China has always been a big country based on agriculture, and the agricultural population accounts for the vast majority. Farmers' land problem is an important issue. How to solve this problem is related to the rise and fall of political power and the rise and fall of social economy. By the Tang Dynasty, all the fields were occupied, so there was the rule of Zhenguan and Kaiyuan. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the powerful landlords were cut down, thus enriching the country. On the other hand, if the land is concentrated in the hands of rich officials and gentry, farmers will be displaced, productivity will be destroyed, and a large-scale peasant uprising will be triggered. In feudal society, farmers were the main producers and land was the lifeblood of their production. Farmers demand land, and the egalitarianism thought with average real estate as the core is the main reflection of their class thought. In the Song Dynasty, Zhong Xiang and others put forward the idea of "the rich are equal to the poor". In the Ming Dynasty, Li Zicheng called for peasant uprising with "flat fields and white grain". In the early years of Xianfeng in Qing Dynasty, Hong Xiuquan promulgated the "celestial system", which institutionalized farmers' egalitarianism and reached its peak. As a social trend of thought, egalitarianism has its evolution process, different historical functions and advantages and disadvantages. During the period of capitalism and socialism, it was backward, retrogressive and reactionary. However, in opposing feudal landlord ownership and breaking the shackles of feudal real estate on farmers, it is not only a clear-cut banner, but also progressive and revolutionary, because it has played a historical role in promoting the development and liberation of productive forces.
First, the economic background of "Tianmu system in China"
Tianmu system in China is a product of history. It is the antithesis of feudal land ownership. In the mid-Qing Dynasty, land was highly concentrated, and there was a special article in Wang Ying in the past (Wang Ying: Land Issues on the Eve of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, see the third volume of the first issue of the quarterly of Zhongshan Cultural and Educational Center. ), this article only supplements some local information. This paper demonstrates the heaviness and unevenness of land tax in Qing dynasty, and emphatically exposes the contradiction that the floating income of officials in Qing dynasty on grain tax reduced small farmers and aggravated the land problem. If we have a deeper understanding of these aspects, the nature and significance of the "celestial system" will be easy to understand, so we will briefly describe it in this paper.
1. Intense land annexation and serious land rent exploitation in Qing Dynasty.
Land annexation has always existed, which is the nature of feudal landlords. However, from the beginning of the founding of the Qing Dynasty, the Eight Banners nobles occupied private land with great fanfare, and the nobles and gentry of the Han nationality also bought land extensively with their own financial resources. As a result, the land is highly concentrated, and farmers become tenant farmers. "Within a city, those who have fields are one, and those who have no fields are nine." (Qiu Jiasui: Definition of Yi, see He Changling: Collection of Confucian Classics, Volume 30. For example, in the county between the Yangtze River and Huaihe River, five-tenths of farmers' homes are farmed, and four-tenths are clothes and salt cans and industry and commerce. Another tenth of the landlord class "has a county to serve farmers and make the best use of it, and those who pay the food and clothing tax are also safe." (Sheng Feng: On Ding Jun in Jiangbei, with the same note (Qiu Jiasui: On Ding Yi, see He Changling: Collection of Imperial Classics, Volume 30. )> The situation in other provinces, prefectures and counties is basically the same. The amount of land occupied by nobles in Qing Dynasty is amazing. During the Qianlong period, university students and Tian Kun produced as much as 8,000 hectares. During Daoguang, He Ying had no official land because of his crime, accounting for more than 572 hectares, and Qishan also had 256 hectares. The land owned by Han landlords is not inferior. For example, Kangxi, the minister of punishments Xu, whose land spans the land of the Soviet Union and the Song Dynasty, bought "Wan Qing" in Wuxi alone. A junior in Zhan's office, who lives in Pinghu, Zhejiang Province, has "a thousand acres of fertile land". (Wang Xianqian: "Donghua Record" Kangxi Dynasty Volume 44, Page 23. ) By the time of the Taiping Revolution, Xu's descendants still owned 1000 mu of land in Changzhou County, Jiangsu Province. Wang, who is in the same county with him, has more than 3,000 acres of real estate. Xun, a land market in Wujiang county, has four or five thousand mu of land. And Shen Maode, who is in the same county as him, has money and "has more than 10,000 acres of land". ((Guangxu) "Wujiang County Records Continued" Volume 19, page 5. Pang Zhonglu and other four masters in Changshu County are also very rich in the city. Huguang grain-producing area, the counties around Dongting Lake, has fertile land, mostly occupied by bureaucrats and gentry. Although southern Hunan is a sloping land, it is also concentrated in the name of large households. For example, the Deng family in Guiyang said: "Brothers have hundreds of hectares of land, and they are rich men, building land deeds with stones, riding horses without grazing, and traveling for dozens of miles without committing crimes." ((Tongzhi) Guiyang Zhili government records, volume 20, page 25. Another example is Hengyang, where there are Liu Chongwei brothers who made a fortune by operating the mountain timber industry. "By Jiaqing, the children's fields will reach ten thousand mu. "((Tongzhi)" Hengyang County Records "Volume 11, Page 5. ) In Zhou Xun County, Guangxi where the Taiping Rebellion took place, landlords occupied as much land as other places. For example, Zhang and Man in Pingnan County are all rich people, and the folk proverb is called "Zhang Qiyao in the north of the Yangtze River and Man in the south of the Yangtze River". Guiping County is also "the land is mostly owned by the rich, and most of them are tenants of the rich." (Wu Ding: "On Ten Fields in Time", see Volume 35 of Continued Imperial Classics. For example, Jintian village goes south to the end of the river mouth, with flat territory and fertile soil. Here, the Chen family, a big landlord in Shitoujiao Village, is extremely rich, and there are also surnames such as Ling and Luo in Xinwei and Mocun. They * * * account for eight-tenths of the local fields. Generally speaking, although the proportion of land concentration in different provinces is different, it is a common phenomenon that "powerful countries merge, one person owns the property of dozens of people, and one family owns the property of dozens of people". ((Republic of China) "Guiping County Records" Volume 29, page 2, "Food". ) So, "the land belongs to the rich, the rich benefit the rich, and the poor benefit the poor" ((Guangxu) "Lujiang County Records" Volume II, page 5). ), class contradictions are becoming more and more acute.
The high concentration of land has turned the vast majority of farmers into tenants who are directly exploited by landlords, and the land rent they bear is getting heavier and heavier. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, in southern Jiangsu, "an acre of income can't reach three stones, private renters have one stone more, private renters have two or three fights for one stone, and private renters have eight or nine fights". (Gu: "Rizhilu" Volume 10, "The Weight of Susong Land Tax". ) During the Daoxian period, the rent in southern Jiangsu was "a stone in the early days for those who were less, and a stone in five fights for those who were heavier" (Tao's "On Heavy Rent" five banquets). ), among which Wujiang is the most prominent. Although it is "working in the fields", it also charges more than one stone rent. A folk poem describes: "Urging for rent is urgent to be a stone ditch official, where to hide the bottles and baskets, sitting on the empty kettle of the farmer and watching you pile boxes." ((Republic of China) "Nanxun annals" Volume 29, page 22, "The complaint of broken stocks". How can productivity not be destroyed when it is squeezed so uneconomically? Under the exploitation of heavy rent, farmers "will do whatever they want even if they run out of farm tools and sell their calves, and they will kill their children even if they run out of farm tools." ("Zhouzhuang Town Records" Volume 4, pp. 2-3. Such forced pursuit is not enough, and the cunning landlord is more responsible for repaying the uncle and brother who rented it to the tenant. There are also complaints against tenant farmers for "resisting rent", bribing petty officials, arresting prisoners, and even being in rags and imprisoned for "not paying rent" at the end of the third winter. ("Zhouzhuang Town Records" Volume 4, pp. 2-3. People really say Jiangnan is good, but I'm afraid Jiangnan is a paradise for landlords and a hell for farmers!
2. The heavy land tax burden of farmers in Qing Dynasty
In feudal society, grain tax was the main source of income for China's autocratic government. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the land tax in the south of the Yangtze River was very heavy. From the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Liao tax was increased and the tax was suppressed, which made it famous all over the world. The Qing dynasty inherited the Ming system and the phase has not changed. Although the reduction of land tax was discussed many times in the period of Kang and Yong, it was only symbolic, and the actual land tax was still increasing. According to common sense, the land tax should be paid by the landowner, and it will be more reasonable if there are more fields. If there are no fields or few fields, they will be ignored or underpaid. However, since the Qing dynasty began to operate and improve, official corruption has actually reversed its affairs. Big families, such as prominent officials and gentry, have tens of millions of acres of land, but they don't collect land taxes or evade them skillfully. Although the amount is "slow", the heavy burden of land tax is mostly passed on to small families, yeomen and poor peasants, and the disadvantages are very alarming. Look at the situation in Jiangsu first. The big gentry here, relying on their influence, are short of grain tax, and their shortage "will be made up by small families in rural areas, so as to learn from each other's strengths" ("A General Examination of Continued Documents in Qing Dynasty", Volume II, Tianfu Test II. ) and the small poor can't bear to be cut, and often send meals in the name of big families. With the passage of time, their limited land property was annexed and seized by the extended family. Feng Guifen made a very specific statement on the disadvantages of grain tax in Fu Juanyi, saying:
"This Sue belongs to the law of cao, with equal strength as the quantity. Not only the gentry and the people are not unified, but also the gentry and the people are not unified; The gentry households fold more silver, at least one stone and two, three buckets and one stone, at most one increase, at most one double; The people are the weakest, about three or four stones are converted into one stone. Strong is more than two stones, especially less than two stones. " ("Fairy Zhi Tang Draft" Volume 5 "All Homework"). )
It can be seen that the distribution of money and grain in the middle of Qing Dynasty is not based on the amount of land, but on the strength of power. Between the gentry and the people, between the big family and the small family, the difference in the amount of classes per mu is actually two or three times. What's more, "there are hundreds of people who can't spend a penny on a hundred acres of land at home." ..... The gentry in the county, even tired strangers, never know what to do after collecting food. " (Kang Sheng: "Continued Imperial Classics" Volume 36, Fu Fu III. Indeed, not some other place in the south of the Yangtze River, but all counties. Please look at the following example:
Songjiang: Songjiang local tax, "all because of controlling the map and mastering the account books, many people in the field take bribes, and those who are less in the field have no bribes."
More and more books have been changed, and the score has been changed to Li, and it has been put backwards, more or less letting it wander. "(He Changling: Collection of Confucian Classics and World Works, Volume 30, Discussion on Jun Tian Service). )
This not only shows that the rich man bribed the land tax, but also exposed the darkness of the Qing government's bureaucracy. A small official wrote a book, tampered with the grain book, and made Wang pay for the big family. The disaster was endless.
Changshu: Twenty-four years of Daoguang: "The color is eight yuan, three quarters, and the foreign currency is 1,300. For a large family, the fare is ten stones and three liters, but the payment is delayed by ten stones and three liters. The short price is four yuan, only a dime and twenty cents, and the ticket rice is finally pulled up, but only forty or fifty pieces per mu; For a small family, if you count the ticket rice, it will cost 1000 yuan per mu. I don't see stubborn tenants. This is bitter or bitter, and it is a world of difference. " (Ke Wuchi: "Fish Slipping through the Net" (Chinese version), p. 5. )
Fu Na has always been divided into "short price" and "long price". Large households pay a reduced price, which is called "short price", and small households double the price to make up for the debts of large households, which is called "long price". As mentioned in the above example, the "discount price of 34 points in 8 yuan" means that in terms of "long price", the "discount price of 4 yuan" means that the large family receives half less than the small family. However, this has not made this big family happy. As mentioned above, the big family paid only three thousandths of the original amount with "ten stones paid late and three liters paid". Compared with 50 articles 1000, the difference between large and small households is 20 times. So exploited, the small family will lose everything!
Yuan and Wujiang: "As far as the three counties (Qingpu, Yuan and Wujiang) are concerned, youth is the top, Yuan is the middle, and Wujiang is the bottom. Cao Cao in Qingpu is a Qing Cao, and there are no gentry and no people who receive Fu. An acre of land, a grain bucket, and a silver dollar. Yuanhe is urban and rural areas, with strong and weak, so-called large and small households, but the big ones are still about three or four; Wujiang alone is not like this. The family has more than ten hectares, and the unfinished family has one or two acres, and there are many. " (Xu Tao: Rent □ and Divide Up and Down. )
As the author said, it is true that the world is turbid, while Qingpu is alone. In fact, Qingpu was only after Zhou Lichun's anti-Cao uprising that money and grain were averaged. Suzhou's Yuan and county are endowed by the strong, while Wujiang is a home of more than 1,000 mu, and some of them pay almost nothing.
The collection of Cao Fu in Zhejiang Province is the same as that in Jiangsu Province. Zuo said in his Tongzhi memorial three years ago:
Hangzhou, Jiaxing: "There are many households in Gai County, and disasters are avoided. Please listen to this book and report. Noble families, those with good harvests can also delay the compilation of small families, and those who apologize are still full of levy. Moreover, the big family only gives a moderate amount, and the small family is more casual. ..... the floating income is small and the shortage is large. Officials are not easy to accept, and people complain, so cases of trouble often arise from this. " (The Complete Works of Zuo, Volume 11, Discussion on Restoring the General Situation of the Three Genus of Hangjiahu). )
Xiaoshan Shaoxing: "Look at the Eight Houses in East Zhejiang again. Shaoxing is the most important gathering place for money and grain, and the disadvantages of floating income are particularly serious in Shaoxing. Yin Shan, Huiji and Xiaoshan counties are divided into gentry households and civilian households. For every penny spent, gentry families only spend 126 cents to 123 or 4 cents, while civilian families spend 28,900 or 34,000 cents. With the help of the state, there is a difference between the gentry and the people. With the money strictly sealed, it is full of official money. The lawsuit suffers from compensation, and the households suffer from bias. " ("The Complete Works of Zuo", Volume 8, "□ Reduce the floating grain collection discount of Shaoxing House". )
It can be seen that there are also "big families" and "small families" in Zhejiang. Noble families have a lot of land property, but they apologize for the disaster. They were "exempted" from the grain tax, but their short-term payment was compensated by floating income and apportionment to small families, so there was a saying at that time: "Gouge the meat of small families to mend the sores of large families." The reason is that on the surface, small officials did it, but in essence, the Qing regime represented the interests of the big landlords. This is the case in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, and the situation in other provinces is basically the same. In Jiangxi, Hubei, Guangxi and other provinces, the big landlords play with the means of "Scud", and they can't finish buying land and collecting grain, which leads to the small families paying taxes after selling their fields for several years and decades, which intensifies the polarization between the two classes and makes the contradiction between farmers and landlords more acute.
Generally speaking, the weight of grain tax in Qing dynasty is no less than that in Ming dynasty, but it is even worse in Jiangsu and Songsong areas. In terms of grain tax burden, it is extremely unbalanced: "large households only accept the right amount, and small households are more arbitrary"; Large families only accept a small part, or refuse to accept it, while small families double the extortion, or sell land and grain. At that time, it was estimated that only 23/ 10 of the money and grain in each province was taken away by rich households, and 78/ 10 was paid by small households. During the Daoguang period, cases of weight inversion, boiling public resentment and rebellion against Cao occurred one after another.
3. Floating income and folding of land tax in Qing Dynasty
After the taxes were spread into mu in Kangxi period of Qing Dynasty, the land tax included two items of grain fields. When grain is transported to Beijing by water, it is called "water transport". Grain travels thousands of miles, and the freight comes from the grain collectors, so "floating collection" has become a practice. Collecting grain every year is often paid at a discount, which is called "folding color". However, whether the grain is converted into color or silver is converted into money, when it is converted, it will be several times higher than the local silver price, which is the so-called "discount". From the beginning of the Qing Dynasty to the eve of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Revolution, the people were in dire straits.
In a book written to Xu Naizhao in 1853, Feng Guifen said, "I'm nearly eighteen years old, and my money is nearly meters. Three or four stones are one stone, and punishment drives the trend. Dare not branch, not overnight. " (The Draft of Xianzhitang, Volume 5, With Xu Fushu). ) that is to say, the number of grains per stone is one to two or three times more than the positive amount, which has a long history. Why do you want to float so much? There are many reasons for its fabrication and exploitation: first, living within our means; Not enough excuses, "20% off", which is the second; Kick the flower and sprinkle the tip, the third part; Throw it outside, the fourth one; There are draft fees, rice inspection fees, gray printing fees and screening fees, which is the fifth; In addition, when grain and rice are put into storage, there are storage fees and transfer fees; Add freight when releasing grain, and increase or decrease the "grain regulation" fee. There are many names and tricks. The number of records in this is unpredictable! Officials at all levels, junior officials below and "unruly and uneducated supervisors" benefited the most from such a large excess floating income, and all pocketed their own money. During the Daoguang period, Tao Shu, the governor of Jiangsu Province, said in his musical film: "There are people who collect grain in every county", but those who collect hundreds of stones, the rice has not risen, and those who eat rice for nothing range from tens to hundreds. In the place with the largest number of people, there are 300 to 400 health supervisors and 20,000 to 30,000 Cao Gui, which is really shocking. (Tao Shu: It is forbidden to wrap thick pieces of horizontal rope with sticks). See "Imperial Classics" Volume 36 "Tribute III". ) In the early years of Xianfeng, Jiangsu and Songsong regions held grain fairs every year, and the grain books and officials handled by counties were filled with as much as 102,000 gold. (The Draft of Xianzhitang, Volume 5, With Xu Fushu). ) such a huge amount of exploitation, it will be furious!
Judging from the practice in Zhejiang, the "overlapping color" of local tax collection is higher than the "true color". At that time, the price of rice was no more than 3,000 words per stone, and the color was as high as "6,000 words", which was more than twice or even three times higher. Gong Zizhen said, "It is better to slaughter cattle and plant crops when the national tax rises three times" (Complete Works of Ding 'an (collected by Zhonghua Book Company) and Yi Hai Za Shi, page 9). ), that is, in this respect. In Shaoxing, Xiaoshan and other counties in eastern Zhejiang, the amount of money collected by Yin is "2,800, 900 to 3,400", which is also several times and twice. As for the floating harvest of grain, it is even more cruel. Let's look at the situation in Huguang area. Hu Linyi said:
Hubei: "Hubei's grain disadvantage is too deep, with a positive amount of several hundred thousand, less than half of which has been levied, and the accumulated disadvantage is ten times in decades." ..... There are dozens of bad rules, more than one hundred, and the floating costs range from thousands to tens of thousands. " ("Hu Linyi Legacy Collection" Volume 23 "Chen and Hubei still have something urgent to do". )
Hu Linyi in another secret compromise, more specifically spoke of Hubei "states and counties to collect grain, more floating le", its play said:
"Collection of color folding, each stone folding money five or six thousand, or seven or eight thousand, or twelve or three thousand, or fifteen thousand or six thousand, as many as one hundred and eighty-nine thousand; Its true colors are collected, and each stone floats five or six buckets, or seven or eight buckets, or two or more, then three stones are zero; In addition, there are items such as rice consumption and water foot, which are collected separately; There are also bills, coupons, sample rice, money and other names. Many demands, human strength and geometry, can be comparable to this? " (Hu Linyi's "Legacy Collection" Volume 23, "Get rid of the accumulated disadvantages and reduce the density of Cao Zhang". )
In the seventh year of Xianfeng, the price of rice in Hubei was less than 2,000 yuan per stone, so the number of grains in the grain was "as high as 189,000", which was ten times the positive amount. Compared with Jiangsu and Zhejiang, it is even worse. As for the true color of the collection, it is slightly the same as the floating income in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, roughly between five or six buckets and three or four stones, but does not include miscellaneous items.
Hunan and Hubei are connected, and there are many rules and regulations. Officials, health guards and officials are all full, which is the same. In Hunan, Cao Fu is often not paid directly by private families, but by "Cao Kou" and "discounted at a high price". The so-called "Cao Kou" includes people of all colors, such as juren, tribute, scholar, yamen attendants and so on. These people control Cao Fu, and they are layered on top of each other. Xianfeng years, as the governor of Hunan, he said in the play:
"(Cao's disadvantages) have been increasing for a long time. Diding is one or two taels of silver, and the people have to pay for it. Caomi has stones, and the people have to spend a few stones. ..... There are bills before the unfinished business, and there are expenses in the bills. There are series tickets after payment, and there are fees for series tickets. If it is to be returned later, borrow the grain book first and pay interest, at most several times. ..... Officials regard Cao Qian as a profit, and the petty inferior supervisor holds him hostage, and each person charges dozens of taels. If a county has many people or dozens of people, it is called Cao Kou. If they are not satisfied, they will block the villagers from paying money or go to the boss's office to complain. " ("Luo Zou Draft" Volume 8, "Li Chen and Hunan Province to raise reimbursement". )
It can be seen that Xiang shou's floating music is also several times the positive amount. Luo's "Cao Kou" in this play does not include the above-mentioned people who promised to give money, but the gentry and lawyers who hold officials hostage and eat for free, that is, people who are called "white necks" by Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. When local officials collect taxes every year, they must first give them several hundred taels of silver. "Bring them in for resettlement and ask for nothing more." Why are local officials afraid of these people? Why let petty officials and prisoners wreak havoc on the people? To put it bluntly, state and county officials are vampires. Before they began to levy grain tax on Cao Cao, they had accepted a lot of money to satisfy their greed, so they ordered the officials in charge of Cao Cao to chew the people. Its means emerge in endlessly, and its means are extremely bad. The farther away, the more obvious it is. Look at Guangxi:
Guanyang County, Guangxi: "To the valley, dozens of miles, one shoulder to shoulder. And shipped to the warehouse, bookkeeper, etc. And the charge is too high. Although the dry garden is extremely clean, it is deliberately strange, and it will not be returned for ten days and a half. ..... and its harvest, not just kick the bucket upside down, but also welcome to throw it outside. For the boss-class bucket warehouse, Wang is not allowed to pick up particles, and he is a little dissatisfied, that is, hanging down and making trouble. About a stone valley, its cost has already reached several stones. " ((Republic of China) "Guanyang County Records" Volume 21, page 26. )
In addition, there are some people in Guangxi who control the grain tax, just like the "Cao Kou" in Huguang, whose name is "Maopu". The record says:
In Yongning County, Guangxi, during Daoguang period of Qing Dynasty, money and grain were collected by Maopu. "This generation must practise fraud, have a silver or two, and plan to make money for more than ten thousand people. Under various pretexts, they have collected more horizontal cables, which is dozens of times more than the supply. If you don't get it, you will be whipped. " ((Republic of China) "Yongning County Records" Volume 14, page 5. )
According to the price of silver in the late Daoguang period, the grain of silver is only 2000 yuan a pair. In Yongning, Ding's music reached "more than 10,000", which is rare in all provinces. Coupled with unscrupulous apportionment, it is "dozens of times" for the supply. The ferocity of the "cat flutter" is even better than that of a petty official!
In the above five provinces, such as Guangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, it is very common and serious to levy grain tax by floating income and reducing expenditure. Those who adopt natural colors will get at least five or six buckets of floating camp per stone, and more than three or four stones will be one stone. Those who sign and fold will compete by hand, at least doubling, usually three or four times. As for the collection of Diding silver, the people pay money in exchange for making money, but at least 3.2 thousand silver is given, which is often collected twice. In some places, there are even hundreds of thousands of writers reaching one or two, more than five times.
According to rough estimates by Feng Guifen, Hu Linyi and others, the average fat people in counties and counties are about 100000 yuan, of which 23 points are scored by county officials 10 and 67 points are scored by petty officials10. So fat, it is "obligatory" to pay tribute to the health supervisor. Some people describe it this way: every time grain is levied, "officials are like hungry tigers coming out of the forest, and gentry are like poisonous snakes." (Ke Wuchi: "Fish from the Net" (Chinese version), p. 95. ), officers chase after each other like wolves roar, and grain books enter the countryside like locusts everywhere. There is also the "white neck" in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and the "Cao Kou" in the same lake. They also pick geese, and everyone eats dozens to hundreds of "Cao Gui" for free. Therefore, there is a saying: During the reign of Qing Daoxian, "the decline of bureaucracy and the decline of people's livelihood is nothing more than this."
Second, the nature of "China farmland system" and its evaluation of farmers' egalitarianism.
As mentioned earlier, the Qing government ruled for 200 years, until the end of Daoguang, the land was highly concentrated and farmers went bankrupt and displaced; The rent is heavier than the previous generation; Land tax is floating and folding, several times the positive amount. All these have made the contradiction between peasants and feudal landlord class develop to an extremely acute degree. The poor urgently demand the overthrow of the reactionary regime in the Qing Dynasty, and are eager to realize a well-off world of "land to the tiller" and "land to the tiller" without oppression and exploitation. Only by deeply understanding the economic background of rural areas in China in the last years of Daoguang can we better understand the essence of "celestial system" and realize that it was born to meet the requirements of farmers.
"Tianmu system in China" was promulgated in 1853, when Tianjin was its capital. It is a programmatic document for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to solve the land problem, including social organization, military affairs, culture and education. Of course, the land system is its first and most basic content. A photocopy of the original copy of Tianmu System in China has been included in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Printed Edition, and its gist is also stated in all textbooks. However, various works have different opinions on the nature and historical significance of Tianmu System in China, which was discussed by historians more than 20 years ago. At that time, there was an opinion that "the famous land plan (Taiping Heavenly Kingdom)-"The Land System of China "showed the peasants' agricultural socialism thought, that is, the egalitarian thought based on the small-scale peasant economy. Under certain historical conditions, this idea is revolutionary on the one hand; On the other hand, it is essentially reactionary. " Another view holds that the essence of "China land system" lies in its complete opposition to feudal landlord land ownership. Its egalitarianism was revolutionary, not reactionary, under the historical conditions at that time. As for the mistakes and fantasies it contains, they are just the shell, not the essence. More than twenty years have passed since that discussion. Time keeps people learning and thinking. In the new book "Modern History of China" and other books, the editor used dialectical materialism to analyze and evaluate the "celestial system", which conforms to the purpose of seeking truth from facts. Even so, some comrades have different opinions about the peasant egalitarianism in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom recently, and it seems necessary to have an in-depth discussion.
The problem remains these. Namely: what is the essence of the "celestial system"? What is its essence and core? Is it progressive and revolutionary? Is repression reactionary or retrogressive? Or is it both revolutionary and reactionary? This series of questions has been left over until now, and it needs to be carefully analyzed with specific terms to get the correct answer.
1. Denying feudal landlord ownership is the fundamental nature of the "celestial system"
It can be clearly seen from "Tianmu System in China" that its plan to divide the land equally is a complete denial of the land ownership of feudal landlords. "Tianmu system of China" stipulates that all fields in the world are divided into nine grades according to their output. "All fields are divided by population, regardless of gender. If you count the number of people in your family, the more people, the more points, and the less people, the less points. Miscellaneous to nine, like a family of six people, divided into three good fields and three ugly fields, so ugly and half. " Its purpose is to realize the ideal country of "everywhere is uneven and no one is hungry" in the world. This provision not only denied the rich gentry's large real estate, but also did not retain the old example of the "land equalization system" in the Northern Wei Dynasty or the early Tang Dynasty. This is a "universal" egalitarian scheme. Think about it. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, land was highly concentrated, landlords rented it privately, the government expropriated it indiscriminately, and farmers were in dire straits, such as being upside down. Riots and uprisings against rent and grain broke out all over the country. The historical task and farmers' demands are to overthrow the rule of the Qing Dynasty and break the shackles of feudal landlords' land ownership. The promulgation of "Tianmu System in China" reflects the fundamental needs of farmers for their own land for thousands of years, and it is the first time in the history of China to stipulate it with great courage and clear opinions. The revolution of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is a peasant revolution in the historical period of old democracy in modern China, and one of the fundamental tasks of this historical period is anti-feudalism. The "celestial eye system" embodies the anti-feudal revolutionary nature of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and has the historical significance of digging up the foundation of feudal system and removing the land ownership of feudal landlords. Although this peasant egalitarianism scheme is full of strong fantasy and the backward color brought by the times, it is undeniable that opposing feudal landlord ownership is the mainstream and essence of the "celestial system". When we examine the nature or essence of the "celestial system", we first and mainly see this, not anything else. Lenin pointed out:
"The mistake of some Marxists is that they criticized the theory of populism and ignored the historical reality and historical rationality contained in this theory in the struggle against serfdom. They criticized and correctly criticized the backward and reactionary petty-bourgeois socialism of "labor principle" and "average system", but forgot that this theory embodied advanced and revolutionary petty-bourgeois democracy, which was the most resolute banner of the struggle against serfdom in old Russia. In the struggle against the old autocratic system, especially against the old serf-owner land ownership, the idea of equality is the most revolutionary. The equality thought of peasant petty bourgeoisie is just and progressive, because it reflects the struggle against the inequality of feudal serfdom. The idea of' average' real estate is legitimate and progressive, because it reflects the wishes of 654.38 billion+0 billion bankrupt farmers, who have only 7 mu of land per household and have been exploited by landlords. " (Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 13, Page 2 17. )