officials became rich. The king of Zhou could no longer seize their fields at will. In 712 BC, when King Huan of Zhou Dynasty took the land from Zheng State, he got the land of Su Qiu Angry Sheng of Wang Ji Nei as a condition of exchange. There were endless fights and lawsuits between nobles over land. In 580 BC, the Jin Dynasty official Quezhi competed with the Zhou Dynasty for the land. In 574 AD, the Jin Queqi captured the five fields of Yiyang, and Queji and Changyujiao competed for the fields. In 533 BC, the Zhou Gan people competed with the Jin Yanjia for the Yan Tian. In 528, Jin Xinghou and Yongzi competed for land and so on. These events all indicate that the land system is undergoing profound changes. Opening up and cultivating large amounts of private land requires a large number of laborers. However, the method of slavery can no longer mobilize the enthusiasm of producers for labor. He Xiu's note in "The Legend of Gongyang" says: At that time, "the people were unwilling to work hard on public land." Therefore, some nobles who adapted to the new situation changed their methods of exploitation in order to attract labor. For example, the Tian family in Qi State levied taxes on the people to make Xiaodou use grain. They loaned money to the people and used it to fight; the Han, Wei, and Zhao families of Jin adopted the method of expanding acres of land without increasing taxes to win over the people. In this way, slaves fled from the public office to the private door one after another, "returning like running water." The feudal dependence relationship was born. The "tribes", "hidden people", "binmeng" and "private disciples" seen in records during the Spring and Autumn Period all refer to these escaped slaves. Although their status is not free, they are different from common people. They can possess a small amount of means of production and independently run agriculture and agriculture-related household sideline businesses. They were already the pioneers of feudal peasants. The escape of slaves caused the public freedom of some countries to "only be arrogant." "Beautiful Jiejie" ("The Book of Songs·Qifeng·Futian") has turned into a wasteland. The well-field system could no longer be maintained. "Zuo Zhuan" records: In 594 BC, the State of Lu implemented the "initial taxation of acres", officially abolished the well-field system, recognized the legality of private fields, and levied taxes on all land. In 548 BC, Chu ordered Yin Zimu to rectify the land system, regard the land as high and low, fertile and barren, and "measure it into the cultivation of taxes". Subsequently, other countries followed suit. Originally, the purpose of these reforms was to maintain the old order, but since they acknowledged the fact to a certain extent, they backfired. A gap was opened in the well-field system. Gaps were opened one after another, and the collapse of the well-field system was an inevitable trend. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------ [Edit this paragraph] "Zhou Dynasty" "No Well-field System" The existence of the well-field system has been debated by many people in ancient and modern times. However, many of the discussions do not take the big picture into account, and they are broad and limited. The biggest reason why Yu Jin denies the Jingtian theory is that the emperor of Zhou had no land to grant to the people. The Zhou Dynasty was a feudal society. Who was a feudal? That is, the emperor used land to grant feudal lords and established a country. The princes have fiefdoms, and the ministers and officials have fiefs. The right to use the fiefdoms does not belong to the emperor. Even the land in Ji Nei was given to ministers and officials, and it was not owned by the emperor. The land in the country has been divided again and again, and there is not much left. Is it reasonable to say that the emperor grants land to the people and implements the well-field system? Some commentators say that although the emperor has no land to grant the people, the Zhou Dynasty has been unified: "In the whole world, is it the king?" The land, the shore of the land, is not the king's ministers. "Gai can issue laws and regulations and order the princes to implement them. There is no need to personally grant the land to the people." Yes or no, the centralization of power in Zhou Dynasty was relative rather than absolute, possible rather than inevitable. The world is Zong Zhou, which is recognized by all the princes. However, Zhou can only sect it, but cannot really order it. The princes can only sect Zhou, but they cannot really take orders from Zhou. This is the saying "the world is established by dynasty to the princes". The relationship between the princes and the emperor is only one dynasty. If there is no dynasty, there is no relationship. The emperor also has no world. It is not like the meaning of kings and ministers in later generations. The emperor did not ask questions about the internal affairs of the princes. In fact, I have no right to interfere. For example, when the throne is passed down from brother to younger brother in Lu Duo, in Qi, Jin and other countries, it is passed down from father to son, each according to his own convenience, which is different from the direct line system of the Zhou Dynasty. Another example is when he reports on his appointment, in the fifth month of Qi Taigong, Lu In the third year of Boqin's reign [Note 1], everyone also listened to it. There are no certain laws and regulations in the Zhou Dynasty, and the princes do not necessarily use the Zhou system. Instead, it is called the Jingtian system. Zhou can issue orders and implement them all over the world. Is it reasonable to implement the Jingtian system? The major prerequisite for the implementation of the Jingtian system must be that the emperor has sufficient land and the central power is sound. Centralization, and if Zhou is unable to do these two things, then the implementation of the well field system will not be known where to start. Looking back at the agricultural production pattern of the Zhou Dynasty, we can see that there is no large-scale manor economy in the history books. There is also no well-field organization on small farms. First, large-scale farming. "The Book of Songs" mentions the cultivation of "thousands of people working together" ("Song of Zhou·Zaiyuan") and "the end of thirty miles" ("Ai Xi"). In the well field system, there are only wells within a square mile, and there are eight families with eight or sixty-four people. How can there be thousands of people in thirty miles? Second, there are a lot of crops. The serfs farmed for the big landlords and reaped fruitful harvests. The Book of Songs has poems such as "Qiansi Cang", "Wansi Box" (Xian Ya·Fu Tian), and "Trillions and Zi" ("Zhou Song·Feng Nian"). . Even the serfs themselves also had "harvest and accumulation of millet."
Its reverence is like Yong, its shape is like a comb, and it can open hundreds of rooms. The harvest of a hundred rooms is enough, and the wife is content to stop" ("Song of Zhou Liangshu"). Let's ask about the well-field system. How can a family of eight have a hundred rooms? A man can harvest a hundred acres, but the harvest from a hundred acres is only a hundred stones [Note] 2], how can such a harvest be achieved? In addition, based on the land grant system in the Zhou Dynasty, the so-called well field system is also difficult to establish and implement. Zhang Sui in the Ming Dynasty said that the well field was not feasible: "Every land granted in the Zhou system cannot be transferred, and a hundred acres of land can be easily changed." The land is 200 acres, and if the land is changed to 300 acres, then everyone should know how fertile the land is. There are seven people from the upper land family, six people from the middle land family, and five people from the lower land family. This means that the population of the people is small, and everyone should know this. The first farmer eats nine people, the next one eats eight people, and the next one eats seven people. This shows that the people are diligent and lazy in farming, and it should be known to everyone. Peasants are given one hundred acres of land to each household, and all male members of the family are given 25 acres of land each when they are sixteen years old. Scholars, industry and merchants are granted five acres of land, and become a farmer. If each family receives twenty acres, the people will be able to grow up. He may be a young man, he may be a scholar, a businessman, or an engineer, and he should be known to everyone. ... In later generations, there were lawsuits over land disputes, which lasted for decades but were still unresolved. In this case, officials granted land to people and wanted to equalize it. "(Volume 1 of "Thousand Years Eyes") It can be seen that the nature of the land and the number of people must be known in order to grant land. However, in the Zhou Dynasty, these two points were not easy, so the implementation of the well field system was not easy either. From the perspective of labor in the Zhou Dynasty, The so-called well field system is also difficult to establish and implement, that is, "Nine wells are wells, there are ditches between the wells, four wells are towns, four towns are qiu, and four qiu are dians. The dian is eight miles wide, and one mile is added to it. There is a 洴 [Note 3] in the middle, and the land is hundreds of wells, and the area is ten miles. The four counties are counties, and the four counties are the capitals. , and it is a hundred miles away, and within a hundred miles, there is one roadblock, hundreds of rivers, and ten thousand ditches... It cannot be done without blocking the streams, gullies, flat streams, valleys, Yiqiu mausoleums, and tombs. Even if we can get as many plains and wilderness as possible and plan [map] them, we should drive all the people in the world, use up all the food in the world, and spend hundreds of years concentrating on this and not doing anything else, and then we can look at all the land in the world and turn it into well fields. , all turned into ditches. "(Volume 1 of "Tongkao Tian Fu 1") It can be seen that, both in theory and in practice, the well field system is not easy to implement and difficult to implement. If we try to examine the well field system, the historical basis for its establishment is the earliest It is found in the Book of Songs, secondly in Mencius, and thirdly in Zhouli. There is a sentence in "The Book of Songs·Xiaoya·Datian" that says, "It rains on my public land, and then it affects my private life." Those who advocate the well-field system mean that it is the public land cultivated by the eight families in the well-field. In fact, it is not the case. The Zhou Dynasty was a feudal society. The emperor had his own land and the officials had Guitian. This was the so-called "public land" and was not among the well-fields. Public land. Public land is cultivated by the people. It is also reasonable to interpret public land as the public land of the princes and other princes, or the public land of the princes and their grandsons. It is better to name the property after its owner. Jitian and Guitian are only a small part of the acres owned by the emperor's princes, and most of them are given to the serfs for farming. It is said that "it is my private land." "Then it affects my private life" is not enough to be the basis for the establishment of the well field. The well field mentioned in "Mencius Teng Wengong" is based on ancient reforms, which is not enough evidence. A study of "Mencius Wan Zhangxia" says: "Beigong Gou Wen" He said: "What is the status of the nobles and nobles of Zhou Dynasty?" Mencius said: "The details cannot be obtained but I heard about it... However, Ke also heard about it briefly." " Mencius neither witnessed nor heard about the Zhou system in detail, so in Teng Wengong's chapter, he talks about the Jingtian system. One part says, "In fact, they are all the same thing." The other part says, "Looking at it from this, even the Zhou Dynasty also helped." It's vague. , and the extrapolation is untrue. Judging from what he said at the time, Teng Wenggong was indeed a promising leader and a good man. All the wise men of the time wanted to see it and contribute their opinions. Therefore, in addition to Mencius's advice to implement the well-field system, Xu Xing, Chen Zhongzi, etc. also advised him to cultivate the land together with the people. The ancient system of well fields is not the same. Therefore, what Mencius said is not enough to provide evidence for the well field system in Zhou Dynasty. Furthermore, "Zhou Li" says that the well fields are self-contradictory and cannot be used as evidence. There are differences between nine and ten husbands. [Note 4] The craftsmen are divided into big and small Situ. They are all divided into families. The big and small Situ are also divided into small and fertile people. 5], both are in the same book, but its records are confusing and full of contradictions. It can be seen that "Zhou Li" is a forgery and cannot be trusted. It can also be seen that the world has been passing on forgeries. Is it okay? There are other commentators. It is said: If there were no mine fields, why did Mencius record that "the Xia Hou family paid tribute at fifty, the Yin people helped at seventy, and the Zhou people contributed a hundred acres, in fact, it was only ten percent"? Why did the world say that Shang Yang abandoned the mine fields? However, the abandonment of the well field did not begin with Shang Yang. The "Heshan Study Case" in Volume 80 of "Song and Yuan Studies" quoted Wei Liaoweng as saying: "The well field changed for the people of King Xuan, and then changed for the internal affairs of Qi Huan, which was very harmful to the internal affairs of Qi Huan. Quliang and Shang Yang broke up. People in the Zhou Dynasty called them Li, Xuan, You, and Ping, and they all had husbands!" And there were no minefields in the Zhou Dynasty, so why should we abandon it? Therefore, King Xuan's information about the people, and the internal affairs of Qi Huan, had anything to do with the minefields? Shang Yang broke up Qianmo, What does it have to do with Jingtian? It is said that it has changed again and again, and it has become worse. I don’t know what basis it is for to record Shang Yang’s events. "Opening Qianmo and sealing the territory for fields", "Historical Records of Cai Ze" calls it "breaking Qianmo", and nowhere mentions the abandonment of the well fields. Moreover, when Shang Yang was in power, the Qin State had not yet unified the country. Even if there was a well field system, what rights did Shang Yang have? To abolish it, this is an unreasonable theory. During the Warring States period, the population increased, and there were wars between princes and powerful mergers. The land was concentrated in a few large landowners, and the poor had no land to stand on. Social problems were extremely serious.
Scholars are in dire straits and are in urgent need of good strategies. The Confucians, like Mencius, advocated the well-field system; the farmers, like Shu, advocated the king and the people to work together; the Legalists, like Shang Yang, advocated the use of the land's strength, and various schools offered suggestions. The well-field system, trying to use words and public opinion to persuade big landowners to hand over their excess land and distribute it to the poor, is tantamount to seeking the skin of a tiger, wasting all their efforts, and playing the harp to an ox. The theory of concurrent farming, which wants the monarch to be pampered and privileged, works together with the people to make the society non-exploitative and classless. In fact, it is just talk on paper and difficult to implement. Legalists believe that such suggestions are unrealistic. Instead, it is better to advocate improving production efficiency and doing everything possible to save people's livelihood, in order to solve the national problem of too many people and too little land. Shang Yang broke up the Qianmo, that is, taught the people to do their best, which is actually a benevolent heart and a benevolent government. It is beneficial to the government rather than violent. How can it be compared with the abandoned mine field. As for Mencius’ so-called fifty, seventy, and hundred acres, they are just Mencius’ usual mantras, not actual numbers. For example, "Mencius: King Hui of Liang" says: "In a five-acre house, the trees are covered with mulberry trees, and those who are fifty can wear silk clothes. Chickens, dolphins, dogs, and pigs will not lose their season, and those who are seventy can eat meat." "Jin Xin Shang" says: "In a five-acre house, if there are mulberry trees under the walls and a handful of silkworms, the old man will be able to wear silk. Five hens and two hens will not lose their time, and the old man will not lose their flesh." "The facts contained in the two texts are exactly the same, but "King Hui of Liang" says: "Those who are fifty...those who are seventy..." while "Jinxin Shang" says: "The old man...the old man..." It can be seen that fifty , seventy, is just a name for an old man and cannot be regarded as a definite number. Therefore, what Mencius said "may stop after a hundred steps, or stop after fifty steps", "the soup is seventy miles away, and the king of Wen is a hundred miles away", "the princes are all a hundred miles away, the uncle is seventy miles away, the son and the son are fifty miles away" cannot be Point to it with an exact number. And is it really accurate to say that the three generations of land system had fifty, seventy, or one hundred acres? Moreover, the so-called tribute and assistance of the three generations of taxation, Mencius said, "actually they are all tithes." According to Jingtian's regulations, Xia's tribute was ten tithe, Shang's aid was ninety-one, and Zhou Che's tax was one-tenth, [Note 6], which was completely different. What's more, the land system of fifty, seventy, or one hundred acres has nothing to do with tribute and support. There were no well fields in the three generations, so of course taxes could not be paid on the well fields, so the tribute was not a tithe, and the support was not a help (see Mencius mentioned above) "Zhou also helps"), and help is not just a sign of force. According to tribute, it can be interpreted as contribution, that is, paying tribute to the superior. At the beginning, there was no fixed schedule for tribute, no fixed quality for things, and no fixed number of goods. It was called tribute based on whether it was present or not. Later, there were regular schedules, fixed products, and fixed quantities. Today's chieftain still practices this method. "Zhu" is a sign of strong service, and its pronunciation is the same as "rent". It can also be used as a tax solution for rice. [Note 7] Che has several meanings. As far as the rent and tax system is concerned in the Zhou Dynasty, it refers to farmers offering an unlimited amount of things to the emperor. In other words, it is to collect the income from the fields and take it from the people. The difference between it and tribute and help is that tribute refers to farmers offering unfixed amounts of things to the government, while assistance refers to farmers offering regular quotas of strength and materials to the government. Although help and tribute have different weights and definite differences, Not sure what the difference is, but both collection methods are from the bottom up. However, in terms of collecting the land, collecting taxes, and initiating the collection, Che was all operated from above, from top to bottom, which was different from Gongzhu. In ancient times, when a small country had few people, its governance power and clan power were integrated, and it was necessary to implement tribute laws. Later, as the territory expanded, the personnel became more numerous, the government organization became larger, and the masters of property colonized more and more people, it was inevitable that they would be able to help. I have said that the Xia was a tribal society, and the Yin Dynasty established a country and was a feudal society, which is also proved in terms of taxation. To sum up, the main premise of the well field system is no longer tenable, and citing the Book of Songs is not enough to prove it. Furthermore, what "Mencius" and "Li of Zhou" said is particularly contradictory. Fifty, seventy, and one hundred acres have nothing to do with Gongzhuche. The world's good words and fields are happy to believe in the ancients. I would like to express my gratitude to these three. (Excerpted from "No Mine Field System in the Zhou Dynasty" written by Huang Xianfan, published in the eighth issue of "Sweeping Daily" (a weekly of literature, history and geography), March 19, 1941; also published in "A Preliminary Study on the Interpretation of Ancient Books - Selected Academic Papers of Huang Xianfan" No. 325- 329 pages, Guangxi Normal University Press, July 2004, first edition) The well-field system was the land system during the slave society period in my country. In order to calculate the size of their fiefdoms and supervise slave labor, slave owners divided the land into many squares, which were shaped like a "well", so it was called the well field system.